Reggio emilia as cultural activity theory in practice

Rebecca S. New

Reggio Emilia As Cultural ActivityTheory in Practice

This article situates Reggio Emilia’s municipallyfunded early childhood program within the city’scultural traditions of resistance and collaborationand considers what it is about this highly localizedprogram that is appealing and useful to contempo-rary school reform initiatives. Five features ofReggio Emilia’s approach to early education aredescribed: an interpretation of teachers as re-searchers, curriculum as long-term projects, therole of symbolic languages in child developmentand advocacy, the role of the environment, and aninterpretation of parents as partners in the educa-tional enterprise. Other features of the city’s hardwork—specifically, its capacity to make ideas visi-ble and its emphasis on relations among adults aswell as children—are identified as central to Reg-gio Emilia’s continued influence on the field. Thearticle concludes with a proposal to consider schoolsas cites where reform initiatives can be informed byprinciples and practices from Reggio Emilia.

Oregono? Reggio What?And Who Is Emilia?

OVER THE PAST 2 DECADES, the name of thisItalian city has become, for many, the gold

standard for quality early childhood education.Reggio Emilia, long associated with the famouscheese it produces with its neighbor Parma, is nowa moniker for its equally famous municipal pro-gram for children ages 0 to 6. The words ReggioEmilia represent more, however, than a symbol ofstatus and quality. Even as it has joined other namebrand approaches to an early childhood curricu-lum (Montessori, Bank Street, High Scope), thenickname Reggio has become a catalyst for con-versations about a society’s responsibility to itsyoungest citizens. For some, the city’s rapid rise toacclaim represents an unwelcome and increas-ingly globalized hegemony regarding children’searly care and education. For others, the city’sservizi per l’infanzia (early childhood services)highlight previously unimagined and rarely real-ized potentials of children and teachers to learn to-gether, the rights of families to participate, and theresponsibilities of a community to support suchcollaborative engagement. Beyond this, ReggioEmilia demonstrates the power of creative andcritical thinking, especially when helped along bycourage, charisma, and good timing.

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THEORY INTO PRACTICE, 46(1), 5–13

Rebecca S. New is Associate Professor of Child De-velopment and Early Childhood Education in theEliot-Pearson Department of Child Development atTufts University.

Correspondence should be addressed to RebeccaS. New, Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Develop-ment, Tufts University, 105 College Avenue, Medford,MA 02155. E-mail: [email protected]

For those unfamiliar with the city and its work,this issue serves as an invitation to join conversa-tions thathavebeenongoing in theUnitedStates forthe past 2 decades1 about what Reggio Emilia has tooffer to the theory and practice of early childhoodeducation. For those already familiar with thisItalian approach to early childhood education,there is more to contemplate; this special issue de-scribes explorations of Reggio-Emilian principlesand practices that have generated new insights intothe means and meanings of collaborative inquiryand ethical praxis. This article begins by mov-ing quickly beyond the celebrity status of ReggioEmilia’s name to consider its epistemological ori-ginsand toponderhowit is that suchhighlyparticu-larized ideas could grow and develop in one settingand then be dispersed around the world where theyhave taken root and flourished in diverse but hospi-table soils. The article concludes with some conjec-tures about how lessons from Reggio Emilia mightinform our understanding of and improve our ef-forts at school reform.

Reggio Emilia: Small Town, Big Ideas

The groundwork for what is now referred to as“the Reggio Emilia approach” (Edwards, Gandini,& Forman, 1993, 1998) is deeply rooted in thetown’s long history of resistance to social injusticeand its alliance with Italy’s socialist and commu-nist parties (New, 1993). The more obvious ori-gins can be traced back to a time shortly afterWorld War II, when working parents claimedabandoned buildings and petitioned the city tohelp them build new schools for their young chil-dren. Wanting more than the traditional custodialcare, parents found an eloquent spokesman in theform of Loris Malaguzzi, who was inspired bytheir strong sense of purpose and soon joined theirefforts. Parents declared their desire for schoolswhere children were taken seriously and whereeven the youngest could acquire the skills and val-ues of collaboration and critical thinking neces-sary to a free and democratic society. Aided byMalaguzzi’s vision of childhood as rich with unre-alized potentials and building on collaborative tra-ditions, Reggio Emilia opened the city’s first mu-

nicipal preschool in 1963 and played a leadershiprole in the establishment, in 1968, of Italy’s na-tional system of early childhood services.

Over the next decade, as they worked closelywith colleagues in other municipalities committedto public early childhood services, the Reggiani(citizens of Reggio Emilia) remained focused ontheir goal of creating a never-before-imagined en-vironment for children. Inspired by a belief in theneed to design a new kind of school for a new kindof future, Reggio Emilia citizens engaged in regu-lar debates about the need for community-widecollaboration and innovation. The results of theirefforts can be found in the qualities now associ-ated with Reggio Emilia’s approach to early child-hood education. The quantity of services also ex-panded; by the late 1970s, more than a dozenmunicipally funded preschools as well as infant–toddler centers were scattered across the city. To-day, Reggio Emilia has more than three dozenscuole (preprimary schools) and nidi (infant–tod-dler centers) serving approximately half the city’spopulation of young children. It is no surprise tothose familiar with the city that one of their schoolswould be selected as “the best in the world” (“The10 Best Schools in the World,” 1991). Even asmost Italians decried the hyperbole, they also ac-knowledge Reggio Emilia’s reputation of puttingits best efforts into its initiatives. As pointedlynoted by a school administrator in the neighborcity of Parma, the citizens of Reggio Emilia can beremarkably persistent—sono proprio tosti! (“theyare really stubborn!”)—when they come up withwhat they consider a good idea. Reggio Emilia hadmore than one good idea, and they wanted to sharetheir understandings with others.

Of the many features of Reggio Emilia’s workthat have attracted attention and challenged con-temporary interpretations of early childhood ed-ucation, five are central to their success. Thefollowing brief description situates these charac-teristics within their Italian context and highlightstheir affinity to central tenets of sociocultural ac-tivity theory: the concept of teachers as learn-ers, progettazione (long-term project work) as acurriculum vehicle, children’s multiple symboliclanguages as culturally constructed modes of dis-course, the physical environment as a develop-

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mental niche, and parental involvement as a formof civic engagement.

Teachers As Learners

The 1968 Italian law proclaiming preschool asa right for 3- to 5-year-old children also describedthese environments as “laboratories for teachers.”In part due to the absence of any preserviceteacher education for teachers of young childrenin Italy,2 this notion of schools as learning envi-ronments for adults was translated by ReggioEmilia into a form of professional development in-extricable from other key elements of their earlychildhood services. Throughout the early periodof program evolution, Reggio Emilian teachersexplored the ideas of American philosophersDewey and Hawkins, among others, as they con-tributed to a pedagogy of collaborative inquiry in-volving children as well as adults. Along with col-leagues in other Italian cities, educators in ReggioEmilia have since explored Italian traditions ofdocumentation and discussione (conversationscharacterized by debate and negotiation)—inwhich teachers observe, record, share, analyze,and debate their emerging understandings of chil-dren’s ways of thinking and learning and thenshare these understandings with others. This com-bination of philosophically and practically derivedunderstandings of epistemology represents ahighly particularized invention of teaching (Davis,2004) that can be traced back to Socratic traditionsof doubt and inquiry.

Pedagogy of Collaborative Inquiry–For Children and Adults

Malaguzzi was outspoken in his belief that tra-ditional Italian early childhood programs failed torecognize, much less support, children’s socialand intellectual competencies. The need to learnmore about children so as to better teach themresulted in a pedagogical approach to curricu-lum that includes teacher curiosities as well asthose expressed by children themselves within thecontext of long-term open-ended projects or prog-gettazione. Although the starting point of sucha problem-based curriculum varies, many begin

with children’s efforts to understand somethingabout the physical or social worlds (“How does thefountain work?”), address a practical proposition(“Let’s make a water wheel!”), or explore a philo-sophical dilemma (“Can an enemy become afriend?”). As hypotheses are posed, teachers cre-ate conditions in which children can explore andtest those ideas, and frame new hypotheses. As away of keeping everyone, adults as well as chil-dren, alert to the processes and discoveries of thissort of learning experience, teachers document—that is, they collect and analyze extensive data, in-cluding artifacts of children’s work, transcripts ofconversations, and images of children’s activities.Such an integration of curriculum content andpedagogical inquiry illustrates the Vygotskianprinciple that learning leads development, andhighlights the potentials of conditions in whichchildren engage in problem solving “under adultguidance or in collaboration with more capablepeers” (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 86). To those who mar-vel at the sophisticated understandings childrendemonstrate in their project work, it is clear thatthe cultural activity of proggettazione functions asa zone of proximal development where “childrengrow into the intellectual life of those around themand develop the culturally organized psychologi-cal functions” of importance to their socioculturalcontext (Mistry, 2007).

Symbolic Forms of KnowledgeRepresentation

To support teachers’ efforts to learn about thechildren’s ways of thinking, atelieriste (artists)were hired to provide alternative perspectives onchildren’s creative and communicative potentials.These artists-in-residence developed unconven-tional partnerships with classroom teachers, and,with the support of new laboratory spaces knownas atelier, worked together to promote children’sdeveloping ability to symbolically represent theirideas with clay, constructions, drawings, andpaintings. Atelieriste made sure that children hadboth the tools and the need to communicate theirunderstandings through various media. Over timethese symbolic representations, typically regard-ed as art activities, were reconceptualized by

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New Reggio Emilia As Cultural Activity Theory in Practice

Malaguzzi as among the “hundred languages ofchildren.” As teachers collected and contemplatedtranscripts of children’s conversations and de-tailed renderings of their developing understand-ings, they, too, began to refine their own form ofsymbolic representation. Their elegant and com-pelling forms of documentation represent their un-derstandings about children’s learning, their ques-tions about their own teaching, and their advocacyfor more sincere and reciprocal adult–adult andadult–child conversations. The use of images, text,and samples of children’s work illustrate and ex-pand on Vygotskian notions of the role of lan-guage in cognition. Over time, documentation be-came integral to classroom life, illustrating theprinciple that culturally constructed ways of life(eventually) depend on “shared modes of dis-course for negotiating differences in meaning andinterpretation” (Bruner, 1990, p. 13).

The Physical Environment

Few fail to notice the aesthetic sensibility thatpermeates the Italian culture, whether in the color-ful array of vegetables in the market, the carefullypressed jeans of even the most casually dressedteenager, or the importance of design and detailevident in Italian homes and businesses. This at-tention to ambience and the importance of bellafigura (putting one’s best self forward) is perhapsthe most obvious and provocative feature of class-rooms in Reggio Emilia. Teachers want the chil-dren to learn to notice and appreciate colors, tex-tures, and design. They also want them to makefriends, they want parents to feel welcome, andthey want an environment that supports their ownrelational, aesthetic, and intellectual needs as well.Teachers also have advocacy goals in mind, so thatanyone who enters these environments for youngchildren will recognize that something of impor-tance and value is going on. Thus the classroomsand hallways in Reggio Emilia’s municipal pro-grams for young children are sparkling clean, witha palpable absence of clutter. Far from sterile,plants and natural light are in abundance, as aredisplays of found objects, whether rose petals orcolored stones, presented in ways to draw atten-tion to their common and distinct features. Adult

furniture as well as reading material are availablefor parents who decide to stay for a while. Docu-mentation of children’s ongoing and prior work isample, revealing the rich nature of the learning en-vironment and reminding viewers that each schoolhas its own history. Holes in walls invite childrento peek through and find their friends or make newones. Dress-up clothes are housed in a centralspace so children from different classrooms canassist with buttons and zippers and play together.Reggio Emilia teachers describe the environmentas “a third teacher,” deserving of attention and re-spect. Teachers in Reggio Emilia have maximizedthe environment’s potential as a developmentalniche where children acquire the skills and under-standings that enable them to successfully par-ticipate in their cultural community (Super &Harkness, 1986).

Families and Citizens As Partners

The philosophy of school as a system of rela-tions is perhaps the least visible feature of ReggioEmilia’s early childhood program, and yet it issurely the foundation, both philosophically andpractically,of its approach.The Italianemphasisonshared governance and long-standing traditions ofcollaboration among small businesses and farmersis fundamental to the daily operations of ReggioEmilia’smunicipal servizidel’infanzia.Theprinci-ple of collaboration is expressed in a myriad ofways,beginningwith the insistenceby teachers thatthey are not substitutes for parents, but rather, sharewith parents the challenge and responsibility of ed-ucating their children. This orientation to adult re-lations is more than a question of sharing responsi-bility; it is also an Italian interpretation of childrenas catalysts for adult relations (New & Mallory,2005). It also expands on principles of attachmenttheory so that the child’s relationships with non-familial adults are mediated by those with whomshe has an initial attachment (Bove, 1999).

Reggio Emilia as Catalyst for Reflectionand New Relations

This brief description serves as a primer for un-derstanding what it is about Reggio Emilia that

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Reggio Emilia

others are so eager to learn. Given the culturalroots of what remains a highly localized programof services for Italian children and their families, itis worth considering how it is that Reggio Emilia’sideas and practices have been welcomed with suchfervor in a society with an altogether different his-tory, not to mention present day interpretation ofearly care and education. The next part of this arti-cle considers how it is that Reggio Emilia hasmanaged to capture and retain the attention ofearly childhood educators, particularly in theUnited States, and what this Italian provocationmight contribute to school reform initiatives in di-verse sociocultural settings.

When U.S. early childhood educators first be-gan to hear about Reggio Emilia in the late 1980s,they were immersed in a growing debate about thenature of early childhood as distinct from that offormal elementary schooling. Amid renewed in-terest in the “Project Approach” (Katz & Chard,1989), Reggio Emilia’s practices resonated withthe premises and promise of progressive educa-tion. They also provided visible challenges to keytheoretical premises of The National Associationfor the Education of Young Children’s publicationoutlining guidelines for developmentally appro-priate practice (Bredekamp, 1987). In particular,examples from Reggio Emilia problematized aPiagetian interpretation of the child-as-solitarylearner, and instead, demonstrated principles ofsocially constructed knowledge as children andteachers worked collaboratively on projects oftheir own making. It was within this context thatthe specially prepared English-language versionof Reggio Emilia’s traveling exhibition, “TheHundred Languages of Children,” arrived in theUnited States. As developmentally appropriatepractice (DAP) guidelines gained new advocatesas well as critics (Mallory & New, 1994), the trav-eling exhibition and associated conferences putforth alternative views about an early childhoodpedagogy—one that was fascinating and joyful aswell as intellectually rich—for children as well asadults. That Reggio Emilia is now interspersedthroughout the revised developmentally appropri-ate practice guidelines (Bredekamp & Copple,1997) is testimony to the complex relationship be-tween these two orientations, and to the power and

clarity of Reggio Emilia’s message at a time whenpeople were looking for guidance as well asinspiration.

It was not just early childhood educators whowere thinking deeply about appropriate pedagogyfor young children. In great part due to the grow-ing body of brain research that reconfirmed theimportance of the early years, the National Re-search Council responded with its own documenton new understandings of how children learn(Bowman, Donovan, & Burns, 2001). ReggioEmilia capitalized on this newly recognized im-portance assigned to the period of early childhood,expanding on its means of dissemination throughincreased delegations to Reggio Emilia, new Eng-lish-language publications, and collaborativeU.S.-based conferences, often linked to its travel-ing exhibition. The congruence of these initiativeswas instrumental in establishing Reggio Emilia assomething to be reckoned with, and word aboutReggio Emilia spread. The news media was anincreasingly willing participant, as evidenced byarticles in such prestigious publications asNewsweek and Education Week and several PBSprograms. Within this context, Reggio Emilia hadmuch to offer to the discourse on the “what” andthe “how” of an early childhood education.

Beyond its broad appeal, ample publicity, andresonance with contemporary issues, ReggioEmilian educators played a major role in the city’sgrowing reputation—they did not just talk abouttheir work; they demonstrated how and why theydid what they did. They did not just promotethe idea of relationships as indispensable to learn-ing; they helped to create new partnerships andsupportive environments for teachers and otheradults.

Seeing Is Believing

Surely the most obvious contribution to itsglobal status is the city’s willingness to go publicwith both the practical and ideological dimensionsof their work. The ability to articulate and dem-onstrate “the what and the why” (New, 1998) oftheir work was expressed first through the exhibi-tion and soon thereafter by the words and ac-tions of the Italians themselves. Malaguzzi did not

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mince words when he talked about his wish tochange the culture of childhood. Not confident inthe typical forms of scholarly dissemination, heconvinced the city to support the creation of anenormous (100 meters long) exhibition to travelthroughout Western Europe. The exhibition washugely successful in attracting the attention of ed-ucators in other nations, notably Germany andSweden, and in 1987 an English-language versionarrived in the United States. The exhibition hassince been translated into several other languagesand has by now traveled across oceans to nationsas diverse and distant as Australia, Brazil, andJapan.

This “making visible” occurred through othermeans as well, including experiences that wereeven more powerful and personal. The notion ofstudy tours or delegations was a new experiencefor many teachers and academics. This firsthandapproach to learning about another culture’s edu-cational practices quickly caught on, and thou-sands of non-Italian educators have since seen forthemselves “what all the talk is about.” These first-hand experiences in Reggio Emilia played a majorrole in convincing skeptics that activities andlearning depicted in the exhibit and described injournal articles were, in fact, legitimate represen-tations of ongoing classroom practices. The expe-riences of observing and discussing activitieswithin the real-life contexts of the schools andclassrooms gave some participants the confidenceto come home and explore these new ideas and as-sociated practices in their own settings. For thosewho wished to have more support in translat-ing Reggio Emilia’s work into U.S. classrooms,the increased availability of master teachers fromItaly also helped to make visible the processes ofthis work with children and adults. Not only didthe new partnerships provide essential supportfor teachers attempting to rethink their rolesin children’s early learning, they also demon-strated, by example, yet another feature that con-tinues to play out in American discourse: the needto reconsider conditions for adult learning, andespecially the powerful role of relationships insupporting the risk-taking essential to shifting par-adigms, whether that risk entails allowing childrento veer away from a predetermined curriculum

plan due to a new discovery of their own, or in-viting parents into a more collaborative andreciprocal partnership

The Role of Relationshipsin Teaching and Learning

Many of the ideas that Reggio Emilia educatorsdemonstrated in their own classrooms and eventu-ally brought to the United States were consistentwith, or extensions of, previously held ideals of aprogressive early childhood education. Althoughsome of those ideals were dramatically elaboratedon—particularly children’s newly realized com-petencies at their multiple symbolic languages—perhaps none carried as much eventual weight asthe implicit message of what Reggio Emilia sym-bolized: a reconceptualization of an early child-hood education that nurtures and challenges adultsas well as children. Although the image of chil-dren has been what has most inspired U.S. educa-tors, it is the image of teachers that has likely sus-tained their interest and commitment. At a timewhen teachers in the United States have becomeincreasingly subject to critique and control,Reggio Emilia offers an entirely different vision ofa professional early childhood educator—onewith a deep respect for and curiosity about chil-dren, an unquenchable curiosity about the teach-ing–learning process, and a capacity for explor-ation and innovation that could be sustainedthrough collaborative relationships with otheradults. This image of the teacher has proven to beboth enticing and challenging to American edu-cators, many of whom have found permission,through Reggio Emilia’s example, to speak outagainst practices they view as contrary to chil-dren’s best interests. For those weary of the lowesteem assigned to the work with young children,Reggio Emilia proposed a working environmentresponsive to their intelligence and creativity. Forothers, Reggio Emilia provided a new vocabularywith which to describe their work with children,and, in fact, phrases such as “the image of thechild” and “children’s symbolic languages” arenow part of the discourse and the thinking of manyU.S. educators. For those tired of conflicts withchildren’s parents, Reggio Emilia offered a new

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Reggio Emilia

way of thinking about the home–school relation-ship (New & Mallory, 2005). Of all of the sugges-tions that Reggio Emilia has put forth to improvethe working and learning conditions of teachers,the role of relationships embedded within thepractice of collaborative inquiry has been the mostprofound.

Schools As Zonesof Proximal Development

The aims of this article have been twofold: (a)to describe Reggio Emilia and its municipal earlychildhood program as part of a particular culturalplace, and (b) to examine the phenomenon ofits transportability into other cultural settings asit might inform school reform agenda. ReggioEmilia has become known around the world pri-marily due to its accessibility and the visibility ofits practices, its multiple methods of representingknowledge, and its advocacy for the often unrec-ognized and unrealized competencies of chil-dren. But there are other reasons why ReggioEmilia has inspired change in so many schoolsand teachers.

A vast majority of U.S. reform initiatives arebased on opinions about what is wrong withschools, classrooms, teachers, children, and fami-lies. In contrast, Reggio Emilia portrays optimisticrather than deficit views of both the people and thepotentials of educational institutions, and has cap-italized on the sense of personal pride and respon-sibility associated with other Italian local ini-tiatives in the design and operation of servizidel’infanzia. Reggio Emilia’s preschools and in-fant–toddler centers are guided by the principle ofschools as “systems of relations,” in which theneeds and interests of children and families arelinked to and dependent on the needs and interestsof teachers, parents, and community members.This principle is not only theoretically grounded;it is also politically savvy and surely attributes tothe high level of fiscal and community supportprovided to the schools and teachers. ReggioEmilia is a living and breathing example of theItalian tradition of experimentation and innova-tion, and the benefits of hard work, courage, and

collaborative inquiry in constructing meaningfulinterpretations of a quality education (New, 2005).The city’s commitment to its early childhood ser-vices also demonstrates the importance of publictalk about schools and schooling (Fennimore,2000). Indeed, Reggio Emilia’s own story is all themore inspiring because it so clearly illustrates thereciprocal dynamics of conflict, social develop-ment, and cultural change—in schools and in soci-ety (Turiel, 1999).

These characteristics—a sense of optimism,pride, support, and an openness to experimenta-tion and innovation—derive directly from the lo-cal features of Reggio Emilia’s servizi perl’infanzia but respond to needs that know no cul-tural boundaries. Indeed, they are fundamental toinspired and inspiring learning environments.That so many teachers have found these qualitiesmissing in their work environments is surely a ma-jor part of Reggio Emilia’s attraction; this under-standing offers new insights into conditions foreducational reform initiatives. That so many edu-cators have been inspired to engender these quali-ties in other settings around the world illustrateswhat it might mean to consider schools as zones ofproximal development for adults as well as chil-dren. Such an interpretation of a zone is not in ref-erence to a child’s potential, or even the possibil-ities realized when a child and teacher worktogether, but rather, refers to a set of conditionsrepresented by the larger sociocultural environ-ment within which learning and development takeplace (Mistry, 2007). We have much to learnfrom environments beyond Reggio Emilia wherepeople are responsive to current interests andemerging understandings, supportive of relation-ships and provocations, and characterized by col-laborative activity—and many are described in thearticles written by authors in this issue of TheoryInto Practice. Whether a statewide project in Ver-mont, a citywide Head Start initiative in Chicago,or a laboratory school in New Hampshire, adultsin these cultural environments have created andutilized what Vygotsky referred to as cultural-ly constituted mediational means to accomplishgoals particular to local circumstances.

The descriptions of learning and developmentin children—including those with special needs,

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adults, schools, and entire communities—that aredescribed in the following pages, are consistentwith Rogoff’s (2003) reconceptualization of hu-man development as the process of “people’schanging participation in the sociocultural activi-ties of their communities” (p. 52). They also illus-trate the particular relationship between cultureand education (Bruner, 1996) by reminding us ofthe dynamic nature of culture itself. Each of thesestories, and many yet to be told, show that changeis possible when people in particular places decideto work hard together in a way that is mutuallysupportive and open to a new image not just ofchildren, but of schools and communities and amore just society. That is the sort of school reformthat Dewey dreamed of, that Malaguzzi fought for,and that the 21st century desperately needs.

Notes

1. Reggio Emilia has been a focus of interest andinquiry in some Western European nations for atleast twice as long.

2. A new law mandating university preservice teach-er education for Italian early childhood and ele-mentary teachers was passed in 1998 and it is onlyrecently that graduates of those programs havesought employment in these programs, work-ing alongside other teachers whose training hascome almost entirely in the form of in-serviceexperiences.

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