Professional Development Tools Supporting Participation Rights in Early Childhood Education (2019-1-PT01-KA202-060950) -

Since the adoption of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, in 1989, children's participation has been considered a fundamental right, and a key aspect for developing a culture of human rights, democracy, and rule of law. Understood as children’s right to participate in all matters affecting them, freely expressing their views, and having them respected and considered, children’s participation in society must be protected and encouraged from an early age.

Even though ensuring children's right to participate is described as essential for high-quality early childhood education (ECE), its implementation remains a challenge for many ECE professionals. To support high-quality ECE through the implementation of children's right to participate, we propose a multilevel professional development approach.

Three groups of professionals will be the main participants of this multilevel professional development approach:

PARTICIPA project aims to raise awareness on the importance of children’s right to participate, and particularly of promoting children’s participation in ECE settings, to improve the quality of these settings. Some of the main goals include:

• enabling professional’s broader knowledge on children’s right to participate, increasing awareness of barriers, facilitators, benefits, and practices fostering child participation;
• promoting professionals’ positive attitudes towards children’s right to participate in ECE settings;
• empowering professionals to manage classroom practices and organizational supports and resources in order to enhance children’s right to participate;
• and facilitating professionals’ teamwork at classroom and organizational/ECE coordination levels.

In order to achieve these goals, the team will develop three open (i.e., free) professional development resources:

(1) a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on children’s right to participate in ECE, targeting the three groups of professionals;

(2) a self-assessment tool designed to support teachers and assistants in delivering high-quality ECE through participatory practices at the classroom and child level; and

(3) a self-assessment tool designed to support coordinators/managers in enhancing participatory practices based on organizational resources.

Internal Coordinator: Sílvia Barros

Líder: Cecília Aguiar, ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa

Internal Members (integrated in inED): Sílvia Barros, Manuela Pessanha, Sara Araújo

Collaborators: Cristiana Guimarães e Vera Coelho

Partners:

• Portugal (ISCTE-UL; ESE-IPP; APEI)
• Belgium (Odisee)
• Greece (Helenic Open University)
• Poland (Warsaw University)