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1.
The aim is to investigate Swedish preschool teachers’ accounts of children’s learning in relation to the goals in the Swedish preschool curriculum. The research question is: “What do preschool teachers see as fundamental aspects of learning in preschool practice?” The study is based on interactionist perspectives founded in Urie Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory in which individuals and environment influence each other in a dynamic, reciprocal interaction. The data consist of interviews. The results show two themes that describe what teachers express as fundamental learning aspects in preschool practice: children’s learning of social knowledge and children’s learning of social and cognitive knowledge as integrated. The results show that some preschool teachers view social knowledge as fundamental to children’s learning. Others have a broader learning-oriented approach, which is grounded in the Swedish preschool curriculum and in modern theories of learning. This is an integrated learning approach, which is assumed to promote children’s learning and development in a long-term perspective.  相似文献   

2.
Research Findings: This study examined preschool teachers’ literal talk (LT) and inferential talk (IT) during shared book readings in early childhood education (ECE) and early childhood special education (ECSE) classrooms. We aimed to characterize and compare teachers’ LT and IT in these 2 classroom contexts and determine whether differences in LT and IT are predicted by classroom type, teachers’ educational background, or children’s average language skills. We examined the shared book reading activities of 52 teachers (26 ECE classrooms, 26 ECSE classrooms). Results revealed that ECSE teachers used significantly more LT and showed more variability in their LT and IT than ECE teachers. ECSE classroom type predicted teachers’ use of LT when we controlled for teacher education and children’s language skills, whereas teacher education predicted teachers’ use of IT when we controlled for classroom type and children’s language skills. Practice or Policy: These findings have implications for best practice guidelines and policies, particularly for ECSE environments.  相似文献   

3.
This article is based on data generated in an ethnographic study of gender in a Swedish preschool. Drawing on Judith Butler’s understanding of performativity and (un)doing of gender, a new theoretical concept, situated decoding of gender, is further developed by showing how the material and spatial dimension of the educational practice and the teachers’ actions contribute to establishing and maintaining this process in an early childhood educational setting. Instead of normalising the gender binary, a reverse process occurs that turns what is perceived as feminine or masculine into a gender decoded state in which gender is made less relevant, or even irrelevant. It is argued that this continuous reiterative process emerges and is maintained by three main factors: (a) the preschool’s physical environment, (b) the regular and repetitive structure of the educational practice and (c) the consistent actions of the teachers in the everyday practice.  相似文献   

4.
Background:?There is a limited amount of research about group size in preschool, and how it impacts on teachers’ working conditions and their ability to support children’s learning and knowledge development in line with curriculum intentions.

Purpose:?From a perspective on quality, this article examines the organisational conditions for children’s learning in preschool in relation to group size. The questions at issue are: how do teachers explain how they organise the child group and the learning environment in preschool, and why?

Sample:?The sample consists of 12 preschools from different parts of Sweden. The preschools selected for the study are stratified in order to represent small and large group sizes in Swedish preschools as defined by the Swedish National Agency for Education. The sample contains both urban and rural regions and represents districts that differ geographically, demographically, ethnically, and which include varied socioeconomic structures. The 12 preschools had children in three age groupings: 1–3, 3–5 or 1–5. The number of children in the participating preschools ranged from 12 children to 45 children, with seven of the preschools having more than 30 children in their groups.

Design and method:?The article is based on interactionist perspectives, Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory, a critical ecology of the early childhood profession, theories of children’s learning, and four dimensions of pedagogical quality. Together, these theoretical perspectives contribute to an understanding of the relationships between policy issues, educational goals, group size and teachers’ competence in organising and creating conditions for children’s learning. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with two teachers from each of the 12 preschools. The interviews lasted between 40–60 minutes and were recorded and transcribed verbatim. The analytical process was conducted in three steps and can be described as an analytical process of abduction. The four dimensions of pedagogical quality were used as analytical lenses to discern and understand critical aspects related to the teachers’ understanding of group size.

Result: Irrespective of group size, most of the children participate in different group constellations throughout the day, some organised by the teachers and some by the children themselves. Teachers’ competence to organise the children in such ways that good conditions for learning were created, differed between preschools, and depended on the teachers’ approach, which can be described as either intentional or unintentional learning.

Conclusion: Teachers’ organisational approaches influence the quality of the preschool and conditions for children’s learning in distinct ways.  相似文献   

5.
A need for research on young children’s mental health has been identified. Moreover, there is a need to enhance teachers’ skills regarding health promotion work in preschool. The aim of the study is to examine the impact of a specific course on mental health promotion among Swedish preschool teachers. Data were gathered through interviews and documentation. A qualitative content analysis was used. Three categories: ‘attention’, ‘belonging’ and ‘personal growth’ – and six subcategories emerged from the analysis. The latent content of these categories is described in the theme: ‘Increased awareness, in thoughts and actions, of promoting mental health may create a sense of trust at preschools’. The results show that a specific course to promote mental health enhanced the teachers’ awareness of mental health which improved their work with children. This contributed to the development of a sense of trust at preschools, which is important to children’s mental health.  相似文献   

6.
This paper undertakes an investigation of the ‘life’ of the curriculum concept of children’s interests in a preschool practice. The concept of children’s interests plays a vital role in the Swedish preschool curriculum text and in the preschool field. Strongly inspired by Actor-network theory readings, the paper aims at producing accounts making visible the making of the concept of children’s interests through relations among children, carpets, Minecraft figures, boxes, teachers and schedules in a preschool practice. The paper engages in ethnographic materials generated at a Stockholm preschool over a period of 10 months.  相似文献   

7.
Western research over the last decade has shown that early childhood (EC) teachers’ perspectives on the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the early years strongly shape young children's experiences in educational settings and affect the integration of ICT into the classroom. The research in China is scant however. This article reports a study of Chinese EC teachers’ views on the use of ICT in preschools. Data consist of illustrative original quotations generated from interviews with four teachers, as part of a larger study. This study shows that Chinese preschool teachers had an emerging understanding about social and technological impacts on the use of ICT in early childhood education (ECE), but they recognised the value of ICT for young children and themselves in a limited way. This restrained young children's active and meaningful use of ICT for early learning and development. We argue that there is a need to develop explicit ICT polices and curriculum guidelines for the ECE system that emphasise young children's active and creative use of ICT for early learning and development, and better support teacher learning.  相似文献   

8.
Thirty years or more of striving for a coherent theme in the educational system from preschool to gymnasium might now be at an end. Millions of Swedish kronor have been spent on projects concerning cooperation between pre‐ and primary school. The curricula for preschool and the gymnasium are similar in structure, and they are connected with each other through the goals that children and students are expected to achieve. Teacher education has so far been one integrated programme with different orientations and specialities, and the basic knowledge that teachers require has been largely the same from early childhood education (ECE) to adult education. The political winds are, however, blowing in another direction. A question to ask is whether Sweden is changing its holistic and social‐pedagogical approach to ECE and teacher education towards a more traditional academic one. It is this change that will be discussed in this article, although one has to bear in mind that nothing is fixed and stable, so the article is a snapshot from an ongoing process.  相似文献   

9.
Culturally, childhood is often understood as a time of innocence which can mean that issues such as ecological sustainability are considered too problematic for early childhood practice. By drawing on findings from a research project that focused on issues of ecological sustainability in early childhood centres in New Zealand from Western and indigenous perspectives, this article contributes a critical perspective of ecological sustainability as an educational issue in early childhood education (ECE). The article falls into two parts: the first section gives an overview of some of the conceptual and theoretical issues that underpin critical perspectives of childhood, and provides a context for current global ECE discourse, while the second section introduces the research project and discusses the intersections of ‘local’ and ‘global’ in light of teachers’ emerging ‘pedagogies of place’. The intent is to demonstrate that critical engagement with such complex global issues as ecological sustainability generates spaces for new understandings of how ECE can contribute to theory and practice of education for sustainability.  相似文献   

10.
The present study examines adult–child touch and its functions in a Swedish preschool (for 1 to 5-year-old children). The data are naturalistic observations and video-recorded data of everyday preschool activities. The study describes the frequently occurring functions of educators’ haptic conduct (control, affectionate, affectionate-control, assisting and educative touch), discussing them in relation to the children's age, gender and type of the preschool activity. It reveals the complexity of touch, demonstrating that physical contact is used for a variety of purposes in the educators’ daily work. The educators employed touch without force, and the children did not respond with explicit and forceful resistance (such as pushing back or otherwise protesting). Adult-initiated haptic behaviour served a continuum of social purposes – from social–relational work, such as establishing and building affectively positive, caring, social relations, to practical and educative organisational efforts to manage the complex and busy preschool life. The distribution of adult–child touch categories brings attention to the bodily aspects of the early childhood educational setting and highlights some of the ways in which the requirements of the Swedish curriculum for Preschool and its focus on educare are actualised in the educators’ embodied conduct.  相似文献   

11.
In this article, we explore the reality of Icelandic preschool teachers who are, as in most other countries, predominantly female. The gendered nature of the role and the current identity adopted by preschool teachers appear to impact on their perceived status and professionalism. In this process, stakeholders in early childhood education (ECE), as well as the preschool teachers themselves, play important parts. The question that underlies the paper is: ‘How do the views of preschool teachers and stakeholders in ECE affect the preschool teachers’ professional identity?’ The data used to answer the question are from focus group research carried out with preschool teachers and stakeholders in ECE in one community in Iceland. These stakeholders, besides preschool teachers and staff within the preschools, were parents, professionals at the municipal preschool office and politicians. The theoretical perspective informing the methodology of the research was ‘symbolic interactionism’ and the concept of ‘democratic professionalism’ was used as an aspirational framework to analyse the data. The findings reveal connections between the ideology relating to the preschool teachers’ educational role, their limited leadership and the gendered views of stakeholders. At the end of the paper, implications and recommendations for preschool teachers are suggested.  相似文献   

12.
The aim of this article is to discuss and problematise issues related to conceptual approaches to differences among children in the world of school education. The article is based on results from a Swedish study on categorisation of schoolchildren’s ‘problems’ from a historical perspective. Its central questions are: ‘What concepts are used to formulate children’s various educational needs, and how can these concepts be understood?’ Supported by an ecological analysis model, complex situations in the categorisation and problem-solving process are clarified. Using terminology to refer to pupils’ diverse abilities and needs involves aspects of categorising. An understanding of how this works may bring more profound knowledge of obstacles to children’s learning. The categorisation process illustrates effects both at individual level and more generally. Categorisation may be regarded as a useful practice for understanding children’s differences better, and thereby finding the best ways of responding to them. However, categorisation based on abilities and needs also adds a challenge to the important idea of inclusion. The article discusses categorisation as a basis for educational problem-solving and the implications of categorising children’s varying abilities and experience of school education. The theoretical premises enhance understanding of the dynamic nature of terminology usage, and thus future prospects of meeting challenges that may arise, in schools.  相似文献   

13.
Research Findings: The current study examined how children’s parent-reported compliance at age 3 (36 months) moderated the effects of 2 dimensions of directly observed early care and education (ECE) process quality (positivity/responsivity and cognitive stimulation) during the prekindergarten year (54 months) on teacher reports of children’s classroom cooperation in the fall of kindergarten. Compliance at 36 months and cooperation in kindergarten are operationalized as overt, behavioral aspects of self-regulation as appraised by parents and teachers. The sample consisted of 996 children from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development who attended formal or informal ECE settings during the prekindergarten year. Results indicated that children with low compliance at age 3 tend to demonstrate stronger cooperation skills by kindergarten when they experience more positivity/responsivity from their ECE caregivers. Main effects of positivity/responsivity and cognitive stimulation on classroom cooperation were not detected for the overall sample. Practice or Policy: The discussion addresses the importance of preparing and empowering ECE providers to help young children who enter the preschool period struggling with behavioral aspects of self-regulation, such as compliance, to improve these skills through positive and responsive caregiving.  相似文献   

14.
The early childhood education (ECE) sector in New Zealand has long been recognised for the diversity of service types and range of organisations involved in delivering ECE. However, less attention has been paid to diversity within individual ECE services. This article draws on a national survey carried out as part of a larger project, The Diversity of Diversity in Early Childhood Education, focusing on teachers’ perceptions of challenges and successes encountered when working with children from diverse family backgrounds. Educators’ attitudes towards diversity clearly influence whether they perceive working with diverse children and families positively or as a challenge. We argue that possessing positive dispositions and attitudes that enable educators to truly welcome, acknowledge and embrace diversity, together with access to professional knowledge and support services, are critical. The implications of this for policy and practice are then considered.  相似文献   

15.
This paper examines the strategies monolingual teachers use to scaffold meaning and encourage and enhance verbal communication with emergent bilingual children in a Swedish mainstream preschool. The study is based on ethnographic fieldwork in a preschool group in which seven of twelve children spoke Swedish as their second, additional language. The basic assumption in this paper is that knowledge is scaffolded in talk between teachers and children. Several scaffolding strategies are identified such as guessing, qualified guessing, interactive scaffolding and co-construction of meaning. The analysis shows that successful languaging assumes a high level of trust between the children and their teachers and that it is essential that the teachers can identify each child’s zone of proximal development. Some educational implications and dilemmas are identified on the basis of the results.  相似文献   

16.
Abstract

This paper presents different angles on the subject of digital play as a means to develop children’s literacy and power, using an online ethnographical study of Swedish preschool teachers’ discussions in informal online forums. Question posts (n = 239) were analysed using the Technological Pedagogical Knowledge framework and the Caring, Nurturing and Teaching framework, with the aim of understanding how teachers intended to support children’s literacy development with tablets. Literacy development can be understood as a social practice that needs to develop along with changes in society’s demands on citizens. The results presented indicate that school subject oriented skills are predominantly present in the mind-set of these preschool teachers. When digital play is increasingly used for pedagogical purposes in preschools, that also means that preschools have expanded their opportunities to work with children’s literacy development. For preschool teachers, it is important to discuss how literacy development can be supported in a contemporary media landscape.  相似文献   

17.
This paper examines early childhood education (ECE) by applying and developing relational-spatial perspectives on everyday life in educational institutions for young children. The aim is to investigate the dynamic process of construction of space and to illustrate with selected empirical episodes how this process occurs in ECE. Drawing on authors such as Soja and Bourdieu, the starting point for the analysis is that space is socially produced in everyday interactions in a process that intertwines the physical environment and concrete objects, personal interpretations of physical and cultural space, and cultural and collective views about space in ECE. We illustrate this process with ethnographic data from two day care centers. The analysis shows how children and educators engage in the process of constructing space from diverse positions and how the institutional context is embedded within this process.  相似文献   

18.
ABSTRACT

Communities are investigating new ways to expand access to high-quality early education. A new early care and education partnership initiative in a mid-Atlantic state offered publicly-funded preschool slots to eligible children in private early childhood programs and provided quality supports to participating private programs. This qualitative study examines the implementation of this partnership initiative from the perspectives of administrators, early childhood program staff, and family members of enrolled children. Researchers conducted 15 focus groups with these stakeholders across five communities and used a directed content analysis approach to analyze the data. Research Findings: The thematic findings from this study suggest that ECE partnerships can improve implementation processes by developing intentional communication plans and paying attention to the needs and preferences of early childhood program staff and families. The study findings also suggest that private programs may be able to counter the loss of preschool enrollment slots to public schools by participating in ECE partnerships. Practice and Policy: Policymakers may use these findings to inform the design of new ECE partnership initiatives or other initiatives that involve collaboration among early care and education programs. Practitioners may use these findings to inform planning for new partnerships they are engaged in.  相似文献   

19.
This article reports on a small-scale investigation of how teachers organise goal-oriented learning in Swedish preschools. The revised Swedish curriculum (National Agency for Education 2011) highlights the need for children to develop their mathematics skills through activities that integrate play and learning. This study investigates how different types of activities contribute to children developing their understanding of the concepts ‘half’ and ‘double’. Three preschool teachers participated in a developmental project in which they conduct teaching in accordance with the Variation Theory of Learning. The pedagogical contexts they bring into being reveal important insights for early childhood education. The pedagogical context that can be realised in the planned activities limits or favours the learning process and the success of the theoretical aspirations for the session. This article discusses the idea of ‘teaching’ and how to facilitate conceptual development in a goal-oriented but child-centred practice. The main results show that play is central in early childhood education, and that problem-solving as a means for mathematics education needs to be problematised and used with sensitivity to the children's intentions and perspectives.  相似文献   

20.
The sociocultural model of learning and development is proposed as a comprehensive framework to study and evaluate practice in early childhood education (ECE). In order to explore the sociocultural concept of cognitive coconstruction, two characteristic educational situations in Dutch kindergartens were compared, namely, free play and work lessons, the first as an instantiation of a child-run and the second as an instantiation of a teacher-run model of ECE. Measures concerned the active participation, intersubjective cooperation, and cognitive distancing of four- to five-year-old children. The study involved 40 target children (mean age 53 months) in seven kindergarten classrooms. Both child-related factors (personality characteristics, cognitive ability, SES of the family) and situation-related factors (peer and teacher behavior, situation characteristics) were found to influence children’s cognitive coconstruction processes. Within the constraints of the Dutch kindergarten curriculum, free play was found to be superior from the sociocultural point of view.  相似文献   

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