Ecological and Quality Conditions for Children’s Participation as a Right in Early Childhood Education and Care

Abstract Providing space for children’s voices to be heard, listening to their ideas and giving due weight to their propositions, on all matters that affect them, describes the concept of participation rights according to the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child. Promoting children’s participation as a right from an early age is essential for building democratic values and citizenship, a core principle for EU members and one of the quality criteria for Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) Institutions. Within the framework of children’s participation rights, conditions that may foster or hinder teachers’ efforts to create a participatory atmosphere need to be investigated. This study focused on ECEC teachers and coordinators’ subjective experience, as key players in promoting high-quality educational experiences and as gatekeepers for establishing a rights-based participation culture in ECEC, to unveil conditions for children’s participation. Focus groups were conducted in four European countries – Belgium, Greece, Poland, and Portugal – involving 50 participants. A reflexive latent content analysis was followed, using Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological theory alongside the structural, process, and orientational quality dimensions of ECEC, to organize and interpret conditions described by participants. The horizontal level of analysis revealed quality parameters across countries organized in four themes: Organizational Culture, teachers’ Professional Profiles, Organization of ECEC Environment, and Collaboration among Professionals. Vertical analysis highlighted country-specific conditions referring to Administrative issues, Children characteristics, Teacher characteristics, Pedagogical work, and Family-school relationship. A synthesis of these two levels of analysis resulted in a framework of ecological and quality parameters, as drivers or barriers of participatory strategies influencing implementation of participatory pedagogies in diverse layers of the system with implications regarding pedagogical practice, professional development, research, and policymaking.