Il diritto-dovere dei genitori di istruire i figli: profili evolutivi

The Italian legal system, the EU legal system and the international conventions ratified by Italy guarantee the right to education as a fundamental right that contributes to the enhancement and development of the human person. This right, which has a peculiar connotation in itself, is correlated with the right-duty of parents to educate their children, also in relation to their own means and substance. With a view to safeguarding the interests of the child in education and in the broader framework of the care of the child inherent in the filiation relationship, the paper will investigate, from a civil law perspective, the articulated set of provisions that have succeeded one another over time regarding to both the above-mentioned profiles. It will also be considered that education, in the vision of the full realisation of the learner’s person according to his or her inclinations and aspirations, contemplates, in terms of a necessary though problematic complementarity, both the parental education imparted by parents and/or relatives and the institutional education falling within the competence of subjects outside the family sphere.