The distance travelled: the movement of an innovative early childhood approach from North Italy to China via the USA

In this article we examine an education project designed to improve the well-being of babies in China's welfare homes. The project is a product of the Chinese Government's decision to marketize its social policy, adopt a mixed funding model and globalize its adoption regime. It involves the movement of education ideas developed in Reggio Emilia in Italy to promote the rights of children across global boundaries and a Chinese-American partnership that draws on these ideas to support child development in the context of the global adoption market. An example of one of these programmes is utilized to illustrate the changes that have occurred in the ideas transported to China. We argue that China should not rely on nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to provide for the basic human needs of its most vulnerable citizens and that in the process of travelling from Italy to China the social justice element in the educational ideas of Reggio Emilia have been lost in translation.