Browsing by Subject "pääkomponenttianalyysi"

Children's participation has been a subject in the international research since past ten years. This research has explored participation from the standpoint of the UN's Convention of the Rights of the Child and focused mainly on schoolchildren or on the working youth's chances in developing countries to have impact on their own lives (eg. Sinclair, 2004 and Thomas, 2002). In Finland there has been less research about the children's rights while the main focus has been on the customers of the child welfare system. This study examines children's participation in Helsinki metropolitan area via the views and the practices of the personnel of early childhood education. The adopted viewpoint is Shier's level model of participation (2001), in which the children's participation process is building in phases, is observed via the everyday actions of the kindergarten personnel. Attention has been paid on the special characteristics of the Finnish early childhood education. This study was part of VKK-Metro's research project. The inquiry in May 2010 was directed to all working teams in the kindergartens of the Helsinki metropolitan area. Of these 56.59 % (1116 teams) answered. The quantitative data analyzed by principal component analysis gave four principal components, from which three were named after Shier's participation model. The fourth component included variables about rules and power. The level model of participation fit well to assess early childhood education in the Helsinki metropolitan area. The professionalism of the personnel became emphasized in the area of everyday interactions between the personnel and the children. Important aspects of the children's participation are to become heard, to get support in the play and in interaction and to be able to share both power and responsibility with personnel of the early childhood education.