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Arts-based approaches and languages are valuable resources for the field of education, with the potential to enhance both educational work (Zuccoli, 2020) and educational research (Biffi, Zuccoli, 2019). In educational research specifically, Arts-Based Research Methods (ABR) (Baron, Eisner, 2012; Cole, Knowles, 2008) – understood here as a range of approaches that recognize the artistic process itself as a mode of inquiry – may usefully be adopted alongside or in combination with other research methodologies. However, implementing such approaches requires specific competence in both art-based languages and research methods. In this paper, we present a project entitled the Arts-based Research-Global Classroom, a training course designed to provide PhD students and early career researchers with the knowledge and skills they need to deploy ABR methods in educational settings. The course is jointly delivered by the University of Milan-Bicocca and Drexel University, Florida. The concept is that of a learning laboratory, where students are given the opportunity to critically and reflexively discuss and evaluate perspectives, philosophical positions, and research questions that can lead to the design of collaborative research projects using art-based research methods. The course takes place over eight monthly sessions, each lasting around three hours. Part of the sessions takes the form of workshops based on artistic practices such as collage, assemblage, dance, drawing, and small group work.

Game activity is fundamental for children’s cognitive and social development. During recent years, technology development has led to changes in several areas, including the ludic one. However, while in the literature, there are plenty of studies that report the importance of technology-based games in rehabilitation program, little attention has been paid to their role as pure entertainment. In contrast, the market does not provide videogames that are engaging, accessible, and inclusive. In this context, a survey was distributed to families who have a child with neuromotor limitations to investigate how these children deal with play, in particular with videogames, and what the requirements are for accessible and inclusive videogames. FightTheStroke distributed the questionnaire to families with a child with neuromotor impairments in April 2020. Fifty-six families responded to the survey. The answers revealed that children generally manifest positive feelings when playing with videogames, especially with cooperative ones, even if they are not fully accessible. The survey also collected user needs and suggestions from families about the design of videogames for neuromotor-impaired children. Guidelines derived from the survey are reported for the development of entertaining, inclusive, and accessible videogames, playable by children with neuromotor disabilities.

Recent decades have seen growing recognition of the role of artistic languages in educational and research settings. What was once an exclusive focus on the expressive production of children has now expanded to include far greater use of artistic languages in the domain of education, including with younger and older adults. Artistic production itself has become a key tool for interpreting society, and has thus been accepted into mainstream research as a language that it is no longer possible to do without. Proponents of arts-based research (ABR) and art-informed research are currently calling for a focus on "systematic use of the artistic process...as a primary way of understanding and examining experience..." (McNiff, 2008, p.29). These methods are alternative means of exploring aspects of reality that are inaccessible to traditional forms of knowledge and more conventional methods of inquiry. In a contemporary era that is different to the past and characterized by greater uncertainty, ABR offers a strategy based on a form of observation that is complex and wide-ranging, and thus more appropriate than exclusively linear and causal approaches. This paper presents a post-graduate course in ABR that takes the form of a virtual international classroom entitled Global Classroom in Arts-Based Research. This programme involves – in addition to the Human Sciences and Education Department at Milano-Bicocca University – Florida State University, Drexel University, University of Leuven, FLAMES, and Northern Illinois University. It is offered to PhD students in education, with a view to familiarizing them with the potential of artistic languages, getting them to constantly compare notes concerning their practices and documentation, and helping them to design research actions that include the use of these languages.

Each year an estimated one billion children (one out of two children worldwide) suffer some form of physical, sexual or psychological violence or neglect (Hillis, Mercy, Amobi, & Kress, 2016). Being a victim of violence in childhood has lifelong impacts on education, health, and well-being. Exposure to violence can lead to poor academic performance due to cognitive, emotional, and social problems (WHO, 2019). The right of the child to freedom from all forms of violence is affirmed by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, in its General Comment No. 13 (UNCRC, 2011). Moreover, the Sustainable Development Goals contain a clear call to eliminate violence against children, most explicitly in Target 16.2 (UN, 2015). Many efforts have been made globally to achieve these goals. Schools have been identified as one of the crucial contexts for conducting violence prevention efforts. They offer an important space where children, teachers and educators can learn and adopt pro-social behaviours that can contribute to preventing violence (WHO, et al., 2016). Teachers can play a key role, helping to build a “violence-free world” (UNESCO, WHO, UNICEF, End Violence Against Children, 2020), both by promoting positive relationships and by identifying signs of violence early. In fact, while international strategies provide a necessary framework for the promotion and protection of children's rights, it is the people who can make a difference in the prevention and detection of violence against children (Biffi, 2018). Based on these premises, the paper will focus on how teacher training can help prevent, report and address violence against children. Teachers are often not trained on this: some of them know the contents, but have doubts about how to deal with certain situations. Teachers should learn what to do with students who have gone through a traumatic experience because children choose someone who can see and recognize them (Miller, 1979, En. transl. 1995; Mill

As stated in Article 29 of the UNCRC, the goal of education is to prepare children for a responsible life in a free society. However, recent international agendas and strategy documents (such as the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development) have emphasised the need to develop a more equal and just – more so than a freer – society, while continuing to identify education as a key pillar of human development. In light of this background, the present chapter offers a theoretical analysis of the role of education in human social development, exploring possible connections between children’s rights studies and the capabilities approach. It refers to the terms of the UNCRC to suggest that children’s capabilities need to be conceptualised on their own terms.

The chapter offers practical examples of what pedagogical documentation could entail when used in a research project. In this chapter we show how pedagogical documentation can be used as a methodology with arts-informed methods as a play based approach for participatory research with children. Thus, this chapter aims to explore: - the nature of pedagogical documentation for capturing the educational experiences of children; - the nature of pedagogical documentation as a methodology for participatory research; - the use of arts in research as a method of involving children in their meaning-making that words sometimes cannot achieve.

The paper aims to present a curriculum for a parent training course on preventing violence against children (VAC). The training course was developed into a multi-site cross-national project framework involving five European countries (Italy, Turkey, Greece, Lithuania, and Spain). A needs analysis was conducted in each local context by using semi-structured in-depth interviews. Sixty-two parents have been reached, and the interviews were analyzed using a bottom-up exploratory research approach and thematic analysis. The meta-synthesis of the data highlighted the need for standardized cultural- sensitive training programs based on more information about child development and VAC and strategies to address children's behaviors positively. According to the needs analysis, four modules (M) were designed: Information on children's rights and protection (M1), Self-reflection: parental perception and children protection (M2), Positive parenting and relational skills (M3), and Conclusion and assessment (M4). The contribution will offer an example of curriculum design for the prevention of VAC to help to disseminate and promote a new awareness on the topic and the importance of supporting parents as a first step in the prevention of VAC.

Official records of children’s progress (summative assessment) are kept at three points in the EYFS: Progress check at the age 2, Reception Baseline Assessment (RBA) from September 2021 and Early Years Foundation Stage Profile (EYFSP). These records are legal requirements and guidance is provided on how they are to be completed. As discussed in Chapters 9 and 10, however, formative assessments are also central and ongoing and should be an integral part of the learning and teaching process (DfE, 2017a). In ECEC, however, the collection of information (either for the child or the pedagogical practices) that is not part of the legal requirements of the curriculum framework has a long tradition. This chapter discusses this documentation which differs in nature from the legal records and is characterised by a pedagogical style that allows the reader to authentically share the educational experience. In the contemporary debate, especially since the end of the last century and inspired by the Reggio Emilia philosophical approach, all documentation concerning the education process is defined as pedagogical (Dahlberg et al., 1997). Pedagogical documentation is discussed as the recursive cycle of observation, design, action, assessment and of the documentation itself. In this sense, pedagogical documentation relies on specific competencies possessed by practitioners, whose role is to observe and identify the essence of educational experience and to select the aspects that are core to understanding this experience and why it may be considered educational.

Within article 3 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN, 1989), it states the ‘best interest of the child’ is the primary goal to every action taken related to children. It is specified that: “State Parties undertake to ensure the child such protection and care as is necessary for his or her well- being”. In these terms, the ‘well-being’ of the child can be considered as a fundamental part of his/ her ‘best interest’ (Toczydlowska and Bruckauf, 2017), in all its possible declinations (e.g. care, protection, health) (Fundamental Rights Agency, 2019; Sen, 2009). This is particularly true in situations where children are more vulnerable and their ability for developing resilience to possible mental health conditions must be developed. In fact, strengthening an aptitude for resilience is fundamental in relation to the concept of mental health, as discussed in Chapter 2, in order to prevent mental health difficulties. The contribution of educational professionals is pivotal for working in these directions, with the aim of ensuring children’s well-being. Based on a children’s rights perspective, this chapter will explore the role of educational professionals (teachers, educators, social workers) in guaranteeing children’s well-being within the field of mental health vulnerability, and the conditions that can promote their resilience, with reference to the Italian effort to take care of Special Educational Needs in schools.

The pandemic made childcare a major challenge for parents globally, both in the short and longer term. In this context, it is plausible that emotions and general distress experienced by parents have had an impact at multiple levels in their relationships with their children, potentially increasing their vulnerability. The present study focuses on the analysis of the prevailing emotions of Italian parents during the first lockdown, investigating possible associations with personal perceptions of well-being and readiness to cope with the emergency situation. 319 parents (93% mothers) answered to a semi-structured computer assisted web interview (CAWI; Kurniawan, 2018). The answers showed that parents went through intense emotions, both negative, like worry and anxiety (39.2% named only negative emotions and 32% negative emotions as prevalent) and positive emotions, like hope, serenity and joy (7.8% indicated only positive emotions and 9.5% positive emotions as prevalent). Parents' perceived positive emotions have proved to be important resources linked to a higher level of personal well-being and the perception of being adequately equipped to deal with an emergency. Emotion management emerged as a key area affecting the parents' way of relating with their children during the strict lockdown: Parents declared their need to be supported in building a positive emotional relationship with their children in a stressful situation, highlighting a difficulty to cope with and communicate their own emotionality.

Since the 1990s children’s participation has become mainstream among child rights and child development agencies (Jans, 2004). Despite its expansion and diversity, children’s participation has not turned into a broad-based practice in the wider development community. “More generally, the concept of participation has failed to provide a sufficiently strong theoretical basis to forge an agenda for children’s participation” (Theis, 2010, p.343). Although Sen does not address the foundations of participation as such, he states that: “The people need to be seen, in this perspective, as being actively involved –given the opportunity– in shaping their own destiny, and not just passive recipients of the fruits of cunning development programs” (Sen, 1999, p.53). Building on this, David Alexander Clark, Mario Biggeri and Alexandre Apsan Frediani (2019) recently argued that the Capability Approach to development offers a theoretical framework to understand and practice (child) participation, addressing the gap in terms of lacking its own distinctive framework. The aim of our paper is to further elaborate on this idea by addressing two interlinked problems that emerge within the CA when children’s participation is at stake. The first one is related to the concept of participation. As has been pointed out, similarly to what happens in policy documents and the models of interpretation (Hussey, 2019), participation is not well defined in the CA (Hammock, 2019), thus requiring further elaboration. This is arguably due to what seems to be a constitutive feature of the concept: as a concept, participation is ‘empty’ (Theis, 2010, p.344), it can be filled with almost anything, which is one of the reasons for its popularity. The other one is that the CA itself needs a refined concept of agency which can account for the specific agency of children. In our view, one of the issues of thinking children’s participation within the CA is that its notion of agency seems to be still largely tai

Introduction: The Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) health emergency has led national states to adopt severe actions forcing many people to cope with new and unexpected challenges. Those constraints impacted on the mental health and subjective wellbeing (SWB) of individuals. Objective: The present cross-sectional quantitative study explored whether and to what extent psychological and social aspects were determinants of parental SWB as outcome variable during the COVID-19 lockdown. Method: The sample was composed of 304 Italian parents (93% female, mean age 41.5, 91% from Lombardy). Data were gathered through Computer Assisted Web Interview (CAWI) four weeks after the beginning of the national lockdown. World Health Organization (WHO) wellbeing scale along with other self-reported measures of social support, feelings of abandonment, feeling of being equipped and adequacy of living spaces were administered. Data were analyzed by hierarchical regression models (Ethics Committee of Milano-Bicocca University approval N.0034537/20) Results: According to the WHO cutoff score, 37.7% of parents reported low well-being levels. The regression model (F=11.2, p<.001) suggested that the feeling of abandonment and the feeling of being equipped were the most important contributors to SWB. Other statistically significant (but with lower effect sizes) variables were the support received by the partner and the adequacy of living spaces. Conclusions: The findings bear out the pivotal importance of subjective states (such as feelings of abandonment or perceptions of being poorly equipped) with levels of parental SWB during the COVID-19 lockdown. Implications for planning psychological interventions aimed at strengthening personal resources to face the emergency are discussed.

Una delle prospettive di analisi che anima il dibattito contemporaneo sulla giustizia sociale è fondata sull’approccio delle capacità come invito a “chiedersi che cosa le persone siano in grado di fare ed essere in quella particolare società” (Saraceno, in Nussbaum, 2002, p. 9). Tale approccio introduce una differente prospettiva sulla contribuzione che intende superare la produttività propria delle logiche di mercato. Questo non senza implicazioni sul piano politico e sociale. Si tratta di una prospettiva interessante anche per guidare una riflessione sul ruolo assunto dalle bambine e dai bambini nelle nostre società e sugli spazi loro dedicati (e concessi) non solo per partecipare ma anche per contribuire ad esse. Il presente articolo intende, pertanto, riprendere specifici tratti della giustizia sociale per proporre una riflessione pedagogica sulle strategie politiche e culturali che nella nostra società contemporanea riguardano i minorenni, mettendo in luce l’importanza di un impegno pedagogico che possa analizzare criticamente l’infanzia (quale categoria sociale) per fare spazio ai/alle bambini/e (quali attori sociali), Within the contemporary debate on social justice, there is a specific approach based on the concept of capability, in other words, revolving around the question "What can people be and do in a particular society?" (Saraceno, in Nussbaum, 2002, p. 9). This approach introduces a different point of view through reconsidering the concept of contribution: going beyond the concept of productivity contained in the market logic. This change of perspective entails critical implications on the political and social level. This perspective is also interesting for the debate it provokes around the role children play in our societies and around the spaces devoted (and granted) to them, in order to allow them to not only participate in our society but also to contribute to it. This paper offers a pedagogical reflection on the political and cultural strategies of our society concerning children (using the context of Italy, against the European backdrop) by considering specific elements of these social justice theories. It will also highlight the importance of a pedagogical engagement that is capable of criticizing childhood (as a social category) in order to let children be active (as social actors).

Il contributo intende esplorare il rischio della violenza sotteso alle micro-pratiche educative (fatte di piccoli e silenziosi gesti e parole) dalla prospettiva del corporal punishment (UN Commitee on the Rights of the Child, 2006). L’attenzione è rivolta a quelle pratiche quotidiane – connesse con le routines, quali il pranzo, il gioco e l’igiene personale – che hanno uno specifico valore educativo nei termini del riconoscimento della dignità e del rispetto delle bambine e dei bambini. L’articolo guarda alle micro-pratiche pedagogiche dalla più ampia finestra della violenza all’infanzia (Hamby, Grych, 2013), per discutere le connessioni esistenti tra violenza e educazione (Biffi, Macinai, 2020), dove l’umiliazione e la denigrazione del bambino e della bambina sono viste come componenti di una modalità punitiva inaccettabile, che dimostra quanto possa essere sottile il confine tra violenza e educazione (Schermi, 2016). Infine, il contributo analizza il percorso verso l’abolizione delle punizioni corporali, dedicando specifica attenzione alla formazione degli insegnanti per prevenire e combattere la violenza all’infanzia, che inizia condividendo uno stile educativo coerente e rispettoso tra scuola e famiglia., The paper aims at exploring the risk of violence underneath some small and silent practices (made by gestures, and words) within educational contexts, which can reasonably be considered as part of the general framework for corporal punishments (UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2006). The attention is, indeed, focused on those daily practices – connected with the main routines, such as lunchtime, playtime, and the practices related to personal hygiene – which have a specific educational value in terms of respect and recognition of the dignity of the child. The essay therefore reconsiders these typologies of smallest gestures from the wider perspective of violence against children (Hamby, Grych, 2013), in order to discuss the connections that exist between violence and education (Biffi, Macinai, 2020), where humiliation and denigration of the child is considered as part of an unacceptable punishment that demonstrates how thin the border between violence and education can be (Schermi, 2016). Finally, the paper will take stock of the path towards the elimination of all corporal punishment, with a specific focus on the role of teachers training in preventing and fighting violence against children, beginning from the sharing of a coherent and respectful educational style, between family and school.

Quali effetti produce "lo spazio"? Il contributo, a partire dalle riflessioni di Michel Foucault, esplora il confine, la clausura e - in generale - la gestione delle differenze. In questo senso si analizzano tre figure dell'organizzazione: esilio, esclusione e sicurezza, e, come suggerito da Jacques Derrida, la logica paradossale dell'ospitalità. Infine, affrontato brevemente il tema delle regole (normazione o normalizzazione?) si conclude definendo un falso dilemma l'opposizione tra il gesto che esclude e quello che include in pedagogia.

In early childhood education and care services, documentation is seen as an instrument for ‘giving children voice’ and for engaging children in their educational process (Formosinho and Pascal 2016; Kroll and Meier 2018; Robertson et al. 2017). At the same time, documentation plays a key role within the decision-making process in which children should be allowed to participate: it is the space where the adults’ decisions are made and shared, whereas within the child protection system, it remains more likely to reflect the adults’ voice (Caldwell et al. 2019). Thus, documentation, especially when in written alphabetic form, illustrates the power of writing and written text (Biffi 2019b). Given that alternative care services are institutional contexts in which the exercise of power and control is inevitable and determined by a given ‘dispositif’ as defined by Michael Foucault (1975), documentation can represent a strategy for giving voice to children or-on the contrary-a strategy for objectivating them, and thus preventing them from authentically engaging with their own care plans. This paper, by drawing on the different meanings held by documentation in ECEC contexts, in terms of viewing it as ‘equipped with agentic power’ (Alasuutari and Kelle 2015) reflects on the meanings of (pedagogical) documentation in alternative care settings, as a transitional space between ‘being spoken for’ and ‘speaking for oneself’, in light of a rights-based and pedagogical framework. A further aim of the paper is to explore possible approaches enabling children to participate in the documentation process, focusing on the practices able to involve children in the writing and reading of documentation concerning themselves.

This paper aims at highlighting the role of arts, referring specifically to graphics, in creating participatory learning experiences for young children and as a mean for professional development of teachers, focusing in particular on the use of arts in pedagogical documentation. Graphics are viewed as a reflective practice that can generate significant learning and development experiences for both children and teachers. These reflections are contextualized by presenting the first experiences and considerations from an ongoing cross-national research, that involves young children (3–6) and their teachers in their educational services called “Inside Outside Children’s perspective in ECECC”. To this end, the Italian pilot case study is particularly meaningful: children have been involved in a participatory learning experience, thanks to the use of drawing, aimed at exploring the meanings of the concept of ‘Inside/Outside’ in its various dimensions – spatial, social and referring to the self. Furthermore, teachers have also explored the theme thanks to the use of collage and started reflecting on the potentialities of this methodology as a professional development tool. The objective is to widen the reflection to the use of artistic languages in pedagogical documentation, to enhance learning in children and teachers.

O presente artigo objetiva realizar uma reflexão pedagógica sobre os significados de infância e democracria ao longo dos tempos, considerando a Convenção das Nações Unidas sobre os Direitos da Criança (CNUDC) como um marco no pensamento destes conceitos, pensando-os, especificamente, como ponto culminante, ponto de virada e ponto de partida. A infância é uma construção sociocultural que se origina de um movimento duplo: a construção adulta da infância por meio de educação e política e a maneira como as crianças de carne e osso participam do cotidiano de suas famílias e comunidades, contribuindo para definir o que uma criança pode fazer. A primeira seção do artigo explora o movimento duplo mencionado da Idade Média ao século XX, preparando as bases para o desenvolvimento da Convenção das Nações Unidas sobre os Direitos da Criança em 1989, que liderou uma mudança no modo como a infância é concebida, uma mudança que tem suas raízes no reconhecimento do que as crianças de carne e osso estavam fazendo e sendo ‘silenciosamente’ por eras, por isso é um ponto culminante nesse sentido. O artigo, então, aprofunda a análise da CNUDC, concentrando-se especificamente em como os direitos de participação oferecem uma perspectiva específica sobre democracia, compreendida como um modo de vida que precisa ser aprendido também pelas crianças. O artigo finaliza com uma reflexão sobre o futuro da democracia visto na Agenda 2030 da Organização das Nações Unidas para o Desenvolvimento Sustentável, a qual se baseia na própria CNUDC., The present contribution offers a pedagogical reflection on the meanings of childhood and democracy through the ages, taking the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child as a culmination point, a turning point and a starting point for considering these concepts. Childhood is a socio-cultural construct originating from a twofold movement: the adult construction of childhood through education and politics and the way children in flesh and bone participate in the everyday life of their families and communities, contributing to defining what a child can do and be in a certain society. The first section of the paper explores the mentioned twofold movement from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century, preparing the foundations for the development of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in 1989. The UNCRC led to a shift in the way childhood is conceived whose roots lie in recognizing what children in flesh and bone had “quietly” been doing and being for ages, so in this sense it is a culmination point. The paper then deepens the analysis of the UNCRC, specifically focusing on how the participation rights offer a particular perspective on democracy, understood as a way of life that needs to be learnt. The paper ends with a reflection on the future of democracy as can be seen in the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development which is based on the UNCRC itself.

Virtual reality (VR) creates computer-generated virtual environments where users can experience and interact in a similar way as they would do in real life. VR systems are increasingly being used for rehabilitation goals, mainly with adults, but also with children, extending their application to the educational field. This report concerns a study of the impact of a semi-immersive VR system in a group of 25 children in a kindergarten context. The children were involved in several different games and activity types, specifically developed with the aim of learning specific skills and foster team collaboration. Their reactions and behaviors were recorded by their teachers and by trained psychologists through observation grids addressing task comprehension, participation and enjoyment, interaction and cooperation, conflict, strategic behaviors, and adult-directed questions concerning the activity, the device or general help requests. The grids were compiled at the initial, intermediate and final timepoint during each session. The results show that the activities are easy to understand, enjoyable, and stimulate strategic behaviors, interaction and cooperation, while they do not elicit the need for many explanations. These results are discussed within a neuroconstructivist educational framework and the suitability of semi-immersive, virtual-reality-based activities for cognitive empowerment and rehabilitation purposes is discussed.

This paper offers a reflection on the role of early childhood educational and care (ECEC) professionals in preventing and addressing the phenomenon of the corporal punishment of minors in the home. As recently stated by the International NGO Council on Violence Against Children Report, 10 years on: Global Progress & Delay in ending violence against children – the rhetoric & the reality (2016), corporal punishment continues to be the most common form of violence experienced by children throughout the world, although at different rates in different countries (UNICEF, 2014). In this scenario, a specific role may be played by education professionals (such as teachers and educators in early childhood education and/or care services), who may be viewed as a valuable resource in this battle (Walsh & Farrel, 2008; McKee & Dillenburger, 2012). I here set out to demonstrate how important it is for the relevant education professionals to receive specific training in dealing with the issue of corporal punishment, which is one of the main sources of violence against children.

Il lavoro propone una riflessione sull'uso della grafica all'interno di un progetto di ricerca internazionale. Si tratta di una grafica riflessiva utilizzata da bambini della scuola dell'infanzia, adulti educatori e ricercatori. I disegni sono stati poi analizzati esplorando il concetto di dentro e fuori, in un confronto con le esperienze realizzate in Inghilterra, Giappone e Grecia.

The fact that art, images, drawing, and the use of expressive materials feature strongly in the lives of young children scarcely requires confirmation, yet it is borne out by numerous studies and the everyday observations of early childhood education practitioners. Nevertheless, realising the full potential of the artistic dimension - which is so specific to human development - is quite a different matter. In this chapter, we explore the value of the artistic and expressive medium for children and adults in research, first in general, then as a resource for enhancing communication and relationships, and finally as a domain of inquiry and discovery that can span a diverse range of disciplinary areas.

This paper aims at offering a theoretical reflection on child participation’s meanings and strategies in Residential Care Centers (hereafter RCC). The United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development intends on investing in children, viewing them as contributors to the construction of a more just, equitable, tolerant, open and socially inclusive world. The UN manifesto also emphasizes the need to strive for a nurturing environment in which children can fully realize their rights and capabilities [1]. Hence, it is vital to reflect on the meanings and strategies of child participation in alternative care settings [2] where children are more vulnerable by definition and often precluded from contributing to the decisions concerning their lives [3] [4], although mechanisms to ensure their participation have been implemented [5]. Ensuring children’s participation, especially younger children’s participation, in the child protection system is challenging for practitioners, as it requires balancing their institutional mandate as adults in charge of protecting the child (which entails dynamics of power and authority) with the need to competently foster the child’s own participation as a key form of intervention against violence, also institutional violence [6] Goffman [7], and as a form of prevention of, and a strategy for coping with, adverse childhood experiences. Hence, RCC practitioners require specific professional competence if they are to understand the meanings and value of child participation and encourage its practice, especially when dealing with younger children, in their educational relationship with the child. Thus, there is a need to identify forms and strategies of participation, sustainable both for practitioners (taking into account their institutional mandate and the associated constraints) and for children (in light of their particular stage of development and their specific life stories). The paper will present a reflection on the international pol

Within the debate around hate speech, the paper aims at ex-amining the role of words within the educational relationship, ap-proaching the risk educators, specifically teachers towards stu-dents, have of using – awarely or unawarely – words of hate. The chosen perspective from which the theme will be ana-lyzed, is the one of the international strategies, in defense of chil-dren, which, under the label of corporal punishment include the use of any kind of punishment – not only physical – that aims at de-grading, belittling, humiliating, menacing, frightening or ridiculing the child (UN, CRC, General Comment n. 8(2008), CRC/C/GC/8). This specification sharpens the centrality of the pedagogical as-pect of the issue: it connects words in themselves with the intention-ality of who speaks them and with the sense the receiver gives them. Benning from a reflection on the role of words in the educa-tional relationship, it will be possible to approach a pedagogical analysis which will question the pedagogical implications of hate speech by the teacher, as well as the conditions and contexts that allow the perpetration of hate speech, more or less consciously, by adults that have educational roles and task

Il saggio si focalizza su alcuni motivi che possono fare della famiglia il luogo di maltrattamenti da parte dei genitori nei confronti dei figli, a partire da stili relazionali e degenerazioni educative che si trasmettono di generazione in generazione

L'ascolto del trauma infantile richiede una postura professionale da parte degli educatori e dei professionisti della cura che consenta loro di elaborare le ferite della propria storia. La modulata vicinanza è una competenza dell'educatore che si forma grazie a un lavoro di presa di contatto con i propri affetti, capace di sostenere l'urto del dolore infantile e di potergli offrire un adeguato contenimento e una risposta personalizzata che si trasforma nel corso del processo educativo. L'educazione agli affetti risulta una fondamentale competenza per riconoscere le dimensioni silenti dei disagi infantili, nelle molteplici forme in cui si esprimono nella nostra società contemporanea e nei diversi contesti (scuola, famiglia, etc..)

Pedagogical documentation is a key theme within the debate on early childhood education. It is widely defined in the literature as all documentation about education. Pedagogical documentation may be viewed as a medium through which adults can encounter children – and not only theoretical and rhetorical ideas of childhood – at the level of personal experience. This chapter explores the cultural and collective value of a hermeneutically-informed pedagogical documentation strategy in developing a shared understanding of children’s lived educational experiences. Pedagogical documentation may be viewed as an authentic medium for embodying, and bringing to the light, the lived experience of education that characterizes early childhood education services, and which involves all the actors in these services: children, teachers, families, institutions and local community. The chapter reviews pedagogical documentation as a knowledge-construction process that involves developing a hermeneutic understanding of educational processes and practices.