The current study aimed to investigate the changes of the school readiness and transition to elementary school course on pre-service early childhood teachers&rsquo / views about young children&rsquo / s school readiness. Teacher view of children&rsquo / s school readiness scale and interview protocols were administered as pre-post test and pre-post interviews to pre-service early childhood education teachers who were in the process of completing final year in their education in the four university&rsquo / s department of early childhood teacher education in Ankara, Turkey. The teacher views of children&rsquo / s school readiness scale was administrated to 169 pre-service early childhood teachers and a subsample of 26 pre-service early childhood teachers were interviewed before and after they completed School Readiness and Transition to Elementary School course. Qualitative and quantitative findings in mixed methods research demonstrated that school readiness and transition to elementary school course in early childhood teacher education programs elaborated participants&rsquo / views about children&rsquo / s school readiness. According to the participants, program courses should provide more sufficient practice and content knowledge. In this way pre-service teachers can have opportunities to use their experiences gained during school readiness and transition to elementary school course to support young children&rsquo / s school readiness. The results of the current study also indicated that pre-service teachers needed to develop an understanding of children&rsquo / s school readiness in terms of definition, skills, factors, assessment, transition activities, and elementary school program so that they can be better prepared to teach with emphasis on the connections between preschool education and elementary school.

published_or_final_version / Education / Master / Master of Education

Many environmental educators insist that environmental education (EE) should be started from a young age. The Korean Ministry of Education (1999) has also emphasized the importance of environmental education in early childhood by including content and objectives regarding EE in the 1999 National Curriculum of Kindergarten. However, many Korean kindergarten teachers do not sufficiently implement environmental education in their teaching practice. To address this issue, this study aimed at investigating and overcoming barriers to fully implement EE in the Korean kindergarten context. Four experienced Korean kindergarten teachers were involved in a fourteeniv week critical action research project that included weekly group meetings. At these group meetings, teachers reflected on the barriers preventing the full implementation of EE in their classrooms and discussed possible environmental education actions to be attempted in the following week. These actions, individually implemented in teachers’classrooms, were reviewed at subsequent group meetings. Data from group meetings and teacher lessons were used to analyze the effectiveness of this critical action research project for developing environmental education. At the beginning stages of this study, Korean kindergarten teachers felt strongly uncomfortable participating in group communication. However, through the continuous encouragement of the researcher and with the involvement of participants who have similar educational backgrounds, age, and working experiences, participants came to actively engage in group communication. Participants in this study identified the following barriers to fully implement EE in kindergartens: insufficient understandings and awareness of EE, reluctant attitudes towards the environment, lack of educational support and resources, low parental involvement, and discomfort about going on a field trip to environments. Teachers came to understand the importance, objectives, potential topics, and teaching methods of early childhood environmental education. While implementing environmental education in their classrooms, teachers recognized possibilities for environmental education through connections with children’s daily lives and previous activities conducted in their classrooms. Teachers also identified that critical action research through group communication provided practical and useful knowledge of their educational practices. Teachers’ improved pedagogical knowledge and awareness about EE increased their confidence to teach environmental education. To lessen the burden of going on a field trip to environments, teachers provided children direct experiences in the environment surrounding schools and during school picnics. Teachers also actively participated in environmental activities with children. These direct experiences of the environment helped teachers and children appreciate the beauty of the environment and change their reluctant attitudes towards the environment. By providing parents children’s products produced during EE, teachers were also able to help parents develop an interest in environmental education. While most educational research in Korean kindergartens is conducted by university-based researchers, this research inquiry revealed that action research by the effective partnership with a university-based researcher can encourage the confidence and passion of Korean kindergarten teachers to reflect and resolve issues arising from their experiences and to change educational practices.

The focus of this research is the spiritual experience of young children in early childhood educational settings. Spirituality is included in the New Zealand early childhood curriculum, Te Whariki, but is a relatively unarticulated aspect of educational practice. In order to find out how spirituality is supported in early childhood educational contexts this qualitative case study research took place in three early childhood settings: a Montessori casa, a private preschool and a Steiner (Waldorf) kindergarten. The methods used in the research included participant observation, interviews and focus groups. The teachers were asked to make a video about spirituality to reflect their own context and photographs were taken in each setting. The metaphor of spiritual landscape is used in this research. In this landscape everyday experience merged with the spiritual to form the concept of everyday spirituality. The cultural theories of everyday life supported a realisation that ordinary daily activity can become wonderful and mysterious when the spiritual dimension is realised. The themes that emerged from analysis of the case studies are conceptualised as transformative aspects of learning and relationships. They are aspects of everyday spirituality identified as spiritual withness; spiritual inbetweenness; and the spiritually elsewhere. Representing spiritual experience is challenging. The thesis is written in narrative form and contains core narratives as prose and poems. Using writing as a means of discovery made communicating spirituality through the medium of words a possibility. Spirituality is proposed to be an inclusive concept that affirms a sense of connection and this thesis found that all pedagogical practices in early childhood settings have the potential to include a spiritual aspect. In Aotearoa New Zealand many children lead their everyday lives in the context of an early childhood environment that includes teachers and parents as part of that community. This thesis argues that when everyday spirituality permeates early childhood contexts that all aspects of the curriculum are realised and the spiritual experience of everyone connected to that setting is supported.

The focus of this research is the spiritual experience of young children in early childhood educational settings. Spirituality is included in the New Zealand early childhood curriculum, Te Whariki, but is a relatively unarticulated aspect of educational practice. In order to find out how spirituality is supported in early childhood educational contexts this qualitative case study research took place in three early childhood settings: a Montessori casa, a private preschool and a Steiner (Waldorf) kindergarten. The methods used in the research included participant observation, interviews and focus groups. The teachers were asked to make a video about spirituality to reflect their own context and photographs were taken in each setting. The metaphor of spiritual landscape is used in this research. In this landscape everyday experience merged with the spiritual to form the concept of everyday spirituality. The cultural theories of everyday life supported a realisation that ordinary daily activity can become wonderful and mysterious when the spiritual dimension is realised. The themes that emerged from analysis of the case studies are conceptualised as transformative aspects of learning and relationships. They are aspects of everyday spirituality identified as spiritual withness; spiritual inbetweenness; and the spiritually elsewhere. Representing spiritual experience is challenging. The thesis is written in narrative form and contains core narratives as prose and poems. Using writing as a means of discovery made communicating spirituality through the medium of words a possibility. Spirituality is proposed to be an inclusive concept that affirms a sense of connection and this thesis found that all pedagogical practices in early childhood settings have the potential to include a spiritual aspect. In Aotearoa New Zealand many children lead their everyday lives in the context of an early childhood environment that includes teachers and parents as part of that community. This thesis argues that when everyday spirituality permeates early childhood contexts that all aspects of the curriculum are realised and the spiritual experience of everyone connected to that setting is supported.

Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 95-96).

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-96). Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.) University of Missouri-Columbia, 2006. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on August 2, 2007) Includes bibliographical references.

abstract: This dissertation discusses the findings of an ethnographic exploratory study of Turkana nomadic pastoralist children's sociocultural practices of their everyday lifestyles and science curriculum and instruction in Kenyan early childhood curriculum. The study uses the findings from Turkana elders to challenge the dominant society in Kenya that draws from Western education ideology to unfairly criticize Turkana traditional nomadic cultural practices as resistant to modern education. Yet Turkana people have to rely on the cultural knowledge of their environment for survival. In addition, the community lives in abject poverty caused by the harsh desert environment which has contributed to parents' struggle to support their children's education. Cultural knowledge of Turkana people has received support in research demonstrating the role cultural lifestyles such as nomadic pastoralism play as important survival strategy that enable people to adapt to the harsh desert environment to ensure the survival of their livestock critical for their food security. The study documented ways in which the Kenya national education curriculum, reflecting Western assumptions about education, often alienates and marginalises nomadic children, in its failure to capture their cultural Indigenous knowledge epistemologies. The research investigated the relationships between Turkana children's sociocultural practices of pastoralist lifestyles and the national science curriculum taught in local preschools and first grade science classrooms in Kenya and the extent to which Turkana children's everyday life cultural practices inform science instruction in early childhood grades. Multiple ethnographic methods such as participant and naturalistic observation, focus group interviews, analysis of documents, archival materials, and cultural artifacts were used to explore classrooms instruction and Indigenous sociocultural practices of the Turkana nomads. The findings from the elders' narratives indicated that there was a general congruence in thematic content of science between Turkana Indigenous knowledge and the national science curriculum. However, Turkana children traditionally learned independently by observation and hands-on with continuous scaffolding from parents and peers. The study recommends a science curriculum that is compatible with the Indigenous knowledge epistemologies and instructional strategies that are sensitive to the worldview of nomadic children. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Curriculum and Instruction 2010

abstract: Early Childhood Education (ECE) classroom quality has been gaining increased attention from researchers and policy makers, as the link between high quality early learning experiences and future success has become clear. The impact of ECE may be particularly important for low-income, ethnic minority youth, who may need additional support to reach the academic level of their higher-income, Caucasian peers. However, the definition of ECE quality does not currently include indicators of classroom practices and center-wide policies that intentionally address issues of culture, race, and ethnicity, topics that may be particularly relevant for the most academically at-risk children. Anti-bias education (ABE) provides a strong theoretical and practical framework for understanding how to incorporate such themes into classroom practice and policy, as well as how to teach students to actively counteract bias and discrimination. However, there is currently no mechanism for researchers to utilize this framework, because there is no measure that can reliably evaluate the level of quality of ABE practices. Therefore, the present study sought to incorporate anti-bias education principles into the conceptualization of classroom quality through measurement development. The measure was developed based on the integration of the original ABE theory with interviews and observations in five ECE programs, which were nominated for their intentional practices regarding issues of culture, race, and ethnicity in the classroom. The five centers ranged in the ethnic composition and average income of their population. The resulting measure contains five domains, with a number of items within each domain. Two of the domains (Toys & Materials, Visual/Aesthetic Environment) contain observational rubrics for assessment, whereas the other three (Organizational Climate, Activities, Interactions) include self-report scales in addition to the rubrics. Future research is needed to pilot the measure and establish validity and reliability across contexts and observation times. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Family and Human Development 2015