Building inclusive and sustainable early childhood educational contexts. The perspective of the educational team

Abstract

The article presents the outcomes of an action‐research study, carried out in April 2023, in the Pollicino preschool center in Treviso; it was presented as the subject of a thesis for a three‐year degree in Early Childhood Education, at the University of Padua. The research is motivated by an experimental project of job placement of an educator with disabilities at the daycare center, proposed by SIL (Job Placement Service). It investigates the team's point of view towards this collaboration, bringing to light the favorable and collusive aspects to the inclusion of educators with disabilities, in an early childhood (0‐6 years) educational context. The study analyzed the present literature, integrating it with data collected through the IAN Edu questionnaire, addressed to educators and teachers working in daycare and preschool facilities, on the national territory. The fundamental pivot, on which the questions revolve, concerns the attitude of professionals in working with resources with disabilities; considered the driving force behind educational thinking and acting, an aspect to be made no longer subjective and contextual, but conscious, structured, extensible and replicable in other educational realities as well. The literature analyzed, although meager and not completely congruent with the experience carried out, oriented the researchers' reflections in bringing out more clearly the valuable contribution that such collaboration offers; indicating possible strengths on which to structure the presence of educational personnel with disabilities, limiting collusive factors. The results of the administration of the questionnaire (online form), suggest the strong need to structure quantitatively studies of higher caliber, in order to establish inclusive educational practices, for the entire educational community. The experience conducted thus stands as a stimulus for new experimental collaborations, such as to create a new, more structured and conscious culture of educating for inclusion and sustainability from the earliest years of life.