Throughout the world, children's contributions to the preschool education are key for respecting children's rights and establishing the environment of democratic relationships between teachers and children. However, it is unclear how, internationally, given the various cultural contexts and steering documents, teachers conceptualize a child and therefore engage children in their everyday practices at preschools. The aim of this study was to examine early career in-service Polish preschool teachers’ reflections on the Swedish curriculum’s view of the child and children's contributions to their own education, as well as to identify obstacles for incorporating these contributions in the Polish preschool teachers’ practices. Furthermore, the study aimed to document Polish preschool teachers’ conceptualizations of potential implementations in their own practices of the Swedish curriculum's principles and guidelines representing pre-schoolers as competent contributors. Four focus groups interviews were conducted with 11 early career in-service Polish preschool teachers. Results indicate that Polish preschool teachers do not generally support children's contributions and conceive of a child as incompetent and in the need of control. Nevertheless, when discussing Pedagogical Documentation as a tool to develop their work practices, the preschool teachers presented an altered view of a child and could identify possible implementations of the Swedish practices based on children's contributions. It might suggest that the way in which teachers conceptualize children vary according to the context and hence, Pedagogical Documentation could be a promising tool for promoting genuine contributions by children in Poland. Given the complexity of the phenomenon and the potential for changes in the Polish preschool provision, future large-scale research on how exactly the pedagogical tools, steering documents and the work environment can influence on the teachers’ practices, is recommended.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:hj-40661 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Świerczyńska, Katarzyna |
| Publisher | Högskolan i Jönköping, Förskolepedagogisk-didaktisk forskning |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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