Words that announce the lives of others: when different backgrounds meet in early childhood education

Abstract

ABSTRACT

The article addresses the theme of encounters in educational contexts focused on babies and young children, aged between 0 and 3 years-old, emphasizing the challenges and possibilities that emerge with the arrival of migrant children. The research is set in the city of Sesto San Giovanni, in Italy, where early childhood education institutions face, daily, cultural diversity resulted from migration processes. The study is grounded in a sensitive listening to the experiences and statements of teachers working in these settings, aiming to understand how the meanings of welcoming, teaching, and pedagogical attitudes are shaped in these encounters. The teachers’ narratives reveal tensions, shifts, and learning processes that materialize in the institutional routine, indicating that the presence of migrant children calls for ethical and political repositioning in pedagogical practice. Thus, the article proposes a reflection on how the act of educating is reinvented in the face of otherness, breaking away from homogeneous conceptions of childhood and challenging traditional ways of organizing educational work. The analysis suggests that welcoming is not limited to a physical or emotional reception, but it involves recognizing the other in their uniqueness, generating new meanings for coexistence and for the act of teaching. Finally, the encounters described by the teachers indicate that, even amid difficulties and contradictions, it is possible to build educational practices committed to listening, respecting, and collectively constructing the feeling of belonging.