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

Abstract

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.

Keywords:

• professional preparation
• workplace-based learning
• pre-school teachers
• university
• early childhood education and care (ECEC)

Acknowledgements

This article is based on a country report written for a cross-national study on ‘Workplace-based learning and mentoring practices in early childhood teacher education in Europe’, coordinated by Pamela Oberhuemer (Munich, Germany) for WiFF. The Early Years Professional Development Initiative WiFF was launched in 2009 as a joint project of the Federal Ministry for Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, BMBF), the Robert Bosch Foundation (Robert Bosch Stiftung) and the German Youth Institute (Deutsches Jugendinstitut). It is funded by the BMBF and the European Social Fund (ESF) of the European Union. The full-text report in German can be downloaded at: www.weiterbildungsinitiative.de/uploads/media/WiFF_Studie_22_Fachpraktische_Ausbildung.pdf.

Notes

1. Within the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) the B2 level corresponds to an independent user at vantage or upper intermediate level (www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/Source/Framework_EN.pdf).