Parent involvement

Home-school relations and parental involvement have been conceptualized in Italian early childhood education as partecipazione a term that implies an active taking part by parents, teachers, children and other members of the community to the life, culture and decisions concerning children and the educational services created for them. Today it can be considered both a pedagogical and a social concept referring to any process designed to construct a web of human relationship between the family and the school and encompassing practices of communication and sharing responsibilities and practices enacted by caregivers and teachers to involve parents and support them. In the chapter, which is part of the Italian section of an International Encyclopedia, the author illustrates the Italian tradition of family participation and involvement and discusses some of the new challenges that parents and teachers are asked to face in contemporary Italy.