Conference Program

Inclusion constitutes a foundational dimension of educational democracy and is rooted in the social and cultural transformations of the 20th century that affirmed every child’s right to full participation in school and social life (Dewey, 1916; 1938; Bruner, 1961, Canevaro, 2006; Fiorucci, 2018).

Within Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) services, this principle translates into the recognition of the child as a citizen from birth: a rights-holder and an active agent in processes of meaning-making and relational construction.

The Italian National Guidelines for the Integrated 0–6 System (2021) and the National Orientations for Early Childhood Services (2022) outline a cultural and pedagogical framework that assigns educational contexts the responsibility to promote quality, equity, and participation, moving beyond a merely adaptive model of inclusion. From this perspective, inclusion does not require children to conform to pre-established organizational structures;; rather, nurseries and preschools are called to reorganize themselves in order to recognize and value differences. Body, care, and play are positioned as privileged spaces for expression, encounter, and the construction of democratic citizenship.

Conceived as a dynamic and participatory process, inclusion requires organizational and cultural structures capable of sustaining reflective and democratic practices within educational teams. In this framework, tools for evaluating and self-evaluating inclusive educational quality do not serve classificatory or compliance-based functions; instead,, they operate as mediating devices that foster dialogue, collective reflection, and the negotiation of meaning (Bondioli, Ferrari, 2000; Freddano, Stringher, 2020), thus supporting the development of professional communities grounded in shared responsibility.

This contribution is based on a narrative review of the national and international literature, aimed at identifying and examining tools for evaluating inclusive quality in ECEC contexts. The bibliographic search focused on the last ten years and was conducted through scientific databases including Google Scholar, Scopus, and ERIC, using keywords such as “evaluation tools, Inclusion Quality Scale, Early Childhood Education, Participation, reflexivity.” Selected instruments targeted 0–6 services, addressed quality from an explicitly inclusive perspective, and were conceived for participatory and reflective use within educational teams.

The identified tools were analyzed through a comparative framework grounded in recurring pedagogical dimensions in the inclusion literature (Booth & Ainscow, 2002; Bellacicco & Dell’Anna, 2022; Canevaro, 2013). The analysis explores their potential to sustain democratic practices, strengthen professional reflexivity, and promote institutional self-transformation.. Findings suggest that such instruments, when embedded in dialogical and participatory processes, can contribute to shaping educational communities that recognize children as citizens from the earliest years of life. In this sense, evaluation emerges not as a technical or neutral procedure, but as a democratic practice capable of nurturing inclusive cultures and reinforcing participation as a structural dimension of early childhood education.