2021 Research Symposium
Landscapes of Relationships: Inspiration, exchange, and dialogue for the future of childhood
Auditorium Speakers
Biography
Claudia Giudici, psychologist, has been President of Reggio Children Srl since 2016, and a member of Reggio Children’s Board of Directors since 2011.
She is the author of articles, and curator and editor of exhibitions and publications realised by Reggio Children. She is currently professor of educational psychology at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia.
She was President of the Istituzione of Preschools and Infant-toddler Centres of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia from 2009 to 2016.
For Reggio Children she has had responsibility for several research projects on the design of educational spaces, and the areas of teaching practice, and for professional development projects and consulting in the areas of psycho-pedagogy and educational services.
She is a member of the National Inter-ministry Peer Group for the provision of educational services for children aged 2-3 years.
For Reggio Children Giudici has co-ordinated several research projects including the project on family participation with the University of New Hampshire (USA) and Bicocca University of Milan, and research on the theme of individual and group learning and pedagogical evaluation with Harvard University-Project Zero.
She also co-ordinated the research group in Reggio Emilia for the project titled CARE – Curriculum and Quality Analysis and Impact Review of European Early Childhood Education and Care.
Giudici has worked in the role of pedagogical co-ordinator of municipal infant-toddler centres and preschools, and as psycho-pedagogical co-ordinator of Reggio Emilia’s municipal Centre for Documentation and Educational Research of Infant toddler Centres and Preschools.
She collaborates on realising publishing projects and professional learning journeys, through participating as a speaker in seminars and workshops in Italy and abroad.
Claudia Giudici, President of Reggio Children Srl
Re-search and Research
Jan’s vision for REAIE as we consider re-searching for a revitalised understanding of childhood and learning comes to fruition through our inaugural research symposium. Jan asks not only what does it mean to re-search’…but what is it that we are seeking to better understand?
Through collaboration documentation, as a strategy for research, we come closer to the children, to better understand their perspectives as well as our own and the meanings we are enabled to construct as they encounter the world.
As co-participants in classrooms, working with and beside young children, we seek to create a context of listening to each other in democratic spaces which invite collaborative reflection and deeper thinking as we are prompted to uncover perspectives other than our own subjective interpretations.
We are delighted to have Jan’s participation in this significant initiative, a first for REAIE. We know that members and the broader educational community will greatly value Jan’s perspective and the inspirations she will share with us as we embark on our day.
Jan Millikan, OAM, Founder REAIE
Troubling conventional understandings of research in alliance with Reggio Emilia
In this opening presentation, Dr. Stefania Giamminuti (Curtin University, WA) and Dr. Jane Merewether (Edith Cowan University, WA) illuminate how the Reggio Emilia educational project acts as a provocateur, troubling conventional understandings of educational research in Italy and beyond.
They plant a seed of discomfort that opens a space for the presentations that follow to undo perceived truths about what research is, can be, and can do. Stefania and Jane aim to uncover discomforts with traditional images of research, envisaging possibilities for viewing children, educators, and materials as co-reseachers.
They draw on their alliances with Reggio Emilia and with early childhood settings in Australia to create new spaces for thinking research-practice-theory as interconnected and interdependent.
Dr Stefania Giamminuti & Dr Jane Merewether
