Gramsci, culture, folklore and education

This article presents the results of a research whose problem was to know if the prominence that Gramsci gave to culture distanced him from historical-dialectical materialism. Methodologically, bibliographical research was used, through which texts by Gramsci, youth and prison maturity, and commentators were analyzed. In the first part, it is said that Gramsci formulated the concept of culture from the synthesis between two rival paradigms contemporaneous with him: the French and the German, building the concept of popular national culture. In the second, it is demonstrated that the cultural dimension of social life is dialectically articulated with education, politics and the economic structure. In the last part, it is stated that Gramsci overcame the classic distinction between high and popular culture, and gave a new interpretation to folklore. In conclusion, Gramsci collaborated to update Marxism to the 20th century, as he supported the formulations he produced in the category of totality and interpreted culture as one of the dimensions of the dispute for hegemony, politicizing it and articulating it to education.