The discussions about the children´s opportunities for participation, cooperation and co-creation of the daily life in kindergarten, as well as making decision about things that concern them are increasing in educational institutions. The children´s participation concept is built on the view that they are competent and as such treated as capable of active functioning, empathic thinking and social responsibility and that they are aware of their needs and expressing them.
The fact that participation is very popular topic does not mean that it is widely implemented. Many experts found out that it is still mainly a discussion topic rather than an actual practice. In the past, participation was primarily associated with the alternative pedagogical concepts, however, today it is defined and included in many national curriculums. For example, the scope of participation is specifically defined in the German law for kindergartens. Moreover, it is defined as a mandatory practice for kindergarten teachers. They are legally responsible to inspire children and motivate them to participate in decisions that affect them. Under the guidance of adults, children are able to be competent partners in the creation of an institutional life. In the Slovene early childhood curriculum (Bahovec idr., 1999), participation is not explicitly defined but kindergarten teachers have nevertheless the option to integrate components of the children´s participation in a kindergarten.
This master thesis includes (1) comparison of pre-school documents and laws in Slovenia and Germany regarding the children´s participation, (2) analysis of adoption of participatory practice in the specific German kindergarten in Munich; and (3) analysis of subjective theories related to the participation of children of Slovenian preschool education students.
The empirical part is based on the qualitative research in which I have used different research methods. Firstly, I have analyzed the Slovenian and German documents, which are involving the children´s participation topics, with a comparative method. I found out that the concept of participation in the Slovene Early Childhood Curriculum is not explicitly defined, while in German Bavarian Learning and Educational Plan for the Children this concept has several devoted chapters. Secondly, with the metod of the participant observation and descriptive analysis I was able to describe practices of participatory work in the German kindergarten. I have found out that the most practices are related to the planning and implementation of learning activities. As the final method of the research, I have used qualitative content analysis to analyze focus groups with preschool education students in Slovenia. I have identifyed their beliefs and subjective theories in connection to the chrildren participation and the views of the child as the co-creators of the institutional life. The results have shown that the students who have discussed the theoretical concepts in their classes are more in favour of the idea of a competent child and promotion of participatory work practices in kindergartens than their peers.
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