Browsing by Subject "celebrations"

Goals This study is mostly qualitative and partly quantitative, and its main goals were to examine how celebrations of religious origin are handled in Finnish kindergartens and how early childhood educators view these celebrations. The topic is connected to cultural diversity, forming of identity and worldview education in early childhood. The previous studies on this matter have shown that celebrations that are chosen to be highlighted are usually Chr istian based and from them Easter and Christmas have been the most popular in kindergartens. Worldview education has been viewed as challenging in early childhood education, but it has also propelled interest to enhance the relationship between kindergarten and children’s homes. Methods The data is based on a survey that was conducted in the spring of 2019 on a social media platform.Thequestionnairecontainedmultichoicequestionsandopen-endedquestions.The study population (n=63) is formed of early childhood educators who were working in a private or public kindergarten at the time of the data gathering. The data was analysed using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Results and conclusions The results show that 26 religious based occasions are celebrated, and 28 such occasions noted in kindergartens. Most common reasons to celebrate said religious occasions were that they transfer culture, traditions and knowledge. It was common to let the actual activities aside and only take these occasions into account when the educators felt the events had parted too far away from children’s lives or they just weren’t interpreted important enough. Mundane traditions and the many ways of expression were the most common ways to celebrate such occasions. Conversations and narrative discussions were the most common ways to give attention to those religious based events that weren’t celebrated. The study shows that handling these celebrations felt somewhat challenging, but the study population had still given them meanings that were linked to cultural aspects and sophistication.