Professional development research in childhood for the inclusiveness of school contexts

Within the framework of the project entitled, H2020 C4S (“Communities for Sciences – Towards promoting an inclusive approach in Science Education»), the GiocheriaLaboratori educational service of the Municipality of Sesto San Giovanni, in collaboration with the University of Milano-Bicocca (Italian Hub), organised a professional development research pathway. This was aimed at educators and teachers involved in the project, including those practitioners who would be involved in the later pilot phase. The pathway was held on-line (because of the restrictions due to the COVID-19) from February to June 2020, over a total of 10 meetings, attended by 18 teachers and 5 educators from 3 Infant Schools in Sesto San Giovanni, i.e. Fante d’Italia, Monte San Michele and Primavera. The meetings, each lasting two hours, followed a recursive pattern of training and research-action. Therefore, they involved teachers and educators, between the meetings, conducting classroom scientific laboratories with children (140 in total), collecting the pedagogical documentation to review with the pathway leaders during the training. All meetings were videorecorded and fully transcribed; through a thematic analysis of the words of leaders, teachers and educators, the research team tried to answer the following questions: What conditions, according to teachers and educators, promote children’s active participation and inclusion in scientific activities? What are their representations of inclusive science education and their own professional development? Therefore, the analysis identified certain categories to examine the perspectives revealed by a teacher professional development research pathway in the Infant School, in terms of inclusive science.