Narratives and practices on agency and participation of migrant children in early childhood education

The chapter discusses data collected by the CHILD-UP project in Germany and Italy in the context of Early Childhood Education and Care. In particular, data from interviews conducted with professionals as well as data from video-recordings of educational activities are discussed. This chapter explores educators’ position with regard to migrant children’s integration and the relationships between integration and agency in Early Childhood Education and Care. Three main themes emerged from the analysis of the interviews: (a) the rejection of the migration background as a basis for categorising children in order to approach each child as a unique person; (b) the observation of cultural diversity as part of the rich personal identity that makes each child unique; and (c) the interrelation between the proficiency in the language of education and active participation in the sense of exercising agency of migrant children. The observation of facilitative practice supports the idea that when children are valued as social agents in the here and now, and their access to the status of authors of knowledge is facilitated, they are able to construct, and co-construct, narratives of personal and cultural identities that can be exchanged in the negotiation of hybrid identities.