Evaluation and quality culture in Italian Early Childhood Education and Care services

This article addresses the debate on the quality of early childhood care and education services in Italy since the early 1990s, in the context of the reflections and the proposals arising in Europe. By reviewing the most significant experiences of evaluation of such services undertaken in over thirty years, the article exposes the prevailing guidelines, both at the level of educational policies, especially regional ones, and at the level of the pedagogical debate. The paper concludes by showing the current challenges posed by the need to spread a culture of evaluation that is able to effectively promote processes of quality improvement.