A look into children’s participation: a case study of an international kindergarten
Becerra, Catalina (2023)
2023
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2023053116706
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2023053116706
Tiivistelmä
The present thesis aims to explore the practices around children´s participation in early childhood education, how the concept is defined and operationalized in the daily life of toddlers in a multicultural Early Childhood Education and Care center in the metropolitan area of Finland, to providing a diagnosis of the state of the phenomenon in the workplace and offer a proposal that can enhance the current level of participation in the organization. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews with early childhood educators working in the groups with toddler aged children in the ECEC center that acted as the working life partner and through observations carried out in the daily routine of educators and children. The objective of the first tool was to explore the educator’s views and practices in their own words, as for the second tool, the purpose was to witness firsthand the practices in daily life.
The theoretical frame of this work comprises the Finnish National Core Curriculum for Early Childhood Education and Care (2022), where children´s participation is mention as a value under the rights of children and also as a guideline for the operational culture; the different theoretical views around childhood and participation where models to assess the phenomenon will be explored; and the notion of operation culture describe in the curriculum (Finnish National Agency for Education 2022).
The team of educators at the working life partner received the finding and a proposal with critical nods to work with and tools that are suggested to implement systematically, present in this body of work, and gave their feedback regarding it. Even though there are multiple other tools, approach and practices that could be implemented, this thesis focus is to offer possibilities that arise from the current practices and known elements already present in the center and educator’s views.
The theoretical frame of this work comprises the Finnish National Core Curriculum for Early Childhood Education and Care (2022), where children´s participation is mention as a value under the rights of children and also as a guideline for the operational culture; the different theoretical views around childhood and participation where models to assess the phenomenon will be explored; and the notion of operation culture describe in the curriculum (Finnish National Agency for Education 2022).
The team of educators at the working life partner received the finding and a proposal with critical nods to work with and tools that are suggested to implement systematically, present in this body of work, and gave their feedback regarding it. Even though there are multiple other tools, approach and practices that could be implemented, this thesis focus is to offer possibilities that arise from the current practices and known elements already present in the center and educator’s views.