In this thesis work I focused on comparing the role of a pre-school educator in Slovenian and Portuguese kindergartens. In the theoretical part, I first presented the regulations of the preschool system in both countries separately, and then focused on the organization of the daily routine and the role of the kindergarten teacher. In the empirical part, I conducted eight interviews, with four educators from each country. I did interviews in both private and public kindergartens. I was curious about the daily routine and its organization, the educator’s roles and tasks therein, how to plan activities and how to involve the children in the planning. With the answers I received, I answered the research questions and discovered that there were differences between the Portuguese and Slovenian pre-school systems. The differences are reflected in the working hours of the educators and in the amount of time they work with the children. Among the public pre-schools, the daily routine, rest and feeding arrangements also differ. The tasks of an educator are similar, with minor differences between kindergartens, while another similarity is the organization of space. Involvement of children in planning varies, most pre-schools include them, but not equally.
|
