Promoting the “Child-centered approach” through an e-learning training course. Problems and prospects

The child-centred approach refers to the specific competencies that practitioners develop, in order to promote children’s participation, initiative, exploration and reflection in meaningful activities for an extended period of time. It is considered a pivotal experience to promote children’s well-being and learning and it is an index of the quality in the educational services. However, the meanings associated to the “child-centred education” are often contradictory and its presuppositions are seldom stated explicitly. This contribution presents an analysis of the evaluation offered by a group of students that attended an e-learning training course, concerning the promotion of child-centered practice in early childhood education services, within a European project (Erasmus + 2017-1-UK01-KA201-036798). In particular, it was decided to promote some professional skill related to documentation, considered an essential professional skills in the socio-constructivist perspective. However, the analysis of the students‘ answers gives evidence that a “romantic” approach is quite strong in some initial conceptions of educational approach and the “developmentalist” and the “socio-constructivist” perspectives are not straightforwardly present in the beliefs of future educators. These results show that centrality of the child can be supported by the on-line courses, although it is necessary to present an initial framework that introduces a general orientation to interpret the material presented and to introduce changes in professional practice.