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Documentation in this form is not just the display of a project’s topic-related
materials but is pedagogical. Dahlberg, Moss, and Pence (1999) suggest that pedagogical
documentation is a “vital tool for the creation of a reflective and democratic pedagogical
practice” (p. 145). Documentation as described by Gandini and Goldhaber (2001) is a
way of democratizing early childhood education through the collaborative and collective
voices of children, teachers and families.
Pedagogical documentation actually refers to two related subjects: a process and
an important content in that process (Dahlberg et al., 1999). Pedagogical documentation
as content refers to the material which records what the children are saying and doing, the
work of the children, “for example, hand-written notes of what is said and done, audio
recordings and video camera recordings, still photographs, computer graphics, the
children’s work itself.” Together with the children’s work, this material makes the
pedagogical work concrete and visible (or audible), and as such it is an important
ingredient for the process” (Dahlberg et al., 1999, p. 148).
The emergent curriculum in the schools in Reggio Emilia stands in stark contrast
to those in North America which use a theme approach. At the same time, an emerging
curriculum can be quite different than a curriculum focused on projects. In Reggio, the
focus is on a projected curriculum and not necessarily a project curriculum. In Reggio,
the term used to describe curriculum is progettazione which means to project to the next
steps. As illustrated in the panels of the Hundred Languages of Children Exhibit,
documentation is not only concerned with project topics but with constructing
progettazione in the process of each activity or project. Throughout the process of
documentation, the curriculum is adjusted accordingly through a continuous dialogue