Recently, the article "Researchers make a U-turn: Stop documenting the youngest children" was featured in the magazine Vi Lärare. The article refers to a study and claims that documentation in preschool can be harmful to the youngest children. The article points out that traditional documentation, using notepads or cameras, disrupts interaction and slows down language development when the teacher shifts focus from direct contact to documentation.

We would argue that this criticism, as presented in Jan Huss's article, is too one-sided and simplistic if it is used as a basis for rejecting educational documentation in preschools and schools. For us, documentation is not primarily a method or a task. It is an approach.

Why educational documentation?

In Sweden, the term “pedagogical documentation” was introduced by Gunilla Dahlberg after a visit to Reggio Emilia in the mid-1980s. The word pedagogical was added to distinguish it from the developmental psychological documentation that was prevalent in Swedish preschools at the time. With this addition, she wanted to emphasize that documentation is part of an educational philosophy—not just an administrative task or a tool for collecting data, evidence, recording, or reporting. Instead, pedagogical documentation is about consciously relating documentation to reflection, theory, ethics, views on children, and shared understanding. The difference is crucial. In the municipal preschools in Reggio Emilia, they only talk about documentazione (documentation) because the educational nature of documentation is self-evident. In Sweden, the word pedagogical was added to mark the difference between a bureaucratic tool and a relational, philosophical, and democratic endeavor.

Educational documentation as democratic practice

Historically, the educational philosophy was born in Reggio Emilia as a political response to the damage caused by fascism. The villagers of Villa Cella who built the first school said: “We didn’t want our children to be duped by fascism, as we were.” This is a reminder that democracy is not a finished state but a constant practice – and that preschool and school are among the few places where this practice can be exercised every day. Democracy is relational work. It is something we do, not something we have.

Loris Malaguzzi saw educational documentation as a commitment to democracy and participation. Documentation makes children's learning processes and educational practices visible and provides opportunities for discussion and reflection. In the municipal preschools in Reggio Emilia, learning is not referred to in terms of "results" but is observed in connection with relationships with and between others and other things. Learning is also observed in conceptual development, when educators take the time to listen to children and document their ideas and theories rather than just taking pictures of them.

In municipal preschools in Reggio Emilia, documentation is not a "product" that is collected in binders, computers, or cloud services. It is alive and central to the purpose of reflecting together with the children, even the youngest ones. Documentation is the material that makes collective memories possible. Through film sequences, photos, audio, transcriptions, the children's own artefacts, creations, constructions, printed dialogues and more, stories, memories and experiences are created that children, parents and educators can participate in. It provides an opportunity to gain insight into what engages children, what children express, show, need and try to understand. But for this to really matter, joint reflection is required: children and adults together. These dialogues are a practice of democracy, where every person has the right to create, think, and express ideas.

The problem with reducing documentation to a method

When educational documentation is understood solely as a tool for highlighting children's learning, demonstrating processes, finding "evidence," and collecting documentation to share with families, principals, project descriptions, etc., we risk turning educators into observers on the sidelines of children's lives. The documentation then becomes adult-focused and a skewed power perspective arises. The children are lost and become objects rather than subjects. This is also a criticism that many people raise and have raised in relation to pedagogical documentation. Furthermore, educational documentation has been criticized in light of how documentation is sometimes used. Tools such as iPads, cameras, or notepads can become barriers if they are used in a mechanical or instrumental way. The technology can then disrupt relationships or get in the way of interaction and learning. Here, it is important to have a professional discussion about how, when, and for whom we document. Educational documentation is more than an evaluation tool—its purpose is to bring us closer to the children, not further away from them.

When documentation is reduced to a product, a routine, reporting, or a receipt for the work done, it easily becomes an instrument in a system of control, and the relational and reflective dimension is lost. Interaction with the children can be disrupted, and documentation risks getting in the way of close contact and genuine interaction. It is therefore entirely understandable that both practitioners and some researchers are critical—especially when documentation is treated as a bureaucratic requirement rather than a conscious pedagogical practice. When this happens, children do not become participants in their own learning—instead, they become "targets" or "objects" of analysis.

Educational documentation requires a culture of reflection, craftsmanship, and intuition. Understanding and discerning what should be documented, when it is relevant, and in what way. Practitioners who work with educational documentation in a reflective practice develop this skill over time: listening, seeing details, understanding what is going on between the children in different contexts, and at the same time gaining insight into themselves and their organization. The question is not only what are the children doing? but also what in the education enables children to become...?

When we in Sweden talk about documentation taking time, disrupting relationships, or becoming an obstacle to interaction, it is often because we are using it in the wrong way. We get stuck in quickly photographing and capturing a product. But in the municipal preschools in Reggio Emilia, documentation is a pedagogy of listening.

This means that:

• document ideas, not activities
• focus on reasoning, not performance
• analyze children's theories, not their behaviors

That is why the documentation is analyzed by the educators and shared with the families—not for the sake of reporting, but to invite exchange, subjectivity, and shared interpretations. This is what makes documentation a democratic tool.

Educational documentation as an approach: what it can be – what can it become…?

In the contexts we have experience of, practices inspired by Reggio Emilia's educational philosophy, educational documentation is more than just a method or a tool for collecting data or sharing information. It is an ethical and democratic approach, a way of relating to children with curiosity, listening, and reflection—the child and learning as living, changing, and relational. Educational documentation then becomes "visible listening" (as Carla Rinaldi describes it) through our curious approach, in close interaction with children, their questions, thoughts, needs, strengths, actions, and interactions.

Our way of listening means being open to doubts and uncertainty. This listening means being open to being in crisis. This listening accepts frustration. Being open to others means having the courage to come into this room and say, "I hope to be different when I leave, not necessarily because I agree with you but because your thoughts caused me to think differently." That is why documentation is so fascinating and so difficult to share. Documentation as visible listening can help you to understand and to change your identity and can invite you to reflect on your values. Listening also means to welcome uncertainty, to live in the zone of proximal development. Only if I have doubts, can I welcome the others and have the courage to think what I believe is not the truth but only my point of view. I need the point of view of others in order to confirm or change my own point of view. Real listening requires the suspension of judgement and prejudice. The relationship between peace and prejudice concerns the ability or disability to be good listeners. This is where education for peace begins. There is a connection with the pedagogy of listening. Peace is a way of thinking, learning and listening to others, a way of looking at differences as an element of connection, not separation. Peace is a way of remembering that my point of view is not the best and I need that of others. Here we find the roots of participation in school as a place to encounter differences. We must have the courage to share, to agree or disagree. Listening provides the opportunity for professional development and human development.

Carla Rinaldi

Of course, work with pedagogical documentation must be critically examined, problematized, and questioned—always! We must always humbly and critically examine our choices, our working methods, our methods and strategies—and our purpose behind them. There is a risk that the democratic and relational approach on which pedagogical documentation is based will be misunderstood or forgotten. Children are and should be seen as competent co-creators in their own learning process, not as passive objects.

Practices inspired by Reggio Emilia's philosophy foster a reflective culture, where both children and educators regularly pause to think together. They explore what happens in learning, why it happens, and how to move forward, and different perspectives are used to shape the direction of the work. In this context, pedagogical documentation is used as an approach to see the invisible and make learning visible to children, educators, and parents. The documentation becomes a basis for reflection, dialogue, interaction, and further planning. At the same time, it helps to ensure that the environment, teaching, and content support, challenge, and adapt to—and together with—the children's engagement, abilities, questions, and needs. This means that pedagogical documentation does not disrupt—but rather supports—relationships, learning, and community.

This approach creates space to reflect on what learning is, linked to our mission in school legislation and curricula, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, etc., but above all—linked to what is important for the child. Not just what can be measured, demonstrated, confirmed, or proven, but as a way of seeing all of the child's different skills and abilities in relation to education, in relation to the environment, materials—learning tools, in relation to facts, imagination, creativity, and thinking. Educational documentation as an approach becomes a tool for building relationships, trust, and understanding—with respect for the child's own rhythm and curiosity.

Educational documentation as an act of resistance

Education is always a political discourse, whether we know it or not.

Loris Malaguzzi, Reggio Children

It is difficult to talk about pedagogical documentation without talking about democracy. Not democracy as a formal system – but as a way of living together, where “democracy is… a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience” (Dewey). Reggio Emilia’s philosophical pedagogy reminds us that every note, every photo, every fragment of a child’s thought is a political choice: Whose voices do we make visible? Whose stories do we allow to shape our shared reality?

The view of humanity that inspires us from the municipal preschools in Reggio Emilia – a view of the child as “a subject with rights… who learns through the hundred languages” – makes documentation an act of recognition. When children's hypotheses, play, humor, strategies, conflicts, and trials are documented, we show that they carry knowledge, perspective, and value. This is what makes documentation a democratic agent: it makes silence impossible.
But documentation is also about seeing differences. Reggio Emilia's educational philosophy actively seeks out the many perspectives, the many ways of being human. It always asks the crucial question: "Whose voice do we not hear/see?" At a time when education is often standardized, simplified, and measured, this becomes a form of intellectual resistance. Not because difference is a problem, but because difference is a prerequisite for creativity, democracy, and critical thinking.  This is also where educational documentation becomes a philosophical tool. It trains us—children and adults alike—to see theories and not just behaviors. To ask: How do we know what we think we know? What are our conclusions based on? Whose interpretation prevails? Are there other ways of seeing? Critical thinking is born of listening, not obedience.

This is precisely why documentation is a tool for democracy: it shifts power from adults to children, from instruction to listening, from results to relationships.

On its website, Reggio Children highlights the elements that make this philosophy possible:

• collegial and relationship-based work
• a bunch of teachers with the kids every day
• the studio and the studio assistant
• the environment as an educator
• documentation to make knowledge processes visible
• participation of families

It is a system built on listening – not on control. On collective analysis – not on individual reporting. On subjectivity – not on measurability. The role of documentation is both humble and radical: it makes learning visible, but above all, it makes us visible to each other. It forces us to come together around our education, our organization, etc., and listen to diversity and the values we want to live by.

And perhaps that is precisely why documentation is needed now more than ever. Not as a means of control, not as administration – but as an ethical promise: that no story should stand alone, and that no voice should be lost in the noise. So the question is not whether we should document. The question is: Do we want a preschool that empowers children as thinking, co-creative subjects – or one that reduces them to objects of assessment?

If we choose the first option, we must also understand what documentation actually is:

• An ethical commitment.
• A democratic tool.
• A culture of listening.
• A political act.

As Reggio Children puts it: “Education is an opportunity for the growth and emancipation of the individual and the collective… a meeting place where freedom, democracy and solidarity are practiced.” This is what is at stake when we discuss pedagogical documentation. It is not a question of technology – it is a question of what kind of society we want to build.

References
Dahlberg, G., Moss, P., & Pence, A. (2007). Beyond quality in early childhood education and care: Languages of evaluation. Routledge.
Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and Education: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education. Macmillan.
Rinaldi, C. (2006). In dialogue with Reggio Emilia: Listening, researching and learning. Routledge.
Malaguzzi, L. (1993). For an education based on relationships. Reggio Children.
Palmer, A., & Lenz Taguchi, H. (2022–2024). Language development and vocabulary in the youngest preschool children. Report, ULF project, Stockholm University. PDF
Fondazione Reggio Children. (n.d.). Official website. https://www.frchildren.org/en/
Reggio Australia. (n.d.). Orienting democracy. https://reggioaustralia.org.au/orienting-democracy/
Vi lärare. (2025). “Researchers make a U-turn: Stop documenting the youngest children”. https://www.vilarare.se/nyheter/forskola/forskarna-tvarvander-sluta-dokumentera-yngsta-barnen/