La recherche partecipative: un outil puissant puor le developpement professionnel dans le secteur de la petit infance

There is a broad consensus in international debates that the quality of early childhood education and care (ECEC) services is inextricably linked to the professionalization of its workforce. The importance of providing practitioners with continuing professional development (CPD) opportunities has been increasingly recognised as attested by recent research commissioned by the European Commission. In particular, the findings of the study ‘CoRe: Competence Requirements in ECEC’ (Urban, Vandenbroeck, Peeters, Lazzari and Van Laere, 2011) showed that competent systems that achieve high levels of professionalism are embedded in coherent public policies that build on consultations with key stakeholders, particularly at local level. This article will describe a CPD initiative carried out within a participatory research project (‘ricerca-form-azione’) aimed to the co-construction of a Pedagogical Manifesto of ECEC social cooperatives in Ferrara province (Emilia-Romagna, Italy).