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In early childhood education and care services, documentation is seen as an instrument for ‘giving children voice’ and for engaging children in their educational process (Formosinho and Pascal 2016; Kroll and Meier 2018; Robertson et al. 2017). At the same time, documentation plays a key role within the decision-making process in which children should be allowed to participate: it is the space where the adults’ decisions are made and shared, whereas within the child protection system, it remains more likely to reflect the adults’ voice (Caldwell et al. 2019). Thus, documentation, especially when in written alphabetic form, illustrates the power of writing and written text (Biffi 2019b). Given that alternative care services are institutional contexts in which the exercise of power and control is inevitable and determined by a given ‘dispositif’ as defined by Michael Foucault (1975), documentation can represent a strategy for giving voice to children or-on the contrary-a strategy for objectivating them, and thus preventing them from authentically engaging with their own care plans. This paper, by drawing on the different meanings held by documentation in ECEC contexts, in terms of viewing it as ‘equipped with agentic power’ (Alasuutari and Kelle 2015) reflects on the meanings of (pedagogical) documentation in alternative care settings, as a transitional space between ‘being spoken for’ and ‘speaking for oneself’, in light of a rights-based and pedagogical framework. A further aim of the paper is to explore possible approaches enabling children to participate in the documentation process, focusing on the practices able to involve children in the writing and reading of documentation concerning themselves.

The main aim of this paper is to document the complex relationships between competitiveness and social cohesion. These relationships are illustrated via a case study of the Pilsen Mexican neighbourhood in the city of Chicago. The Pilsen neighborhood has been part of the city since its incorporation in 1837 and lies approximately three miles southwest of Chicago’s lakeside downtown district, known as the “Loop”. The fieldwork upon which this article is based was conducted using qualitative research methods. Specific methodologies used include semi-structured interviews, collection of photographs and document analysis (drawing from both academic and public policy documents). As observed in the Pilsen case study, Chicago drew on a variety of urban policies (ranging from festival funding and neighborhood tours to the crafting of TIF zones) with the aim of achieving enhanced revenues via cultural planning and urban regeneration. While these strategies have activated gentrification and beautification, they are also driving out low-income inhabitants who can no longer afford rising rents. These development strategies aim to achieve the competitiveness goals, but have met with less success in achieving the social cohesion goals. In such processes, Pilsen local ethnic communities are not passive , but via civic enterprises or cultural institutions, economically struggling minority communities have not only registered their disappointment but have organized protests attempting to push back against top-down planning. As the Pilsen case suggests, even though competitiveness is often unable to reinforce social cohesion, new emergent actors appears to offer a promising avenue towards safe-guarding social cohesion and capacity building