A History of the Experience of the Reggio Emilia Municipal Infant-Toddler Centers and Preschools

By Lella Gandini, Ed.D., Adjunct Professor, School of Education, University of Massachusetts, Amherst and Reggio Children Liaison in the U.S. for Dissemination of the Reggio Emilia Approach

A simple, liberating thought came to our aid, namely that things about children and for children are only learned from children. We knew how this was true and, at the same time, not true. But we needed that assertion and guiding principle; it gave us strength and turned out to be an essential part of our collective wisdom (Loris Malaguzzi, 1993, p.44).

Beginnings

The Reggio Emilia philosophy of early childhood education has its origins in a particular place and time, namely Reggio Emilia, Italy in 1945, just at the end of the Fascist dictatorship and the Second World War. It was a moment when the desire to bring change and create a new, more just world, free from oppression, was urging women and men to gather their strength and build with their own hands schools for their young children. Some of these preschools continued until 1967 (when they were transferred to the city government), thanks to the strength, initiative and imagination of workers, farmers and a famous group of the time, the Union of Italian Women (U.D.I.). All of the preschools for young children of Reggio Emilia have poignant histories of these early years that are kept very much alive. Loris Malaguzzi, a local teacher who worked together with these courageous and insightful women and men to build these early schools, and is considered to be the founder of the early childhood program, always remembered the legacy of those committed citizens who opened the first preschools.

In the region of Emilia Romagna, where the city of Reggio Emilia is located, there is a long history and tradition of cooperative work done in all areas of the economy and organization: agriculture, food processing, unions, entrepreneurship, solution of crises, etc. Therefore, the phenomenon of people getting together and opening the schools, and teachers and parents working together to run the preschools now is consistent with established tradition, with a traditional and successful way of life that, although occasionally disrupted under adverse conditions, such as the Fascist regime, is then revived as soon as it is feasible.

In the 1950s and early 1960s, an organized association of elementary school teachers was active in Italy around the goal of innovation in education. With strong motivation and commitment, these teachers hoped to develop new ways of teaching in tune with the new democratic society, with the new realities of the modern world and with greater relevance to the life of children. In this way, they hoped also that the public preschools would become non-selective and non-discriminatory. Some of their ideas found inspiration and encouragement in the works of John Dewey, and were also influenced by theory and practice coming from France. Furthermore, the work of Jean Piaget and others and, still later, Lev Vygotsky, proved stimulating and supported the teachers' observations and discoveries about children and their development. These and several other important foreign works and experiences in psychology and educational philosophy had a particularly powerful impact after the Liberation because they had not been available during the Fascist era.

In this time of ferment, Loris Malaguzzi took time off from teaching to specialize in psychology at the Center for National Research in Rome. He was aware of the tremendous potential value of all these sources of energy, and of combining these with his own energy and ideas. He soon became a leader, first along with others better known in Italy and then by becoming a point of reference for teachers wanting to bring innovation to schools for young children. It was Malaguzzi who was ready and able to support the schools started by common people in Reggio in 1945, and who led the battle to get the city government to assume the management of the people's schools and open the first municipal preschool in 1963.

The Establishment of the Municipally Supported Preschools

The 1960s in Italy were marked by the tremendous economic development. This consisted principally of a basic transformation from a mostly agricultural economy (with limited industrial development in the north) to a well-developed and diversified economy with modern industries. Along with this, notable development in the area of social services and of workers' benefits, in part due to the bargaining power of a strong union system, took place. Women entered into the work force and demanded support from the government for child care. The same period saw the emergence of the women's movement that, in a way, transcended the age-old party division between the right and centrist conservative Catholic forces (which preferred that women stay at home in their traditional roles) and the more progressive, socialist left. Furthermore, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a strong student movement shook up the university system and the traditional values of a still highly stratified society.

Through all those years of upheaval, many different groups kept up the pressure on elected representatives to bring innovation in all spheres of life for Italian citizens. Among the results was a series of national laws passed between 1968 and 1971 that were true landmarks, including those that made possible the development of the comprehensive program we are discussing here. They included the establishment of free preschools for children 3 to 6 years of age, infant-toddler centers for children 3 months to three years, a maternity leave (in part, with full pay), a new family law more favorable to women, and equal pay for equal work between men and women.

The new law that was passed about government preschools for children 3 to 6 years of age rewarded citizens and city governments, such as the one in Reggio Emilia, a city that had been working hard to support the grass-roots demands for establishing public preschools and had moved more quickly at the local level than the central government. By the end of the 1970s, the schools for young children in Reggio Emilia had grown to 19 in number, and the building of new infant-toddler centers was in full swing.

Further Development and Influence of the Program

Loris Malaguzzi was able to gather around him a group of devoted and competent educators who, along with parents and other citizens who felt strong ownership of the schools, supported his work toward creating and maintaining very high quality programs, continuously updating the preparation of teachers and exploring new avenues of innovation in teaching young children. In some of the interviews that Malaguzzi granted late in his life, he presented a long list of names of scientists, philosophers, scholars, artists and writers who had influenced his thought and, therefore, the work of educators in the preschools because of his strong contribution to their development. His complex system of education, which pays close attention to individual as well as group interests and potentials, is a form of socio-constructivism that takes into account the deeply-felt desire "to do nothing without joy."

During the 1980s, the accomplishments achieved in Reggio Emilia became known elsewhere in Italy and on the international scene as well. Upon the initiative of Loris Malaguzzi, leaders in other city systems of early childhood education as well as some university experts in the field formed an association for the support of research and development concerning the education of young children called the National Group for Work and Study on Infant Toddler Centers. In 1981, the educators of Reggio Emilia prepared the first exhibit about the work constructed with their children. After creating surprise among early educators in Italy, the exhibit opened in Sweden at the Modern Museet in Stockholm. Presenting these inspiring images marked the beginning of disseminating their extraordinary message of hope about early childhood education throughout the world.

Aware of the civil and cultural wealth represented by Reggio's educational services, the municipality of Reggio Emilia has chosen since October 2003 to manage this vast network of services (run either directly or by different types of affiliated cooperatives) through the work of a specific body called Istituzione Scuole e Nidi d'Infanzia. Istituzione is a form of management guaranteeing government by the public sector together with cultural and organizational independence, and its own program of activities. There is no desire toward privatization but rather, a courageous choice for innovative management whose aim, among others, is to qualify and increase the potential of early childhood services in Reggio.

The Istituzione Scuole e Nidi d'Infanzia includes:

• 25 prechools (of which 5 are affiliated cooperatives)
• 26 infant-toddler centers (of which 13 are affiliated cooperatives)
• 570 staff (teaching and other)
• 43 school buildings

A vast network of services since 2004 has made it possible to create opportunity for every family requesting a place. In Reggio Emilia, thanks to the existence of communal, state and private facilities, about 1600 children attend infant-toddler centers and represent 40% of children from birth to three years (one of the highest percentages in Italy). About 90% of children from three to six years attend preschools (about 3500 children). This is due to the long commitment by the Municipality of Reggio Emilia, which faced with growth in recent years has continued to invest in childhood (Reggio Children, 2007, pp. 32-33).

RESOURCES

Barazzoni, R. 1985. Brick by Brick. Reggio Emilia, Italy: Reggio Children.

Edwards, C., Gandini, L. & Forman, G. Eds. 1998. The Hundred Languages of Children: The Reggio Emilia Approach to Early Childhood Education: Advanced Reflections. Westport,CT: Ablex/Greenwood.

Reggio Children. 2007. Reggio Emilia, Italy: Reggio Children.