D.02. Early Childhood Education and Care Quality: What Is It and How Can It Be Measured

Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) quality is central (EU Council, 2022), if we are to offer children nurturing environments, where they can gradually build their knowledge, abilities and competences of increasing complexity. In fact, ECEC quality is the subject of much European policy.

ECEC can be influential in children's lives (Melhuish et al., 2015) and in that of their families, with working mothers often struggling to strike a balance between care and other duties. And yet, ECEC can make a difference positively, but it can even be detrimental, if not of good quality (Melhuish e al., 2015). It is imperative, therefore, to place children and their needs at the centre of any discourse on quality with the moral imperative "primum, non nocere", or "do no significant harm".

Recently, the Italian Ministry of Education extended preschool quality evaluation up to national level, after a thorough experimentation (Freddano & Stringher, 2021).

With this panel, the aim is to encourage scholars and practitioners to reflect on quality in ECEC settings of different kinds:

- the home learning environment, often shaping children's minds and experiences

- formal and informal ECEC settings, from childcare through to preschool and other ancillary services.

Contributions dealing with the very concept of ECEC quality, with its operationalization and evaluation are particularly welcomed, especially those that can take children's perspectives into account. System quality is also in focus in this call and conceptualization of a competent ECEC system may find a suitable place for discussion.