The child as citizen: holder of rights and competent. The Reggio Emilia educational experience

Abstract

The Convention on the Rights of the Child, approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 20 November 1989, states in Article 2 that “States Parties shall respect and ensure the rights set forth in the present Convention to each child within their jurisdiction without discrimination of any kind, irrespective of the child's or his or her parent's or legal guardian's race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national, ethnic or social origin, property, disability, birth or other status.” Therefore, the child becomes a citizen from birth and is competent to learn from birth. Competent in learning, asking questions, seeking answers, and generating a culture of their own. By affirming the right to be recognised as a citizen of the present, competent, culture-generating, we affirm the strength and extraordinary potential of the child and their right to express it. Infant-toddler centres and preschools are excellent educational places, where to build the paradigm of care and community for the child as citizen. Not all-encompassing places for education, but essential. They help to process, rework and update childhood data, to define childhood and to be defined by them and to define societies. It is not just the care of the child, it is the child’s culture, it is the child’s look at the world, their generative whys. The great cultural and political “revolution” of the last century – never completely accomplished – is making children active protagonists, leaving them their autonomy, considering them as holders of rights and culture. But now we know that society needs its childhood, too.