Parent kindergarten cooperation in the light of special pedagogical principles of Reggio Emilia concept

Dobrila, Staš (author), Savšek, Simona (mentor), Ambrožič, Tomaž (mentor), Devjak, Tatjana (author), Berčnik, Sanja (author), Devjak, Srečko (author)

The authors analyze co-operation between the kindergarten and parents in Slovenian kindergartens in the light of specific pedagogical principles of the concept of Reggio Emilia. The basic task of kindergartens in Slovenia is to help parents with comprehensive care for children, improving the quality of life for families and children and creating conditions for the development of children's physical and mental abilities. Reggio Emilia kindergartens on the other hand built primarily on the participation of children and parents in the life and work of kindergarten, while exposing the children through research, their interests, knowledge, and experiencing different activities with the assistance of educators (and parents) involved in all stages learning, ie. planning, development and evaluation. In the Reggio Emilia kindergartens educational management organization is in terms of participation, democracy, collective responsibility, problem solving and decision-making (Katz 1993, Spaggiari 1993, Malaguzzi 1993). This paper presents the results, gathered in Slovenian kindergartens participating in the project "Professional training of professional staff to implement specific elements of teaching the principles of Reggio Emilia concept in pre-school." In the context of empirical work, we wanted to explore and acquire a deeper insight into the educational work in pre-school education in Slovenia from the preschool educators and parents. The objective of empirical research was to determine the representation of elements of the special educational principles of Reggio Emilia concept in pre-primary education in Slovenia. Empirical survey involved preschool educators (N = 331) and parents (N = 1485). In this paper, we highlighted the following elements of participation: (1) planning pre-primary education, (2) the position of children in kindergarten and their role in the children’s play, (3) the impact of parental involvement in planning activities and (4) the impact of parents on the quality of work in kindergarten. Through research we determined that most preschool educators make their work plan together with their coworker, and that the planning educational work also includes children. Most parents believe that the management of the kindergarten, more or less account of their ideas in the preparation of the program so we can say that parents are involved in the design of the program. This is a welcome fact, because this is the evidence that the adoption of the Kindergarten law (1996) and Curriculum for kindergartens (1999) set a good 'building blocks' for the partnership. The results have also shown that kindergarten involves parents in decision-making particularly in the planning of additional activities, but they are not too involved in the process of determining quality in kindergarten. We believe that a profound reflection on the involvement of parents in the process of assessment and quality assurance services will be required.

• Language: Unknown
• Keywords: preschool education
• Work type: Not categorized
• Organization: PEF - Faculty of Education
• Year: 2010
• Number of pages: 1-14
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-68086
• Publication date in RUL: 10.07.2015