Local community and childhood culture: a project proposal

The paper starts with a brief introduction on the emerging modes of governance for the processes of social planning, which "devolve" to territorial bodies the responsibility of activating previously negotiated policies that are relevant and in line with local needs and peculiarities. Then it describes the objectives and methodology of a project proposal that may be reasonably applied to a local community in order to appreciate its organisational and management capacities implemented in defence of specific areas of competence. In particular, driven by the analysis of the concept of childhood as a "social category" and a "historical construct", culturally susceptible of multiple meanings that are often associated with stereotyped or idealised perceptions of the childhood world, the proposed research project focuses its attention on the need to sensitise local communities to these issues. Furthermore, using the methodological suggestions of action research, it outlines an investigation path oriented towards the identification of resources to be activated and of the most appropriate intervention settings to develop participation processes for the de-institutionalisation of childhood services that are func-tional to the construction of an "educational ecosystem" proactively oriented towards the full recognition of citizenship requirements for the little ones.