Lucia Balduzzi BA (hons), PhD, Associate Professor in
Didactics
Department of Educational Sciences, Bologna University,
Italy
Her recent studies and publications focuses on the analysis
of education policies at national and international level and
on the professional profile of practitioners working with
children in conventional and unconventional pre-school services.
Earlier researches explore the relation existing between languages,
media and educational processes, and the field of body
pedagogics.
The research guidelines concern the innovations that are
currently occurring in the early childhood education and care
sector at pedagogical, cultural, didactic and organisational level.
The analysis, at policy level, aims to investigate the relations
between institutions, educational policy and models for the
delivery of childcare services. A particular attention is drawnto
the analysis of these mutual interaction as they affect the
pedagogical identity of the services in terms of educational
methods adopted by the different childcare centers.
The theme is furthermore related to the one of practitioners
professional identity, of their initial and in-service training.
Moreover, this theme is closely connected to the question of
welcoming new teachers into the childcare services, which appears
to be particularly interesting to be examined nowadays because of
the staff turnover. Another strand of the research examines how a
new pedagogical culture could affect and guide policy making at
local level.
The methodologies used in empirical research refer to
qualitative data collection and analisys methods, as well as action
research methologies for supporting ECEC staff professional
development.
