Arianna Lazzari

Accessibility of early childhood education and care: a state of affairs

ABSTRACT We analyse both academic literature and practice reports to discover the main causes for unequal accessibility of high quality early childhood care and education (ECEC). In order to understand and to remedy this inequality we need to consider the interplay between elements of governance, of the management of services and elements on the level of parents. From this analysis as well as from reports on successful inclusive practises, we arrive at five quality criteria and make 13 recommendations for policy and practice.

Sustaining ECEC quality through continuing professional development: systemic approaches to practitioners’ professionalisation in the Italian context

There is a broad consensus in international debates that the quality of early childhood education and care (ECEC) services is inextricably linked to the professionalisation of its workforce. In particular, the importance of providing ECEC practitioners with continuing professional development (CPD) opportunities has been increasingly recognised in recent years. Against this background little attention has been paid to the investigation of professional development practices that have proved to be effective and supportive for qualifying educational work within ECEC settings. Drawing on the data collected from documentary sources and interviews with local experts, this paper will illustrate and critically analyse relevant CPD initiatives that have been implemented within municipal early childhood services in the Italian context. Practitioners’ active engagement in professional development processes and peer exchanges within a collegial framework, both of which create fertile ground for educational experimentation and shared reflectivity, have been identified as main strengths of these programmes. By disseminating the pedagogic knowledge and expertise elaborated within such programmes, the present analysis offers a significant contribution to the existing debate on the CPD of early years practitioners from a systemic perspective.

Reconceptualising professionalism in early childhood education: insights from a study carried out in Bologna

This paper explores the issue of early childhood professionalism from a socio-cultural perspective. In particular the article is concerned with how pre-school teachers conceptualise their professionalism by making sense of the work they carry out on an everyday basis in early childhood institutions. In analysing teachers’ perceptions special attention has been paid to the socio-political and historical conditions that have contributed to shaping them. Drawing on a recent empirical study conducted within Bologna province (Italy), contemporary issues in early childhood professionalism are analysed and insights for a possible re-conceptualisation are offered through a critical interpretation of teachers’ perspectives. The findings discussed in the article highlight how a complex conceptualisation of professionalism, building upon continuous learning in relational contexts, is currently challenged by recent neo-liberal influences. In facing these challenges a crucial role will be played by teachers’ collaborative practices in the workplace that, if reclaimed as a space for collective decision-making, could potentially become an arena for rethinking teachers’ professional development in dialogue with local communities.

Early childhood education and care in times of crisis

In recent years early childhood education and care (ECEC) has moved far up in the policy agenda internationally. In the European context, this is attested by a growing number of policy initiatives promoted by the European Commission and aimed to encourage the investment in high quality and accessible ECEC provision across member states. From a European perspective, investing in accessible and high quality ECEC is seen as crucial to realise wide-ranging goals that are laid out in the Europe 2020 strategy (European Commission 2010). This states that the current economic and social crises can be overcome by elaborating and implementing policies that promote smart, sustainable and inclusive growth. In this regard, it is acknowledged that improving the quality and effectiveness of the education systems across Europe is essential to all three of these dimensions and that ECEC has an important role to play in laying the foundations for the successful lifelong learning of EU citizens as well as in fostering social cohesion (European Commission 2011). These claims are supported by a growing body of scholarly research showing that high-quality ECEC has a positive and long-lasting impact on children’s cognitive and social development and therefore can contribute significantly to improve children’s educational success as well as to reduce the achievement gap between less advantaged children and their more affluent peers (Burger 2010; Leseman 2009). The evidence produced by such a growing body of literature is acting as an important policy driver catalysing the attention of policymakers toward the importance of investing in a field – such as ECEC – that has been neglected for a long time. However, it needs to be noted that the increasing dominance of social investment paradigms – within which much outcome-focused and evidence-based research is framed – is currently generating contradictory tensions, especially in those contexts where ECEC systems were conceived within a children’s rights rationale since its inception. In such contexts, explicitly defined long-term benefits of ECEC attendance are rarely mentioned in national policy documents. This might indicate that the rationales for investing in high quality ECEC services in many EU member states are still more likely to be driven by concerns for children’s rights and social justice rather than by concerns for socioeconomic advantages. Along this line, ECEC research approaches developed in such contexts tend to focus predominantly on the analysis of educational processes from a participatory perspective rather than on the measurement of predetermined outcomes. The fact that social investment and effectiveness rationales – rooted in ECEC policy and research agendas typical of contexts adopting a liberal welfare state – are progressively gaining attention in contexts where political choices in regard to the provision of

Mentoring practices in workplace-based professional preparation: a critical analysis of policy developments in the Italian context

In recent years, the issue of early childhood staff professionalisation has been taking an increasingly prominent position in policy-making and academic debates at the international level. Despite this growing interest, studies investigating the content and delivery of professional preparation programmes for early childhood practitioners are still quite rare in European literature. Against this background, the article will describe and critically analyse the characterising features of the university degree for the professional preparation of pre-school teachers in Italy, with a special focus on workplace-based training. In particular, the theoretical underpinnings and shared understandings related to the implementation of mentoring practices within the university course will be explored by drawing on the data collected from documentary sources and interviews with local experts. Findings highlight that the main strengths of mentoring practices within such a programme are: (a) the extended placement periods in early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings which allow prospective teachers to live the culture of practice; (b) the critically reflective component of tutoring practices, which combines theoretical and experiential learning; (c) the strong partnerships built at the local level between ECEC services and universities, which generates reciprocal influences between academic research and educational practices and thus sustains pedagogical innovation. At the same time, the fact that the mentoring role of placement tutors in ECEC institutions is not adequately supported in terms of competence development and workload allocation might potentially undermine the benefits of workplace-based training for students. In addition, the contextualisation of our analysis within the broader landscape of national policy developments in the field of ECEC staff professionalisation revealed that the increased academisation of pre-school teachers professional preparation might lead – in the long term – to a risk of ‘schoolification’ of pedagogical practices enacted within ECEC services. In regards to these issues, the article will raise questions for further consideration and debate.

Professionalisation Policies in the ECEC Field: Trends and Tensions in the Italian Context.

In recent times, a growing consensus has emerged, among researchers and policy-makers, that a well-educated, competent and adequately supported workforce is crucial for the quality of early childhood education and care (ECEC). Despite governmental initiatives aimed to enhance the professional preparation and continuing development of early years practitioners being high on the political agenda of many EU member states, very few studies are analysing professionalisation policy developments and their implications within the national contexts of ECEC. Against this background, the article describes the key features of ECEC policies in Italy and their current trends by focussing specifically on the professionalisation of early childhood practitioners working across 0–3 and 3–6 services. Drawing on the data collected from documentary sources and interviews with key informants, this paper will critically review policy discourses as well as recurring themes and tensions arising from the academic and political debate. The findings from our analysis highlight that the increasing discontinuity characterising professionalisation initiatives across the 0–3 and 3–6 sector might lead to widening the gap among professionals working in such services. The risks that are associated with this trend are, on the one side, to devalue the educational role of 0–3 services and, on the other, to produce the schoolification of educational practices in 3–6 services. In addition, our analysis identified inconsistencies between initial and continuing professional development policies, which are progressively creating a dichotomy between initial and in-service training. The consequences of this process might produce, on the long term, the fragmentation of the ECEC system across public and private not-for-profit provision with the subsequent risk of impoverishing the local culture of childhood on which the Italian ECEC system has traditionally built its strength.

The Relationship Between ECE and CSE in the Training Field. The Italian Case

The paper aims to contribute to the debate on pre-school and primary education training through the analysis of a country case. The first part of the paper will explore how the relationships between these two parts of the education system has been constructed and evolved over time in the context of local socio-cultural conditions. The second part of the paper will investigate the impact that such developments had on the professional preparation of pre-school and primary school teachers and it will give a critical account of recent trends starting from a rigorous analysis of pathways of continuity and change. The assumption underlying this paper is that any reflection on the design of teacher’s initial preparation shall not overlook the historical processes and the local socio-cultural conditions within which educational systems are embedded and constantly changing. The concluding part of the paper will outline conceptual categories for looking critically into the challenges and possibilities posed by recent reform trends concerning teachers’ professional preparation across the early childhood and compulsory school education field.