ABSTRACT
Although the capacity for critical thinking is now known and debated, the capacity for judgement is less so. Despite current controversial and often negative interpretations, it represents one of the key objectives of the modern elementary school. The chapter therefore aims at presenting and discussing the most widespread and authoritative European and North American pedagogical theories and practices that have, from different perspectives, sought to specifically promote the capacity for critical judgement in elementary school, starting from the late nineteenth century and into the twentieth century. On the basis of this reconstruction, the chapter advances the proposal of a new theoretical perspective that could be the framework of a new shape of the capacity for judgement, that today is able both to guide the new generations along the path of their human formation and to prepare them for their future tasks of active and responsible intervention in society.
