Browsing by Subject "pedagoginen vastuu"

The purpose of this narrative study is to ascertain how kindergarten teachers perceive their pedagogical responsibility in the context of the distributed organization and how they feel their responsibilities have changed expertise in the development of the over time. Changes in the social environment and the shift towards an increasingly distributed organization model in early childhood education are reflected in to need to review and redefine the pedagogical responsibility of the kindergarten teacher. The aim of the study is to define kindergarten teacher's pedagogical responsibility in a postmodern society and to describe its evolution in the wake of the changing nature of the expertise in question of kindergarten teaching. The study analysed views regarding the pedagogical responsibility from the perspective of different teacher generations. The three generations that became apparent from the study were the generation that witnessed the expansion of children's day care outside the home, the experienced early childhood educators, and the latest generation of early childhood educators who are at the beginning of their career. The theoretical framework for the study is formed by research into both kindergarten teacher expertise and distributed organization. The data included eleven (11) kindergarten teacher's diaries. The data was analysed using the methods of structural narrative analysis (Labov 1967) and content analysis. The data acquisition and analysis methods support the objective in narrative research, which is to "give a voice" to the target group of the research. The research findings show that kindergarten teachers have a clear and structured understanding of pedagogical responsibility and the area of its content that falls under their remit. The evolution of pedagogical responsibility is an on going process, affected by personal characteristics as well as societal and particularly early childhood educators at the beginning of their careers felt a lack of confidence in taking pedagogical responsibility in relation to the other members of their team. Kindergarten teachers voiced a wish that directors of day care centers and the organisation would lend their support to their professional development and to carrying out their pedagogical responsibility. The research findings highlighted the importance of pedagogical leadership as a precondition for high-quality early childhood education. The pedagogical responsibility of kindergarten teachers was studied investigated in the present study exclusively in relation to each kindergarten teacher's own team. However, the shift towards shared pedagogical leadership may be deemed a necessary developmental path in the distributed early childhood education organisation.