Browsing by Subject "vuorohoito"

Objectives. The ability to have compassion is crucial for the survival of the human spe-cies and the well-being of communities and individuals. Acts of compassion are mostly done when another person expresses displeasure. The causes of displeasure often depend on time and place. Acts of compassion have been studied extensively in early childhood education in recent years but acts of compassion in a flexible scheduled early childhood education and care have remained unexamined. Flexible scheduled ECEC offers children a different environment, and for this reason, acts of compassion that take place in that context should be studied. This study aimed to find out which moments of displeasure occur in children between the ages of 1 and 5 in flexible scheduled ECEC and which acts of compassion children and adults do in the same context. The study brings an important addition to the field of compassion research, where displeasure and compassion in flexible scheduled ECEC have not yet been studied. Methods. The material is 25 hours of video footage filmed in flexible scheduled ECEC, written notes and a photo. I have identified 42 episodes in which children express displeasure and/or children or adults show compassion. The duration of the episodes varies from a few seconds to more than ten minutes. I have processed the material using the method of qualitative content analysis. I have also analyzed interaction that happens in the moments of compassion. The method has been influenced by the ethnographic approach. Conclusions. The results complement the understanding of the development of dis-pleasure and compassion in early childhood education. Children experience displeasure, for example, in situations where their own will is not fulfilled and their abilities are limited. In times of displeasure, especially adults do acts of compassion. Children also did acts of compassion and compassion initiatives, but these differed from what adults did and there were fewer of them. Children's agency in doing acts of compassion should be strengthened. The acts of compassion they do should be given time and space. Due to the varied composition and age of the group of children in early childhood care, there are plenty of opportunities for developing compassion when the children practice working side by side with different children of different ages.

Objectives. The material for this case study was collected during the academic year 2010–2011 in a municipal round-the-clock daycare centre in Southern Finland. The study aims to describe what kind of environment round-the-clock daycare provides for young children. I have especially observed the relationships during a child's daycare shift, which means counting the adults and children who were in the same place at the same time and the amount of interaction relationships between any two people. The documents directing early childhood education have little to say about round-the-clock daycare. The municipalities are obligated to provide daycare in such forms and to such extent as needed. Round-the-clock daycare has not been researched much and the principles of providing it vary. When it comes to the daycare of small children, good interaction between the adult and the child, small daycare group, familiar adults and peers, and sufficiently short daycare shifts are considered important. Children's involvement in play or task activities is considered a criterion of quality. In round-the-clock daycare situations change constantly; children and adults come and go all day long. Work schedules determine who is around at any given time, and economical reasons demand that different groups work together. Methods. I used several methods to describe the round-the-clock daycare of young children. I inserted the data concerning the care hours of the six youngest children of the group from autumn 2010 into the SPSS system. The length and time of each daycare shift, day of the week, and the amount of other children and adults present during each daycare shift were observed. I counted all the interaction relationships that occurred during each daycare shift. It was also noted whether the people present were from the children's own group or from another daycare group. In spring 2011 I recorded children's actions on video and observed the daily routines of the group and the daycare centre. The videotapes were used to observe and evaluate the children's involvement level on the 5-point LIS-YC scale. Results and conclusions. The six children had a total of 372 daycare shifts. With only the peers of their own group there were 123 shifts. The shifts were from two to 26 hours long. The interaction relationships during one shift amounted to 10 – 1 128. The median was 288. The mode was 276, which equals a common daycare group of three adults and 21 children over the age of three. Based on 76 evaluations, the children's involvement level was satisfactory, 3.11 on average. In a round-the-clock daycare group young children have to face a lot of people and endure constant interruptions in their activities.

The aim of this study was to describe in which ways child’s participation is seen in round-the-clock daycare centres. Thesis focused on the experiences of early childhood education teachers regarding children’s participation in early childhood education. The aim was to find out how early childhood education teachers consider themselves to support and promote children’s participation. The aim was also to find out early childhood education teachers define the concept of participation and how participation affects everyday early childhood education practices. The thesis is based on qualitative research. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews with six early childhood education teachers working in different round-the-clock daycare centers in Helsinki city, Finland. The need to this kind of research rises from childrens’ right to be heard about matters that concern themselves. Studies of child’s participation in the round-the-clock point of view are lesser. The rights of the child are based on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) and the Act on Early Childhood Education and Care (540/2018). Previous studies point out that children participation is a multidimensional phenomenon. The theoretical framework of the study is based on the view of participation as one of the principle of hearing children. The theory of participation has been dealt with according to the Hart’s ladder of participation (1992), Shier’s pathway to participation (2001) and multidimensional model of participation by Turja (2017). From the research results it can be concluded that early childhood teachers in round-the-clock groups are aware of the different factors affecting child’s participation. The results confirm also the earlier views that the phenomenon of participation is multidimensional. The results show how adults are aware of the child's right to be heard, influence and participate in his or her own community. The child’s participation is meaningful at the round-the-clock daycare centers and in the quality of the Early Childhood studies. It is important as a adult to support a child to experience that he can influence the aspects that affect him and that he is a unique person. The most essential way to increase child’s participation is to meet the child and come face to face with him by intentionally.