Caring for the whole child in preschool education: Attentiveness and curiosity for children’s different worldviews in sustainable educational professionalism
2023 (English)Conference paper, Oral presentation with published abstract (Refereed)
Abstract [en]
This presentation focuses on the foundation for a socially sustainable preschool. Based on a literary review, we argue for the necessity of preschool teachers’ care for children’s worldviews and suggest an analytical tool for creating a socially sustainable Early childhood education and care (ECEC). Previous research emphasizes caring for the child’s worldview as vital for the child’s resilience(Eizenberg & Jabareen, 2017), contributing to learning and well-being, both in preschool and in a longer perspective. Postcolonial, feminist care ethics (hooks, 2003; Noddings, 2013; Yuval-Davis, 2011), is used to argue for the importance of teachers’ awareness of power structures that create exclusion and a need for curiosity and sensitivity toward the child’s worldview with its religious orexistential elements. Based on postcolonial- and feminist late modernity-perspectives, a thematic literary review was conducted of 55 research articles found through the database ERIC, concerning educational challenges regarding cultural diversity in ECEC. The sources used were published articles. When reciting other authors' work, a research ethics stance has been used throughout the study. An effort was made to represent social diversity in the material. An analytical tool for sustainable educational professionalism in ECEC was developed, focusing on six dimensions of care: International (policy, discourse), Societal (national policy), Community(local preschool), Situations (routines, activities), Events (joint attention), and Acts of Care (individual). We wish that the tool provides a model for preschool teachers to assess and or plan for a holistic educational approach in ECEC where caring for the whole child includes also its worldview.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2023.
Keywords [en]
Early Childhood Education and Care, worldviews, care ethics, social sustainability, teacher professionalism
National Category
Pedagogical Work
Research subject
Educational Work; Religious Studies and Theology
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-96688OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kau-96688DiVA, id: diva2:1796561
Conference
31st EECERA Conference, Children’s Curiosity, Agency and Participation: Challenges for Professional Action and Development, 30th August - 2nd September 2023 Lisbon, Portugal
2023-09-122023-09-122023-09-19Bibliographically approved