Browsing by Author "Rinta-Paavola, Salla"

The purpose of this thesis is to get more information about parents’ perceived trust towards kindergartens. This study will find out which themes concerning kindergarten are calling forth discussion in the internet web sites among parents of pre-schoolers. Besides that the study aims to delineate how the trust is manifested in the internet discussions. The new document of the grounds of early childhood education is coming into effect in the autumn 2017. The importance of cooperation with parents is emphasized in this document. Educators have to be conscious of parents’ opinions and be able to develop methods of cooperation with the help of that. Previous surveys have pointed out that parents’ trust towards Finnish early childhood education is quite strong. Research data in this thesis was written material in internet. The research material consisted of 23 message chains containing 1–38 messages. The messages were written during August and September 2016. The material was assembled in vauva.fi and kaksplus.fi –internet discussion areas. The thesis was executed with qualitative methods by content analysis. The material showed that parents were discussing about ways of action in separate kindergartens, characters of workers and security of kindergartens. In addition of that they inquired opinions about separate kindergartens from each other. Other families’ ways of action and public reporting news of kindergartens was also called forth discussion. The material showed that parents often perceived distrust towards kindergartens. In spite of that they trusted they have chance to influence and the principals could help if needed. The research results differ greatly from earlier findings. These results extend people’s knowledge about parents’ trust towards kindergartens. The trust is not so unambiguous that earlier findings show. The realistic picture of parents’ perceived trust towards kindergarten could be formed by studying the situation by using varied range of research methods.