Browsing by Subject "myötätunnon kulttuuri"

Objectives. The National Core Curriculum for Early Childhood Education and Care 2016 is new document and it obligates the actors of ECEC as well as the values and the emphasis of it influence local curricula and implementation of ECEC. There is not yet study of this new document and values are even internationally one of the most neglected areas of research, despite values form a central part of education. Research of compassion has been increasing in Finland and this study is a part of research project “Constituting Cultures of Compassion in Early Childhood Education”. Compassion is central human feeling and capability to compassion is crucial for democracy. The purpose of this study was to find out how the language used in the National Core Curriculum for ECEC 2016 makes meanings, builds and renews the social reality of early childhood education by perspective of compassion and building cultures of compassion. I compared the National Core Curriculum and its draft- version. Research questions were made by the model of Vitikka (2009) so that values and common goals of the curricula and pedagogy are divided to their own questions. In this study I consider, how values and common goals and practices of personnel described in the National Core Curriculum could be interpreted to guide towards building cultures of compassion. Methods. The data of this qualitative study consists of existing documents the National Core Curriculum for Early Childhood Education and Care 2016 and the draft-version of it. As I knew beforehand the word compassion existed in the draft- version, but it did not occur in the final document. The analysis of data has been influenced by discourse analysis, which is already a theoretical framework. Through the analysis I was in dialogue with the theories of compassion and cultures of compassion. I used coding and process of writing as a help in analysing the data. On basis of the theory I chose for closer scrutiny sentences and mental unities that were connected to compassion, cultures of compassion, participation, parity and equality. Findings. The National Core Curriculum emphasized democracy values, such as participation, parity and equality. The discourse of care and the discourse of rights were simultaneously present. The discourse of sustainable way of life occurred in form of eco-social-culture. This contradicted the ideology of lifetime learning, which is a background assumption of the document. The sentences steered to personnel were in a passive form and were expressed in a strongly fact-based discourse, in which agency was dismissed by using passive form without an active actor. For personnel´s part it was important to understand the meaning of warm interaction and being a model for constructing cultures of compassion. Expanding a circle of compassion towards global compassion could be seen in the data. It is worth pondering if the text of National Core Curriculum could be more mend to be a pedagogical tool for educators. For values part education should be more open to receive the needs adduced by surrounding society to contents of education. I think there can be a problem in child´s active agency in things considering himself, if it is narcissistic way to pursue one´s own advantages rather than it is based on democratic values and considering consequences of acts.