Browsing by Author "Rantanen, Tia-Maria"

Earlier studies have shown that multicultural education is conceptualized as remote and separate from the overall educational philosophy. The purpose of this study is to reveal current information of early childhood education teachers’ conceptions of multicultural education. In theoretical part of this thesis I represent concepts of multiculturality, multicultural education and intercultural competence. This thesis is phenomenographical study based on the interview of four early childhood education teachers. I collected the research data through theme interviews and analysed it by using content analysis. By using the content analysis, I have found three different themes how early childhood education teachers conceptualize multicultural education in early childhood context. The results show that multicultural education was seen as common education for all children and the main goal was to accept diversity. Multiculturalism was said to bring challenges, especially from the point of view of language learning. However, the challenges were described to bring positive addition to teachers’ profession and all the teachers described multiculturalism as a positive phenomenon. Despite the positive attitudes and broad understanding of multicultural education, the data also revealed hidden ethnocentric and stereotypical views in teacher’s speech. The study provides an indication of the development of early childhood education teachers’ conceptions towards diverse and more skilled direction (cf. Kuusisto et al. 2014; Lappalainen 2006; Paavola 2007), also highlighting the fact that intercultural competence is a continuous process and tools for raising awareness of teacher’s own prejudices and stereotypes are still needed.