Browsing by discipline "Kasvatustiede (varhaiskasvatus)"

The object of this study was to examine how children described being disturbed and how much it included bullying. Second, how much participation and unclear orientations were differing from each other when it comes to disturbing situations in day care. Third, they wanted to find associations between children's age and disturbing orientations in this study. The aim of this study is that day care educators could become more aware, understanding and responsive to disturbing behaviour and exercise of power between children. The study was based on a large and international Early Childhood Education research and development project, called Source of Orientation. The data was collected in spring 2010 from different kinds of day care centres and 8 Councils of Eastern-Uusimaa and Hämeenlinna. There were 816 children who took part the project. The data was collected in multi-methodical methods: children's interview, observation and learning environment assessment. The data was mainly used as quantitative data in the project in this study. The qualitative data was based on children's agentive perception created by Jyrki Reunamo (2007b) from Helsinki University. According to the results, most of the children orientated participate when they became disturbed. Also, they understood that disturbing behaviour included bullying. That showed that bullying and disturbing were the same thing for the children. In addition, the study showed individual and developmental differences between children in daily situations in day care. It seemed that the youngest children (2-3 years old) orientated more unclearly than the oldest ones. The oldest children (4-7 years old) orientated participate more often. On the other hand, different kind of disturbing orientations were found in every age group. That indicated that disturbing orientations were not only based on age, but also for example individual settings. In conclusion, strong educators are needed with pedagogical views for young children in peer groups dealing with deterrents, interferences, and disturbing situations. Children orientating in disturbing situations highlighted the importance of child observation, especially when it comes to withdrawn and unclear orientated children.

This study examines preschool teacher's views about the purpose of preschool year and significant school readiness skills in a municipality where a uniform way of transferring information from preschool to school is in use. The preschool teacher's aims of using child observation form, which is the part of municipality's EsKo-information transfer process and the effects of EsKo-information transfer process to preschool teachers work are being examined. The theoretical contexts of the study are sociocultural theory and Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory. Sociocultural theory understands learning and teaching as an interactive, social and cultural phenomenon. Ecological systems theory emphasizes the effect of the growing environments to development. Both sociocultural and ecological theory examines the relationships and interaction between individual and environment. The material of the study was collected at half structured pair and group interviews witch were taken part in 13 preschool teachers from city of Vantaa at the group of 2-3 persons. The interviews were recorded, videotaped and transcribed for analysis. The analysis was done with the methods of content analysis. The results of the study show that the preschool teachers who were interviewed had a wide view about the purpose of preschool year. Answers that describe the purpose of preschool year were divided between three time dimensions: preschool year, transfer to school and learning through life. Preschool teachers experienced that the most significant school readiness skill was child's ability to move his motivation from play to learning activities. Other significant school readiness skills were self-regulation skills, social skills and coping independently everyday life in school. Child observation form, which is the part of EsKo-information transfer process was used to plan activities for the whole group, to survey the level of knowledge and skills of a single child, as a teacher's own information package and to help teacher in professional conversations. The benefits of EsKo-information transfer process were that the preschool teachers experience that it has brought appreciation to pre-education, structured the preschool year, strengthened the co-operation with parents and made the information transfer to school easier and more equal. This study suggests that city of Vantaa has been able to create uniform procedures to the preschool education that prepare children to school at uniform ways. Interviewed teachers pursued to preserve their early childhood educational professional identities even though school transition and preparing to school was determined via EsKo-information transfer process.

Aims. Research is linked with National basis on early childhood education curriculum (2003) published by National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health (Stakes). In the basis term partnership is used to describe cooperation between parents and day-care staff. Research ́s aim was to find out how parents and kindergarten teachers define this new concept and their role in the partnership. Aim was also to survey how they feel partnership is realized in care and development agreement discussions between staff and parents of under 6-year old children. Furthermore it was researched what elements on the basis of their experiences do affect partnership and what things they feel should be developed to get partnership realized better. Research was expected to raise up useful information to be used in planning, developing and realizing partnership in kindergartens. Methods. Research material was collected by theme interviews in November - December 2004. Interviews were completed in 12 kindergartens located in one social center area of Helsinki. Kindergartens were chosen randomly. One teacher from each kindergarten was interviewed and in 10 kindergartens of 12 one mother of under 6-year old child was interviewed. Interviews were based on thinking partnership in general and in thinking it with reflection on one specific care and development agreement discussion. Parents reflected partnership on their latest discussion and teachers chose one discussion of the discussions held in autumn 2004. Material was transcribed and analysed by Gillham ́s 11-point directions to content analysis. Results and conclusions. Definitions of partnership and experiences of it varied a lot. Partnership was felt very personally and many humane elements, like familiarity and characteristics of partners, were connected to partnership. Common elements in definitions of partnership were for example trust, respect and communication between partners. The care and development agreement discussion seemed to be an important situation in developing partnership. At the same time, it was also seen as a situation that had a lot to be developed. Interviewees felt that neither the care and development agreement discussion nor the form used in it, took enough account on child’s individuality and personality. Other developmental tasks mentioned were linked more on developing already existing forms of partnership activity in day-care settings. Those were for example developing the daily discussions between parents and day-care staff members. Wishes for developing new forms of partnership activity were mentioned only seldom.

Nonstandard hour child care is a subject rarely studied. From an adult's perspective it is commonly associated with a concern for child's wellbeing. The aim of this study was to view nonstandard hour child care and its everyday routines from children's perspective. Three research questions were set. The first question dealt with structuring of physical environment and time in a kindergarten providing nonstandard hour child care. The second and third questions handled children's agency and social interaction with adults and peers. The research design was qualitative, and the study was carried out as a case study. Research material was mainly obtained through observation, but interviews, photography and written documents were used as well. The material was analysed by means of content analysis. The study suggests that the physical environment and schedule of a kindergarten providing nonstandard hour child care are similar to those of kindergartens in general. The kindergarten's daily routine enabled children's active agency especially during free play sessions for which there was plenty of time. During free play children were able to interact with both adults and peers. Children's individual day care schedules challenged interaction between children. These special features should be considered in developing and planning nonstandard hour child care. In other word, children's agency and opportunities to social interaction should be kept in mind in organising the environment of early childhood education in kindergartens providing nonstandard hour child care.

Objectives: The objective of my research was to describe the experiences and insights of pre-school and primary school teachers concerning visual arts as a content and subject area. The objective was also to describe and understand children's opinions of visual arts' teaching. In addition I observed the differences and similarities of teachers' and children's opinions. Methodology: My research was a qualitative research with characteristics of hermeneutical research tradition. I pursued an understanding research method while observing my research phenomenon, visual arts, in pre-and primary school teaching. Theme interview was the main information gathering method. I experienced the theme interview to enable natural and i conversation-like approach to the research topic. The research material was gathered from Kivistö-Aviapolis and Tikkurila areas in the city of Vantaa. I interviewed four pre-school and four primary school teachers, and four pre-school and four primary school aged children. Four municipal daycare centers and two primary schools participated to the study. Findings and Conclusions: The preschool teachers experiences concerning visual arts focused on the playful manner by which to learn and combine visual arts to the other content areas. Primary school teachers on the other hand integrated the visual arts to other subject areas such as environmental education. Primary school teachers experienced that time pressure made the teaching of the visual arts difficult. According to my research, there is not enough time to teach visual arts in every day settings. All of teachers who participated to the study experienced creativity and the development of imagination as the main content of the visual arts. Despite of this, visual arts manifested more as producing of visual art than as experience seeking activity in the pre-and primary school teaching. The usage of visual media was scarce in the teaching. According to my results, over half of the teachers do not use visual media in their visual arts teaching and therefore do not help the children to understand and interpret visual language. The opinion that visual arts' position has been diminished was shared by all of the teachers. Hence more time and hour frame was hoped for. Pre-and primary school children experienced the visual arts as a pleasant subject and study area. Children liked to work in a way that enabled them to use their creativity. The research results for the children show children's' holistic way to learn and gain experience in various learning environments.

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.

The importance of open discussion with the adopted child and his parents about adoption and ethnicity is often emphasized in adoption literature (Kirk 1964; Grotevant 1999; Carli & Dalen 1999). The child should have the possibility of constructing a harmonious view of himself, which consists of his history before adoption, ethnicity and the social environment's conception of him. The purpose of this study was to examine the Finnish adoptive parents' supportive role in relation to their child's adoptive and ethnic identity and the social environment's disposition to the child as witnessed by the parents. The first research problem was to find out how the parents support their child's adoptive identity formation. The second problem was to find out if the parents want to support the child's ethnic identity. The third problem was regarding the environment's disposition to the child and family. The hypothesis was that Finnish adoptive parents are well aware of the problems of adoption and they have been well selected, so they have the aspirations and skills to help their child with his identity formation. The focus of this study was on Finnish parents who had adopted internationally, from whom 58 answers were obtained. The data was collected with an Internet based questionnaire. The questions were mostly qualitative. The analysis was directed by the theory, so that the analysis units were obtained from the main questions of international adoption and identity formation. The results expressed that the adoptive parents want to support their child's adoption identity. They accept their child's questions regarding his history, and that they did not want to conceal any details about their child's life, even if they felt that it was a sensitive issue for them. The main problem was that there was no information available on the child's history. Contact with the biological parents was almost impossible because there was hardly any information on them. Instead the parents were in contact with the children's home because they felt that it had an important role as the child's former home. The parents felt that the child's birth culture was of importance and they mainly offered aspects of it informally daily. Parents who stressed their child's Finnish identity were concerned that their child would not form a feeling of being Finnish. However, the majority wished that their child would have a multicultural identity. The parents felt that the environment regarded the child positively and the possibility of upcoming problems was tackled by discussing them beforehand with the child and environment.

Children's involvement is a key quality factor in Early Years Education. As a process variable it concentrates on children's actions and experiences. The involved children are operating in their zone of proximal development. The aim of this study was to find out how the children involved themselves in the Finnish day care centres. The problems of the study were: (1) how the children are involved in different situations between the hours 8.00 and 12.00, (2) how do the skills of children whose involvement level is high differ from the skills of children whose involvement level is low and (3) how do the learning environments of the children whose involvement level is high differ from the learning environments of the children whose involvement level is low? The research method was observation and children's involvement levels were assessed using LIS-YC Scale. In addition, the kindergarten teachers evaluated the children's skills and the team workers did the evaluations of the educational settings. The data used in this study was a part of the 'Orientaation lähteillä' research. The 802 children, who took part in the study, were from 48 different groups of eight different municipalities in Central Uusimaa. There were 18358 observations of children's involvement and the quantitative data was analyzed using correlation, cross tabulation and t-test. Children's involvement was an average at a moderate level. The involvement levels were the highest during playing time and adult guided tasks and lowest during eating and basic care situations. The level of involvement was higher if the children were adaptable, proactive, self-motivated and good players. The involvement lever was lower if the children needed some special care. The children's involvement is supported if the educators had at least once a week a meeting and if children's confidence and identity construction was frequently considered in educational discussions. Furthermore, the appreciation of the ethical issues and positive atmosphere appeared to confirm the involvement. The children's involvement is decreased if the educators had been perpetually short of time or resources or there has been lack of joy and humour in the group.

Objectives. The development plan for education and research 2003 - 2008 (report of the Ministry of Education) highlights the development and promotion of special education and integration. In the end of the year 2007, there was Special education strategy published, a proposal for a long-term strategy for the development of special education in pre- and primary schools. Today there are a growing number of special education pupils studying in their neighbourhood schools and in regular teaching groups. Class teachers are so confronting new challenges in their classes. It is pointed out in the researches that teachers' positive attitudes and professional skills are essential for successful mainstreaming / inclusion in schools. The object of this thesis is to examine primary school class teachers' conceptions of working and teaching in the regular education which include special education pupils. This issue will be approached by these research problems: what kind of conceptions do teachers who work in basic education with special education pupils have, what kind of significance does teachers education has for these conceptions, what kind of significance does teachers work experience has for their working and is there a some kind of connection between teacher's conceptions and the nature of special education pupil's disability? Methods. In the spring 2009, the half structured questionnaire was send to all primary schools in Helsinki (N=86). One class teacher in each school was asked to fill in the questionnaire. Altogether 38 teachers answered this questionnaire. The data was analyzed using both quantitative and qualitative methods. Structured questions were processed by using the SPSS- statistics program and qualitative questions were analyzed by using content analysis. Results and conclusions. Class teachers were satisfied with their work and most of them felt that they master the teaching situations sufficiently. They reported that they get support and help most from the special needs assistants and special education teachers but they also felt that they need it more from them. Remedial instruction- lessons were also needed more. Those who had the class teacher qualification got a bit more support from special education teachers than those without qualification. Both, longer work experience and studies of special pedagogy correlated with the amount of help from the assistant. There was also positive connection between the work experience and the amount of remedial instruction. Teachers urge for updating education was clearly shown in this study. About half of these teachers wished more education related to special needs pupils / education. Teachers felt that the lack of time is the most challenging in their work. About half of the teachers felt that the regular studying environment supports special education pupils well or very well and felt mainstreaming valuable for all. They pointed out that the nature and the degree of disability is relevant. They felt that pupils with behavioral difficulties had most negative influence for the whole class, and felt themselves helpless and frustrated because of these pupils.

Bullying among young children in daycare rose into discussion in 2010. A study of the subject stated that this phenomenon was investigated in Finland very little so far. Taking deeper look into the bullying and its prevention has expanded in these days to all growing environments of children and youth. The goal of this Master's thesis was to investigate 3-7 year old children's reaction into bullying situations and to observe this subject from perspective of children's agency and peer interaction. Children's strategies in bullying situation are examined associated with children's age, gender, academic, social and emotional skills as well as the quality of the learning environment. Material of this study is collected in Children's agentive perception uncovered multilateral research project (Reunamo, Hytönen, Nurmilaakso and Alijoki 2010). Material used in this study concern some parts of the unprocessed material of the research project. Material was collected in all together 313 municipal daycare units in the Metropolitan area Helsinki between January and June 2010 from randomly picked units. All together 892 3-7 years old children participated in the research project. Research methods used were interviews and observation of children and evaluation of children's skills and learning environment made by teachers. Statistical material was processed with quantitative methods and by using spss program.Children's strategies in bullying situation were studied with an interview by asking the children what would they do in a situation where another child comes and tease them. Most common strategy among children in bullying situations was involved and negotiating (69%) strategy looking for change into the situation. Thereby two thirds of children end up commonly adult supported strategy. Second common strategy was withdrawing reaction (16,6%) while uncertain (7%) and dominant reaction (5,5%) were more rare. Adaptable or following strategy, which is common in other situations among children in daycare, was in bullying situations very rare (1,7%). Strategies are strongly connected with children's age. Children who had uncertain attitude in bullying situation turned out to accumulate different kinds of challenges related to development and learning. Involved and negotiating strategies increase and other strategies decrease with the years. The learning environments quality and atmosphere were connected to the strategies. Strong social cohesion and joint responsibility emphasized in daycare groups as well as small groups as an educational setting decreased uncertain attitudes in bullying situation. Also common projects and children's participation in planning activities made the uncertain attitude in bullying situation decrease. The difference found between uncertain group and the other groups concerning quality of learning environment was statistically very significant.