Territoris d’intersecció entre els centres educatius i les famílies. Un estudi en l’etapa de l’educació infantil

This book aims to analyse the conceptions, expectations and links with families established by 21 professionals from different Early Childhood Education centres and services. The research has been developed from a mixed methodological perspective: quantitative, to facilitate the treatment of the information obtained, but above all qualitative, to facilitate the understanding of the phenomenon studied through the analysis of the results. The study has been organised in two phases: a first one focused on semi-structured interviews with all the professionals involved, and a second one in which three focus group sessions have been carried out with the interviewed professionals, three non-interviewed professionals and the three members of the research team that coordinates the study. The results are structured in a system of seven general categories that show the complexity of the concept of “family”, its transformation process, the relationships between centres and families, and the professional actions to give an educational response adjusted to the current family reality. As for the relationships between centres and families, a change in strategies is shown, but at the same time the difficulty of putting it into practice in a way that strengthens the relationships between one institution and another is evident. Finally, the results also identify some aspects that are accepted and valued by the participating professionals, along with others that, despite emerging from the same group of professionals, generate the need to distance themselves or justify themselves. The research allows us to get in-depth contact with expert professionals and explore and expose the advances, barriers and challenges to improve relationships with families, which in turn implies an improvement in the functioning of the different services.