Student Teachers' and Preschool Children's Questions about Life

• The Swedish Higher Education Ordinance (Högskoleförordning, 1993) outlines a set of goals for the education of preschool teachers. These goals state that education should help student teacher's [1] to develop a capacity for identifying and working with issues of an existential, ethical, ecological, international and cultural character in preschool. Previous research (Hartman, 1986; Johansson, 1992; Pramling & Johansson, 1995) indicates that preschool teachers find children's questions about life complicated to handle. The purpose of the present study is threefold. First, an empirical study aims to find out and describe students' perspectives of childrens' questions about life, that is, children's search for meaning in their experience of living. Second, an intervention study aims to develop student's competence in working with preschool childrens' questions about life and to offer students a phenomenographical oriented pedagogy to use in their future work. Finally, we want to compare these student teacher's ways of experencing with student teacher's involved in a traditional oriented pedagogy at another university. The results show a significant change in the preschool teacher trainees' expereinces of what they consider childrens' questions about life and the strategies for working with these questions in preschool. After the intervention study was completed, the students emphasised the importance of finding the child's point of view and of tackling the child's questions together. The student teachers found that their roles and the questions were a tool for helping children develop their thinking and understand the world around them.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Annan samhällsvetenskap -- Övrig annan samhällsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Other Social Sciences -- Other Social Sciences not elsewhere specified (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap -- Pedagogik (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences -- Pedagogy (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Student

teacher

children

questions about life

learning

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)