Browsing by Subject "opettajan interkulttuurinen kompetenssi"

Institutions in Finland need to transform in order to take into account the multiculturalism that has been brought by immigration. Cultural awareness is a part of early childhood education in Finland today as kindergarten teachers are met with different cultures and families from around the world. Appreciating the culture and showing it on a daily basis in kindergartens, supports and develops the cultural identity of immigrant children. The purpose of this study was to show the actions kindergarten teachers can do to support the cultural identities of immigrant children. This bachelor’s thesis is carried out by using qualitative review. The research method was theme interview. Three kindergarten teachers were interviewed. The purpose of the interviews was to find out the thoughts and the attitudes to-wards immigration and multi-culturalism. The research question is: 1. What currently supports immigrant children’s cultural identities in Finnish day care? Content analysis of literature has shown that there are four themes that support the cultural identities of immigrant children. They were: pedagogy and planning by kindergarten teacher, kindergarten teacher intercultural competence, cooperation between teacher and parents and children`s physical operational environment. The results show the importance of understanding different cultures when meeting a child and their parents. The opinion of the teachers is that the different cultures can show even more on a daily basis in the kindergarten. The sup-port of cultural identities could be seen best in pedagogical planning and content areas. Cul-tural identities were seen in different orientation areas like music and art. Different methods to support the cultural identity could have been found more by observing rather than using interview. The interviews brought up only the teacher’s opinions and thoughts of their actions.