The Early Childhood Education and Care system for children aged 0-6: regulatory pathway and pedagogical considerations

This article reconstructs the pedagogical and political debate that has led in Italy to the institution of an integrated Early Childhood Education and Care system, for children from birth to 6 years of age. It then examines two fundamental issues posed by the establishment of a 0-6 integrated ECEC system: a) that one related to the pedagogical profile able to unify two paths – namely, the “nido” (an ECEC service for children from 0 to 3 years of age), and the “scuola dell’infanzia” (an ECEC service for the age group 3-6), both born and developed in a disjoint way, until today; b) that one connected to the matter of how the L-19 University graduation class, officially appointed to the initial training of ECEC educators, could offer a training proposal consistent with Early Childhood educators’ career opportunities.