Sustainability of early childhood education inspired by the Reggio Emilia Approach during the emergency times: A phenomenographic research

Abstract

Distance/online education has been an important solution to ensure the continuity of education during the pandemic. The current research utilized the phenomenographic analysis to explore experiences of 260 Reggio Emilia-inspired early childhood educators in Turkey on their online/distance educational practices during the lockdown. The findings showed that only %35 of the educators was able to do either synchronous online education or distance education inspired by Reggio Emilia philosophy. Some of them tried to do distance education more similar to the Reggio Emilia preschools in Italy while some could not do anything at all. While they were asked about what online/distance education inspired by Reggio Emilia should include, they stated the following features: Hands-on, inquiry-based, parent-involved, rich home environment, nature/outdoor-involved, small group work, interactive, interest-based, need-based, and homework-based. However, it is understood from their experiences that they do more synchronized online education instead of other ways of distance education or distance learning, which is emphasized more in Reggio Emilia philosophy. The results show how dramatic the situation is for the sustainability of early childhood education inspired by Reggio Emilia during the pandemic, as only these 91 participants out of 260 Reggio Emilia-inspired educators remained inspired by Reggio Emilia during the closure. They stated on which subject they should receive in-service training.