Browsing by Author "Kulmala, Vilma"

Early childhood education is seen increasingly as an investment to the future and the national economy. Highly educated personnel is considered as one of the mainstays for high quality early childhood education. The sufficiency and importance of the educational background of the personnel has been researched especially from the child’s point of view. The expertise and education of kindergarten personnel should come across with in the daily kindergarten experiences of both child and parent. The ideal of the shared pedagogical aims is formed in the mutual expertise regarding to the child. There is not much research from the parent’s perceptions on the importance of the educational backgrounds of the personnel. It is important that the parents experience that their children are satisfied. The subject of the research was to investigate parent’s perceptions on the importance of per-sonnel’s educational backgrounds in early childhood education. The research is describing the empirical and subjective experiences of the parents. The keywords of this research are high quality education, the educational backgrounds of the personnel, multiprofessional cooperation, the wanted features of the personnel and the cooperation between parents and per-sonnel. This research is qualitative, and the research material was collected by interviewing three pa-rents whose children are taking part in early childhood education. The interviews were semi-structured and phenomenographic data analysis was used to analyze the research material. Parents think there are teachers and carers in the kindergartens. Teacher’s university education is being noted, but parents describe their knowledge is tenuous. The division of work in kindergartens seems confusing, and the leadership in the multiprofessional teams is not clear for parents. The role of the kindergarten teacher is considered as the leader of the educational conversations (vasu-keskustelut) and background planning. Parents are concerned about the inadequacy of resources, the urgency and the excessive group sizes, and these overshadow the importance of education. Primarily the personnel is expected to have a warm and sensitive feel. According to parents, education does not guarantee the realization of high-quality early childhood education.