Innovations

About

Innovations in Early Education: The International Reggio Emilia Exchange

Innovations is a journal published by the North American Reggio Emilia Alliance (NAREA) that focuses on the Reggio Emilia Approach to early childhood education. The mission of Innovations is to provide an ongoing professional development resource that respectfully represents the values and educational principles of the municipal infant-toddler centers and preschools in Reggio Emilia as well as those of educators in schools, centers, universities, and colleges in North America and beyond who are actively engaged in the study of the Reggio Emilia Approach with children, colleagues, and families in their community.

Innovations was developed in 1992 through an agreement with Loris Malaguzzi, founder of the Reggio Emilia educational project, and continues to be developed in solidarity with the Preschools and Infant-toddler Centers, Istituzione of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia, Italy; Reggio Children; and the Reggio Children – Loris Malaguzzi Center Foundation.

Innovations Archive

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Articles

Free Annual Article

NAREA offers complimentary membership to all interested persons, which includes an array of benefits. One article per year of Innovations is granted at no cost. This periodical is a valuable resource for Reggio-inspired educators, advocates, parents, and schools. If you would like to upgrade from complimentary to subscriber member, you will receive three full issues each year, enabling you to stay updated by educators from Reggio Emilia, North America, and beyond.

2021

A Partnership with Nature: An Urban School’s Collaborative Study

by Kristin Brizzolara Vazquez & Karen Haigh | Vol. 28, No. 1 | pp. 28–45

Authors share experiences from Velma Thomas Early Childhood Center, a Chicago Public School Child-Parent Center. Teachers from seven classrooms, along with Veronica Cline, parent educator, share individual stories from the nature-focused classroom studies. These stories offer a window into the larger narrative with Sobel’s design principles of nature running throughout.

2020

An Invitation to Participate in a Teacher Research Collaborative: Children and Trees in Relationship

by Jeanne Goldhaber | Vol. 27, No. 1 | pp. 36–43

On behalf of the Reggio Inspired Vermont Early Education Team (RIVET), Jeanne Goldhaber, associate professor emerita at the University of Vermont, introduces and invites participation in a collaborative research project focused on children and trees in relationship. The ongoing project will consider the possible meaning we have ascribed to the children’s and trees’ encounters and ways through which we might learn more about and deepen their relationships.

2019

Alternative Narratives in Early Childhood, Or Why Contest Early Childhood?

by Peter Moss | Vol. 26, No. 1 | pp. 12–21

Peter Moss, emeritus professor, presents a case for the Reggio Emilia Approach, pointing out the common tendency to use stories, starting from very early childhood, about our individual selves and experiences to define us. However, a story, Moss explains, is only an interpretation, and “alternative narratives in early childhood” are called for. In addition, Moss emphasizes how dominant discourses by powerful institutions overtake and direct perception, influencing such paramount aspects of society as early childhood education.

2018

Bridging Borders: Children’s Right to Dignity, Civility, and Dialogue

by Teresa Acevdo, Celena Martinez, and Iliana Reyes | Vol. 25, No. 3 | pp. 18–33

Innovations in Early Education: The International Reggio Emilia Exchange is pleased to make one of its peer-reviewed articles available to the public audience. NAREA is grateful for the collaborations in North America that give visibility to children, families, teachers, and communities. Too often, adults speak on behalf of children. Here, in this timely and poignant article, listen to the views of children and adults as they go about their daily lives in a community that happens to be located along the United States/Mexico border.

Publication Interests

Overview

NAREA is interested in articles:

About the experiences of educators, children, and families in educational communities inspired by the Reggio Emilia municipal educational project
Regarding the ways in which educators and families have developed a better understanding of the learning processes of children and adults through their study of the Reggio Emilia Approach
Concerning the challenges that educators have encountered as they work to become aware of their own educational values and those of their community as a result of their study of the experience of the Reggio Emilia municipal infant-toddler centers and preschools
Consistent with the spirit and philosophy of the Reggio Emilia Approach

Possible topics include:

The school as a place of innovation and research
The value of participation of children, families, and educators in school
The essential nature of ongoing professional development for educators
The processes of observation, documentation, and interpretation in giving visibility to learning and relationships
The role of the environment in learning and relationships
The evolution of teacher education inspired by the Reggio Emilia Approach
The role of culture and community in education
The value of inclusion of children with special rights and those from diverse cultural communities
The use of materials and media as languages for expression and learning

Publication Guidelines

APA Guidelines for Written Documents

Photographic Release Form

Peer-Review

Rationale and Description

To include more and diverse voices in an increasingly democratic dialogue among early childhood educators, Innovations publishes one peer-reviewed issue annually. The annual peer-reviewed issue includes articles that are meant to support collaboration among educators by integrating interpretation and example within reciprocal research and inquiry of teachers, children, and families. In addition, the peer-reviewed issue includes reflections related to each article that are written by one of the consulting editors with the goal of inviting readers to relate what they have read to their own contexts. Our intention is to support the work of Reggio-inspired educators in North America by thinking together through deeper and more complex interpretation and reflection of our own work and that of our colleagues.

Innovations endeavors to reflect a view of learning as a process of individual and group construction and to support the learning processes of children and adults through educational documentation, which includes listening, observation, and interpretation. Our goal is to establish a collaborative partnership among educators, children, families, and community members for systems change and social justice that recognizes the rights of children to quality education.

For the peer-reviewed edition, and in the full richness and spirit of Loris Malaguzzi’s concept of the hundred languages, we encourage proposals from all early childhood communities. This includes those who have been traditionally marginalized. We affirm and elevate voices of historically resilient communities including indigenous people, immigrants, and descendants of enslaved people.

Peer-Reviewed Topic for the Fall 2023 Issue

Committing to an Image of the Child That Resists the Gravitational Pull to ‘Get Back to Normal’

What does it mean when we commit, every day, to a strong image of the child? How do we excavate the layers of meaning of this term through every aspect of our pedagogy? How do we work intentionally with this image toward a vision of humankind and planetary well-being that nurtures our children and generations to come? Peter Moss (2019) has described the perfect storm of extreme inequality, climate change, and financial crisis that is entrenched in that “normal” that we can resist. “What sort of political questions and, therefore, what sort of political choices might early childhood education involve? For Malaguzzi and the schools he worked with in Reggio Emilia . . . the first such question has to be ‘What is your image of the child?’” (p. 49).

Peer-Reviewed Call for Proposals

Manuscript Selection Dates

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