Restoring Pedagogical Vitality: Restitching Documentation, Pedagogy, and Progettazione
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18357/jcs202522561Keywords:
pedagogical documentation, pedagogy, progettazione, Itinerant SchoolAbstract
Pedagogical documentation has undoubtedly inspired novel and ethically responsive practices in early childhood education. However, it has also contributed to legitimizing logics that have lost their experimental vitality. This article addresses this paradox through two movements. First, the authors create a “conceptual stitch” by which to reconnect documentation, relationally and conceptually, with pedagogy and progettazione. Second, they propose four ideas for rethinking documentation through this conceptual stitch. In making these moves, the authors seek to restore documentation’s relational integrity and open space for education’s pedagogical possibilities beyond the obscure and the normative.
An earlier version of this article incorrectly cited 'Giamminuti, S. (2009). Beauty and the beast: Art and aesthetics in early childhood. Pademelon Press’. This has been corrected as of December 4, 2025’.
Downloads
References
Anderson, B., & Harrison, P. (2016). Taking-place: Non-representational theories and geography. Ashgate. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315611792
Bianchi, D., & Ricci, S. (Eds.). (2022). Manuale di programmazione e progettazione dei servizi per le nuove generazioni. Istituto degli Innocenti.
Biesta, G., & Osberg, D. (2007). Beyond representation: A case for updating the epistemology of schooling. Interchange, 38(1), 15–29. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10780-007-9028-9 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10780-007-9015-2
Bombino, L. (2010). La documentazione educativa. Carocci Editore.
Braidotti, R. (2013). The posthuman. Polity Press.
Cadwell, L. B. (1997). Bringing Reggio Emilia home: An innovative approach to early childhood education. Teachers College Press.
Davies, B. (2014). Listening to children: Being and becoming. Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315770390
Deleuze, G. (1992). Postscript on the societies of control. October, 59, 3–7. https://doi.org/10.2307/778828
Eco, U. (1989). The open work (A. Cancogni, Trans.). Harvard University Press. (Original work published 1962)
Edwards, C., Gandini, L., & Forman, G. (Eds.). (2011). The hundred languages of children: The Reggio Emilia experience in transformation (3rd ed.). Praeger. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5040/9798400667664
Ferrante, A. (2017). Che cos’è un dispositivo pedagogico? FrancoAngeli.
Gatt, C., & Ingold, T. (2020). From description to correspondence: Anthropology in real time. In W. Gunn, T. Otto, & R. C. Smith (Eds.), Design anthropology: Theory and practice (pp. 139–158). Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003085195-11
Giamminuti, S. (2009). Beauty and the beast: Art and aesthetics in early childhood. Pademelon Press.
Giamminuti, S., Merewether, J., & Blaise, M. (2022). Pedagogical documentation and the refusal of method: Troubling dogmas and inviting collective obligations. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 30(2), 213–226. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2022.2033129 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2022.2046834
Guerra, M. (2013). Progettare esperienze e relazioni. Edizioni Junior.
Ingold, T. (2023a). Being alive: Essays on movement, knowledge and description. Routledge.
Ingold, T. (2023b). On not knowing and paying attention: How to walk in a possible world. Irish Journal of Sociology, 31(1), 20–36. https://doi.org/10.1177/07916035221088546 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/07916035221088546
Krechevsky, M., Rivard, M., & Burton, F. (2013). Visible learners: Promoting Reggio-inspired approaches in all schools. Jossey-Bass.
Lenz-Taguchi, H. (2009). Going beyond the theory/practice divide in early childhood education: Introducing an intra-active pedagogy. Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203872956
Lenz-Taguchi, H. (2011). Investigating learning, participation and becoming in early childhood practices with a relational materialist approach. Global Studies of Childhood, 1(1), 36–50. https://doi.org/10.2304/gsch.2011.1.1.36 DOI: https://doi.org/10.2304/gsch.2011.1.1.36
Manning, E. (2016). The minor gesture. Duke University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv111jhg1
Manning, E., & Massumi, B. (2014). Thought in the act: Passages in the ecology of experience. University of Minnesota Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5749/minnesota/9780816679669.001.0001
Massa, R. (2001). Lezioni su “La peste, il teatro, l’educazione.” FrancoAngeli.
Rinaldi, C. (2006). In dialogue with Reggio Emilia: Listening, researching and learning. Routledge.
Rinaldi, C. (2021). In dialogue with Reggio Emilia: Listening, researching and learning (2nd ed.). Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780367854539
Wien, C. A. (2004). The power of emergent curriculum: Stories from early childhood settings. National Association for the Education of Young Children.
Wien, C. A. (2013). Emergent curriculum in the primary classroom: Interpreting the Reggio Emilia approach in schools. Teachers College Press.
Vintimilla, C. D. (2023). Critique, estrangement, and speculative envisioning: Pedagogical thinking and otherwise educational worlds. Philosophical Inquiry in Education, 30(1), 16–25. https://doi.org/10.7202/1099899ar DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1099899ar
Vintimilla, C. D., Land, N., Pacini-Ketchabaw, V., & Khattar, R. (2025). Pedagogists’ modes of response and what might be unique to their work: Some reflections on pedagogy in Canadian early childhood education. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2025.2531938 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2025.2531938
Vintimilla, C. D., & Pacini-Ketchabaw, V. (2025). Pedagogies of proximity: The making of an itinerant school. University of Toronto Press.
Vintimilla, C. D., Pacini-Ketchabaw, V., & Land, N. (2023). Manifesting living knowledges: A pedagogists’ working manifesto. Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, 20(1), 4–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/15505170.2021.1955051 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/15505170.2021.1955051
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Authors contributing to the Journal of Childhood Studies agree to release their articles under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 International license. This licence allows anyone to share their work (copy, distribute, transmit) and to adapt it for non-commercial purposes provided that appropriate attribution is given, and that in the event of reuse or distribution, the terms of this license are made clear.
Authors retain copyright of their work and grant the journal right of first publication.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
