Participatory pedagogies: Instituting children’s rights in day to day pedagogic development

The 27th EECERA Conference in Bologna provided us, Joana de Sousa and Paulo Fochi (both early years educators and formateurs), with the opportunity to co-lead a keynote speech on the power of participatory pedagogies, unfolding children’s rights in everyday educational life. We presented two praxeological case studies on the connectivity between childhood pedagogy and professional development pedagogy, highlighting how within a rights’ approach and empowerment pedagogy, early childhood education actors (children, parents and teachers) co-construct knowledge by participating in the learning processes of their day-to-day lived experiences (Sousa 2016; Fochi 2019).

The opportunity to deliver such a challenging keynote provided the forum to enter into multiple dialogues with researchers and practitioners advocating for ‘another kind’ of childhood pedagogy and professional development pedagogy. It stirred the formation of this trio of guest editors to come together from distant locations (Brazil, Cyprus and Portugal) and give body to an issue of the EECERA Journal on participatory pedagogies.

We believe that only the participatory mode of developing pedagogy responds to the complexity of early childhood education and shield it from prevailing normalising culture and neoliberal policy decisions. Providing space and time for all to share their voice and insights is vital to recognising participation as the best antidote against the abstract nature of the mainstream transmissive pedagogy (Formosinho and Oliveira-Formosinho 2016a; Sousa and Fochi 2017). The inheritance of the twentieth century childhood pedagogy has presented us with great pedagogues, such as Dewey (1997) and Malaguzzi (1998), whose work support us in deconstructing this simplistic pedagogical thinking and doing, in order to develop participatory pedagogies that bring together children, their families and teachers in the co-construction of educational processes and achievements.

In view of current educational policies and practices which focus on external (testing, standardisation, accreditation, best single practice, one truth, etc.) and not authentic elements of the worlds of children, teachers and parents, it is imperative to talk about rights-based pedagogical approaches (Oliveira-Formosinho and Pascal 2016). We understand these as a means to resist the logic of economic investment in early childhood education (Bennett 2014; Lloyd and Penn 2014), and assert a logic of human and cultural investment (Oliveira-Formosinho 2012; Formosinho and Figueiredo 2014; Pascal 2018).

We thus affirm the field of childhood pedagogy as a field in its own right. A field that knows its boundaries, but does not define them, because its essence lies in dialogues and in integration (Formosinho and Oliveira-Formosinho 2016b). Pedagogy is therefore understood as a space of ambiguity and complexity with its own concepts, methodologies and research (Oliveira-Formosinho and Formosinho 2016). Pedagogy is sustained on praxis; praxis being the locus of pedagogy and the educational day to day is the locus of praxis. The search for a pedagogical praxis is a search for a testimonial educational day to day that makes children visible and levers professional knowledge (Oliveira-Formosinho and de Sousa 2019). Pedagogy fosters the nature of knowledge in constant movement, assuming a connectivity between thinking and doing is of crucial importance to respond to social challenges.

This issue presents a range of researched praxis with children, parents and teachers in the daily life of early childhood education contexts, inscribed in EECERA ethos, that will unfold the theories and methodology for studying participatory praxis.

In a previous issue of EECERA Journal on praxeological research in early childhood education (European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, volume 20, issue 4, 2012) the guest editors assert the need of ‘being reflexive about dormant questions that cannot be ignored when we want to make praxeological knowledge and research fulfil their potential for change and innovation in classrooms and schools’ (Oliveira-Formosinho and Formosinho 2012, 472). Contributing to the development of answers to these questions, Pascal and Bertram state that

to realise authentically a participatory paradigm in research requires one to develop a worldview in which reflection (phronesis) and action (praxis) done in conjunction with others, needs to be immersed within a more astute awareness about power (politics) and a sharpened focus on values (ethics) in all of our thinking and actions. (Pascal and Bertram 2012, 477)

With this special issue on participatory pedagogies we acknowledge the importance of presenting research that welcomes the plurality of theories and methods but is also unanimously committed in having as its ethos the inclusion of all voices involved in the research (Bertram et al. 2016). This is a matter of both democracy and rigour that allow the development of a more authentic knowledge on the lived processes of praxis and its transformation.

Previous studies have explored the idea of participation and participatory research in education taking into consideration different teaching approaches, content areas and educational aspects (namely, Pascal and Bertram 2009; Oliveira-Formosinho and Araújo 2011; Gray and Winter 2011; Waller and Bitou 2011; Loizou and Avgitidou 2014). This issue includes studies which explore participatory pedagogies through similar and different lenses, making explicit the elements and outcomes of such processes and pedagogies within the day to day educational life of children, parents and teachers.

The ten studies that compose this issue, present research that is located in a wide range of cultural, social and geographical contexts, including United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Brazil. Within the richness of this diversity we identify commonalities around central aspects of participatory pedagogies: a. the assertion of educational actors (children, parents, teachers) being competent, having agency and being collaborative within the everyday educational life; b. the development of listening, dialogic, collaborative practices either with children or adults; and c. the right to participatory professional learning and development as a means to institute children’s rights in the day to day pedagogic development. Although addressing situated issues within situated contexts through diverse research methodologies, collectively these studies highlight all the aforementioned central aspects to a greater or lesser degree.

The studies presented by João Formosinho and Filipa Passos (Portugal) and by Penny Lawrence (United Kingdom) share a common essential pedagogical dimension in early childhood education that is family involvement in the educational everyday life of their children. Both studies give evidence of the importance of involving families in their children’s day to day educational environments and learning processes as a means to foster in-depth understanding of children’s voice, agency and learning and develop responsive and empowering interactions and relationships between children, their families and teachers. Formosinho and Passos present a praxeological research narrating the progressive transformation of practices of family involvement and participation. Through the analysis and interpretation of pedagogical documentation, organised over the length of three consecutive school years, the authors reveal that the gradual family’s collaboration within the educational everyday life deepens children’s well-being as well as family’s well-being and creates feelings of belonging and participation. That means teachers sharing power with families through making available communication and collaboration tools, namely pedagogical documentation which is vital for families’ understanding of the daily lived experiences of their children and their motivation to collaborate more. Lawrence’s study explores how relations develop and how participation is enacted through a dialogical approach to observation carried out with children, their parents and teachers. It analyses the dialogical agency children exhibit when deciding to enter or extend dialogue during situations that involve materials and the environment, elements beyond human contact. This study affirms that a dialogical approach to observation builds inclusive participatory education since the teachers (and parents) become more aware of children’s dialogical agency and subsequently more responsive in meeting their needs and experiences.

Four studies (by Paulo Fochi, Brazil; by Inês Machado, Portugal; by Helen Lyndon, Tony Bertram, Zeta Brown and Christine Pascal, United Kingdom; by Joana de Sousa, Portugal) focus on the deployment of processes of participatory professional development that unfold on site spaces, times and relationships of the early childhood institutions and its daily educational life. All of these studies are developed through processes of praxeological research asserting democratic processes of research and transformation through listening and participation of all the voices involved in the research. Fochi’s study presents the Observatory of Childhood Culture (OBECI), a professional development community in the making. He describes its origins, constitution and functioning. The study reports some of its achievements at the level of promoting participatory pedagogies for children’s learning and professionals’ development. This paper focus on the relationship between adults and children in order to reveal emerging knowledge from the training processes developed in the Observatory of Childhood Culture – OBECI. Machado studies the participatory professional development path of early childhood educators and assistants within their daily educational life in the early childhood education institution. The study documents processes and achievements on praxis transformation and the analysis of this documentation highlights the importance of assistants’ participation in reconstructing educational environments. Also highlighting that the development of collaborative journeys of experiential professional development facilitate the development of educational teams (educators and assistants teaming up on behalf of children’s day to day pedagogic development). Lyndon, Bertram, Brown and Pascal explore pedagogically mediated listening practices in which children, teachers and researcher are actively involved. The researcher as pedagogic mediator uses participatory methods to elicit professional reflections on the day to day pedagogic development. The findings suggest that the pedagogic mediation provided an effective and participatory mechanism through which listening practices could be extended and further embedded into practice. The study affirms that pedagogic mediation supports teachers in their professional development and when trust is developed in the relationship there are opportunities to challenge preconceived pedagogic assumptions. Finally, Sousa’s study narrates the journey of professional development of one educator working towards the transformation of the pedagogy developed with her group of children. The analysis and interpretation of four-key episodes of pedagogical documentation edited and selected by the educator allow the author to show four key moments of this educator’s professional development journey, in learning about pedagogical documentation, and the transformation of her pedagogy. The study gives evidence that pedagogical documentation is central to develop and research the connectivity between educators’ professional development and children’s education.

Two studies (by Alexander Muela, Inaki Larrea, Nekane Miranda, Aitziber Martínez de Lagos and Alexander Barandiaran, Spain; by Claudia Lichene, Italy) explore how participatory intervention approaches can lever quality of educational environments and of learning-teaching processes. Both studies take into consideration the voice and agency of the actors involved in the participatory intervention making visible their competence in the creation of stimulating learning environments and in the development of meaningful learning processes. The study of Muela and his co-authors show how the quality of preschool outdoor environments can be improved through a participatory intervention involving children, parents and teachers. The findings suggest that a democratic and active participation of these actors in processes of change that concern them unlocks the creative potential of children and adults to transform the world around them. In Lichene’s study the author explores how participatory intervention approaches support children’s development of scientific attitudes and critical thinking. Drawing upon the approach of ‘promoting from within’ the author designs and sets up the adult intervention aimed at promoting the development of children’s scientific attitude. It reveals that an adult who is present and actively engages children in conversation about what they see and what they do when exploring materials, then the complex categories of experimentation and identification of a problem unfold in children’s actions, thus promoting and supporting their scientific knowledge development.

The studies of Sílvia Cruz (Brazil) and of Jennifer Robson (United Kingdom) draw our attention to the perils to children’s rights, social justice and equity that result from a persistent mainstream transmissive pedagogy and government imposed policies which do not support early childhood education practitioners to be able to critically and reflexively develop participatory practices. Cruz’ study presents a review of research that captures the perspectives of poor children on their experience in Brazilian public childhood education institutions, through listening to their voices on issues that are of great importance to them (e.g. interactions and play). Listening to children’s perspectives gives us authentic data about their own experience of early childhood education and is of most value when rethinking policies that concern them, for example university policy for teacher education and professional development. In Robson’s study the use of specific vignettes of child-teacher interaction within an educational context reveals how children and teachers experience values education in face of government imposed policy known as Fundamental British Values. It highlights that the development of a participatory and critical pedagogy in early childhood education supports teachers to resist imposed values and to be instead the authors (together with children) of values education development.

We believe this issue of the EECERA Journal is thought-provoking and can engage readers to relate to their own contexts of pedagogical practices and praxis research. There are no recipes nor instructions, as how to develop participatory approaches that institute children’s and teachers’ rights within their day to day pedagogic development. But extending our thinking and doing, to alternative possibilities of developing childhood pedagogy and professional development and by entering in reflexive and critical dialogue with studies on participatory praxis, is in itself a great first step towards the desired (and slowly appropriated) praxeological transformation.