Abstract:

Caring is an essential factor of human life. However, international educational policies in ECEC (Early Childhood Education and Care), pay little attention to this paradigm, relegating caring to a position of subalternity particularly where neo-liberal culture is more widespread.

If the primary intent of education is fostering the full and integral development of all the dimensions of the individual, to allow each human life to realise its being in the world to the fullest extent, it is then necessary to understand how schools, and pre-school services in particular, can be configured as contexts of concrete expression of care.

The qualitative research presented here intends to contribute to the definition of an educational curriculum oriented towards the paradigms of care through a participatory approach that integrates theoretical and empirical dimensions, demonstrating how this dialogue represents the main way to increase pedagogical knowledge while enhancing the professionalism of teachers and, consequently, the quality of the contexts of experience offered to children.

The first part of the paper presents the main results of the scoping review, identified as a useful international literature review strategy to map the key concepts related to the phenomenon at hand. The results of the scoping review include 18 empirical and 10 theoretical studies from 2014 to the present, selected from a broad-review question: "What is care?", placing the question in a defined research field, namely education and, specifically, pre-school.

The role of education is becoming increasingly crucial in many contexts, influenced by a neo-liberal approach and focused on the acquisition of competences often linked to the development of a learning which is expected to follow subsequent school orders and to be measured frequently according to a certain idea of performance. This is at the expense of an ethics of care that is thus marginalised and relegated to a status of lesser importance, often experienced as implicit and barely visible in teachers' documentation practices. Since care is not considered as a key component in the quality of the profession of teachers, there is a need to revisit their role and their professional identity.

The paper then presents an exploratory analysis of the first data of the empirical investigation carried out in three municipal preschools in Correggio (Reggio Emilia), with the collaboration of 18 teachers. Such investigation was aimed at identifying the indicators capable of defining the specificities of an educational action oriented towards care, starting from the teachers' concrete experience.

In ECEC, there is a need to move away from dichotomous visions of care and education in favour of integrated approaches focused on the child of the present and the provision of educational opportunities that foster the flourishing of all potentialities, embracing the value of ecological complexity and interconnectedness.

In order to do this, it is necessary to reconceptualize the idea of care in education and policy through the ethical and political perspective of care.

Keywords:

Caring, Preschool, Formative Curriculum, Teacher Training.