Search results for "ta516"
showing 10 items of 614 documents
Perceptions of early childhood education professionals on teacher leadership in Finland
2016
This study investigated perceptions of early childhood education (ECE) professionals employed at three ECE centres on teacher leadership enactment in Finland. These professionals comprised childcare nurses, teachers and ECE centre directors. Theoretically, the study was anchored on an analysis of teacher leadership and distributed leadership literature comprising research based in early childhood and school education contexts. Findings based on focus groups and interviews with participants suggest that teacher leadership was perceived as a responsibility of ECE pedagogy in Finland. Centre directors were considered remote from daily practice and leadership for pedagogy within the centres was…
The teacher's lap – a site of emotional well-being for the younger children in day-care groups
2014
This study focuses on a particular relationship between teachers and one- to three-year-old children: the child in the teacher's lap. When, in what situations, does this happen? Who are the children in the teacher's lap? Why are they there? How do children express emotional well-being when in the teacher's lap? Relational, sociocultural and revised attachment approaches to emotional well-being supplied the theoretical framework of the study. Data were collected by ethnographic methods and analysed qualitatively. Two day-care groups in Finland participated. For most of the day, at least one child was in a teacher's lap. The teacher's lap signified, for example, not only consolation and confi…
Three- to four-year-old children’s socioemotional competencies assessed by kindergarten teachers in general and physical education settings, and by p…
2014
Summary. Early childhood education programs represent a valuable early learning opportunity for promoting the socioemotional skills. The aims of the study were to validate the socioemotional skills observation scale, to compare 3-4 year-old children’s socioemotional competencies in general kindergarten settings and in a PE session, separately by gender, and to compare 3-4 year-old children’s socioemotional competencies in general kindergarten settings and at home. The participants were 59 children (23 girls, 36 boys) from six communal kindergartens in Finland, their parents, and early educators. The data were analyzed using the confirmatory factor analysis and t-tests. The results showed th…
Documenting Napping: The Agentic Force of Documents and Human Action
2015
The article examines the question of the agentic force of documents in institutional practices and proposes a conceptual model of the agentic relation between documentation and human actors. For this aim, it presents an empirical case study of Finnish early childhood education and care. The study deals with individual education plans (IEPs), which are an example of child documentation that aims at an individualised and participatory pedagogy. The analytical focus is on a single topic of an IEP, the child’s afternoon naps, and how these are negotiated in the three-party encounter between a parent, a practitioner and the IEP document. The theoretical framework draws on the theories of documen…
Parental agency and related emotions in the educational partnership
2017
This study investigated the understudied issue of parental agency and related emotions in the educational partnership in the context of Finnish early childhood education and care. We asked (i) what types of parental agency can be identified in the educational partnership and (ii) in what ways emotions are related to these types of agency. The narrative method was used to analyse the interview data of parents of children with difficulties in self-regulation. The findings indicate that parental agency in the educational partnership varied from proactive and confrontational to hindered. Typically, pleasant emotions were related to proactive and unpleasant emotions to confrontational parental a…
Finnish and Greek early childhood teachers’ perspectives and practices in supporting children’s autonomy
2017
Kindergarten teachers from different cultural backgrounds attribute various meanings to children’s autonomy. There seems to be cultural differences in early childhood education curricula with regard to how a child’s autonomy is described and how it is supported. This qualitative study asks: how do teachers narrate their perspective and pedagogical support of children’s autonomy, and what kinds of similarities and differences in the pedagogy and practices can be found in Finnish and Greek early childhood education (ECEC) contexts? The data of this qualitative study consist of a semi-structured questionnaire of 14 kindergarten teachers and observations of their pedagogical practices in the da…
Different strategies, different outcomes? The history and trends of the inclusive and special education in Alberta (Canada) and in Finland
2011
This study compares the strategies and delivery of education for students with special educational needs in the province of Alberta, Canada, and in the country of Finland, in the European Union. The rationale for comparing these two jurisdictions is grounded by the idea that both of these areas have high general standards of living, a well-developed public education system, and top results in international school achievement tests. The data consists of available educational policy papers, previous research papers, and educational statistics. This article first describes the special education system development and the current situation, followed by the funding system and discussion about th…
Moving towards inclusion: how Zanzibar succeeds in transforming its education system?
2015
Ever since the proclamation of the Salamanca Statement (1994) and the Dakar Framework for Action (2000), several countries across the globe have been improving their education systems making remark...
Finnish vocational education and training in comparison: Strengths and weaknesses
2014
International journal for research in vocational education and training 1 (2014) 2, S. 81-106
Dominant and emerging approaches in the study of higher education policy change
2012
The purpose of the article is to analyse recent literature on higher education policy change. Based on the review, three different approaches are distinguished: structural, actor and agency. In the structural approach the dynamic of policy change originates in well-established structures. The actor approach focuses on either individual or institutional actors as the drivers of policy change. The agency approach understands higher education policy change as an interactive process between various actors and domains within transient structures. We will also present two emerging, alternative approaches: actor-network theory, which takes interaction as a starting point and proposes that no organ…