Celebrating 100 years of Loris Malaguzzi

Paola Cagliari

Paola was born in Reggio Emilia and has worked in various roles in the municipal preschools and infant toddler centres of Reggio Emilia from 1978 until her retirement in 2019.

Paola received her degree in pedagogy from the University of Parma with the maximum cum laude note, presenting a paper titled “The child and the town: perception of the town by children of the municipal preschools of Reggio Emilia”.

She began work as a teacher in the Diana Preschool in 1978 and in 1985 became part of the Municipal Infant Toddler Centres and Preschools’ Pedagogical Team, first as a pedagogista and then as a teacher coordinating the integration of children with special rights.

From June 2000 she was responsible for coordinating the pedagogical team and also a preschool and an infant-toddler centre. She particularly focused her activities on relationships and projects of educational continuity from preschool to elementary school. Projects included family involvement and participation and social management within the system of municipal preschools and infant-toddler centres. She was also responsible for  defining and coordinating internships and workshops within the Istituzione Preschools and Infant-toddler centres of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia, she did this in collaboration with the Faculty of Education of the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia.

Recently her focus has been on the use of digital technologies, religious and moral education of children, the changes in families and the multiculturalism.

From 1996 to 1998 Paola collaborated with the University of New Hampshire and the State University of Milan on research titled “The sociocultural construction of the relation school-family: Reggio Emilia and Italy today”.

She has participated as a speaker in several conferences, seminars, professional development initiatives, study days, both in Italy and abroad (Germany, Colombia, USA, Spain, Denmark, Slovenia, Sweden, UK, Greece, Belgium).

From 1998 to 2001, Paola collaborated with  the European project CAB Construction kits made of Atom & Bits. This project included participation from three Reggio Emilia municipal preschools and an elementary school, LEGO Denmark, the Institute for Communication of Sweden, and the Institute of didactic technologies of Genoa.

In the school year 2000/01 she led a workshop on family participation for the Faculty of Education at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia.

From 2002 to 2004 Paola was responsible for the coordination of the European Project “E3. e-contests, e-technologies, e EARLY-learning”, and part of the European initiative “eLearning”. This project  involved 2 municipal preschools and an elementary school of Reggio Emilia, a Swedish school, the Reggio Emilia Institutet of Stockholm, the Computer Technology Institute and the Hellenic Open University of Patrasso.

In the school year 2005/2006 she led the course “Methodology and technique of play and animation” at the Faculty of Education at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia.

Paola is part of the project group for the Ray of Light Atelier which is currently open at the Loris Malaguzzi International Centre.

She has collaborated on many research projects and was a member of the teaching committee of the International Master Course which was facilitated by the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Reggio Children and Preschools and Infant-toddler Centres Istituzione of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia in the academic year 2008/2009.

From February 2010 to June 2019 (date of her retirement) Paola Cagliari covered the role of Director of Preschools and Infant-toddler Centres Istituzione of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia.

Sara De Poi

Sara has been involved with Reggio Children and the schools of Reggio Emilia in the areas of documentation and educational research. Sara’s main role is sharing educational and professional development projects of the pedagogical coordination team; documentation of the above projects through AV recordings, video editing and motion graphics.

Sara is involved in the design and making of videos for public exhibitions, the design and making of video publishing products (dvd with booklets)  as well as exhibition editing of  “A festive thought. Visual metaphors in the learning processes of children”.

Sara has been involved in the design and management of theatrical animation workshops for kindergarten and elementary school children.

Jan Millikan

Jan Millikan OAM is the Australian representative to the Reggio Children International network, and former Founder and Director of the Reggio Emilia Australia Information Exchange (REAIE) where she is a continuing committee member. Jan has represented REAIE as one of the partners in the Thinker in Residence program organised by the Government of South Australia. This involved the Residency of Carla Rinaldi from Reggio Emilia and is now an ongoing program of exchange with Carla and Reggio Children.

Jan was awarded the Order of Australia Medal (OAM) in 2012 for services to Early Childhood Education. She has also been the recipient of a University Fellowship to Japan, is a Fellow of the Australian Council of Educators and a Churchill Fellow.

Other professional roles have involved her as a consultant in Multicultural Education, and a lecturer inEarly Childhood Education at the University of Melbourne.

She has also been a Senior Fellow at both Melbourne and Monash Universities.

Her particular educational interest iswith children 2-8years of age andhas involved teaching in Australia, the UK, Singapore, and Canada; organising conferences and workshops; consultancy in schools; and as a keynote speaker at both national and international  conferences.

She has authored two books and has contributed many professional articles to journals both nationally and internationally.

She has had  a significant involvement with the International Baccalaureate Organisation as a Primary Years teacher-educator and consultant, and as an authoriser of schools. Jan is on the editorial board for the Journal of Research in International Educational.

Peter Moss

Peter Moss is Emeritus Professor of Early Childhood Provision at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, UCL Institute of Education, University College London. His interests include early childhood education and care; the workforce in children’s services; the relationship between care, gender and employment; the relationship between early childhood and compulsory education; social pedagogy; and democracy in children’s services. Much of his work over the last 25 years has been cross-national, in particular in Europe. He is co-founder of the International Network on Leave Policies and Research and co-editor of the network’s annual review of leave policies. Recent books include: Transformative Change and Real Utopias in Early Childhood Education; Loris Malaguzzi and the Schools of Reggio Emilia (co-edited with a working group from Reggio Emilia); Alternative Narratives in Early Childhood: an introduction for Students and Practitioners; and Parental Leave and Beyond (co-edited with Ann-Zofie Duvander and Margaret O’Brien).