The curriculum for kindergartens dictates (Ministry of Education 1999) that professionals are obliged to respect the principle of equal opportunities, respect for diversity and the principle of multiculturalism. This can only be achieved through the full inclusion of everyone, with educators playing a key role. In the pre-school period, pedagogical workers are obliged to enable every child to live and develop in kindergarten as optimally as possible, which excludes all types of discrimination. In practice, unfortunately, this is not the case. I noticed that covert discrimination occurs almost every day in my own practical work in kindergarten, and on this basis I conducted further research on the phenomenon.
In preschool, children build notions about themselves and others, so it is important to be aware that our own views influence children and the formation of their perceptions. In the empirical part, I also check what learning goals, according to Bloom's taxonomy, are used in all three pedagogical faculties in Slovenia in dealing with discrimination, and what progress in this field is advised by experts. The aim of the master's thesis is to investigate the extent to which educators recognize hidden discrimination in their work process and whether they also react to it. Further, we investigated what hinders educators from taking action when they perceive covert discrimination, whether perceptions and actions are influenced by the level of education, and whether the length of working in kindergarten has any influence. We detected a high tolerance for covert discrimination and apathy in pre-school education. The research also showed that both higher education and years of employment in kindergarten did not significantly affect greater recognition of covert discrimination.
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