Pia Williams

Five preschool curricula —comparative perspective

SummaryIn recent years the OECD has undertaken the evaluation of early childhood education and care (ECEC) on behalf of ministers of education in a number of countries in order to support quality improvement in this field. This article is based on a workshop for the national coordinators of early childhood policy in Sweden, 2003, which dealt with Curriculum and Pedagogy in Early Childhood Education. The five curricula presented were Reggio Emilia, Te Whãriki, Experiential Education, High/Scope and the Swedish National Curriculum for Preschool. The aim of this article is to compare these curricula, establishing similarities and differences discussing quality aspects and problematising the general and the cultural specifics of each curriculum per se and in relation to the others. A further aim is to raise awareness of curriculum questions in connection with children’s learning and development. The article is based on a pedagogical perspective of quality, which takes the perspective of the child and focuses on what is best for a child’s learning and development in a specific culture. The results of the analysis show that the five curricula are of high quality in relation to each country’s culture. High quality in preschool means giving the children a good start in life. The unique and competent child has rights of its own and should be treated with respect. In focus are the individual child’s opportunities for building up knowledge and expressing their understanding of the surrounding world. High quality is also related to the competent and professional teacher with theoretical and pedagogical knowledge.RésuméPendant ces dernières années, l’OECD, au nom des ministres de l’Education de différents pays, s’est chargée d’évaluer l’Education préscolaire (ECEC) à fin d’améliorer sa qualité. Cet article a son origine dans un atelier qui a réunit les coordinateurs nationaux de l’Education préscolaire en Suède en 2003. L’atelier fut consacré aux Programmes et à la Pédagogie de l’école maternelle. Les cinq programmes présentés étaient les suivants: Reggio Emilia, Te Whãriki, Experiential Education, High/Scope et le Programme suédois du niveau préscolaire. L’objectif de cet article est de détecter les similitudes et les différences existant entre les programmes, de discuter leur niveau de qualité et d’analyser les aspects culturels, généraux et spécifiques de chacun des programmes. Un autre but de cet article est d’accroître la conscience autour des questions relatives à l’apprentissage et au développement des enfants dans le cadre des programmes d’éducation. L’article est centré sur le thème de la qualité du point de vue pédagogique, en prenant la perspective de l’enfant, et il donne priorité au sujet à ce qui est le mieux pour l’apprentissage et le développement de l’enfant dans une culture spécifique. Les résultats de l’analyse montrent que les cinq programmes sont de haute qualité, par rapport à la culture de chaque pays. Haute qualité signifie ici que l’éducation préscolaire est capable de donner à l’enfant un bon point de départ pour la vie. L’enfant, unique et compétent, a des droits par lui-même, et devrait être traité avec respect. On vise ici, en premier lieu, les possibilités de l’enfant de connaître et d’exprimer leur compréhension du monde qui l’entoure. La haute qualité est aussi en rapport avec le fait d’avoir des instituteurs compétents et professionels possédant des connaissances théoriques et pédagogiques.ResumenEn los últimos años, la OECD, por iniciativa de un grupo de ministros de Educación, ha asumido la tarea de evaluar la Política de Educación Pre-escolar. Este artículo se basa en un taller que en el año 2003 reunió a los coordinadores nacionales de la política de Educación Pre-escolar en Suecia. El tema del taller eran los Programas y la Pedagogía de este nivel de educación. Los cinco programas presentados fueron los siguientes: Reggio Emilia, Te Whâriki, Experiential Education, High Scope y el Programa sueco para el parvulario. Este artículo se propone detectar semejanzas y diferencias existentes entre ellos, discutir aspectos de calidad de los mismos y analizar aspectots culturales, tanto generales como específicos, de cada uno. Otro objetivo es el de incrementar la conciencia de los problemas ligados al aprendizaje y desarrollo del niño, dentro del marco de los programas de educación. El artículo enfoca el tema de la calidad pedagógica desde la perspectiva del niño y se plantea qué es lo mejor para el aprendizaje y desarrollo del éste en una cultura específica. Los resultados del análisis muestan que los cinco programas son de alta calidad, en relación con las culturas de sus respectivos países. Alta calidad significa que el parvulario provee a los niños de un buen punto de partida en la vida. El niño, único y competente, tiene derechos propios y debería ser tratado con respeto. Como foco de primordial interés aparecen las posibilidades para cada niño de conocer y expresar su comprensión del mundo que lo rodea. El concepto de alta calidad se relaciona también con la competencia y profesionalidad del maestro poseedor de conocimientos teóricos y pedagógicos.

Collaboration as One Aspect of Quality: A perspective of collaboration and pedagogical quality in educational settings

The aim of this article is to problematise and discuss collaboration between children as a means of learning and as an essential aspect of pedagogical quality in educational settings. In theories of learning, childrens social interaction and collaboration are highlighted as fundamental to their learning. This implies that childrens opportunities to learn from each other in educational contexts constitute a decisive aspect of pedagogical quality, which focuses on possibilities for learning and learning processes in the educational system. At the same time, collaboration is questioned as a means of motivating learning beyond childrens own expected potential. We suggest that it might depend on the way education is organised and carried out, the view of knowledge and what is regarded as valuable content in relation to how collaboration is defined, described, and thought about in both research and practice.

constructive competition in preschool

The purpose of this article is to draw attention to competition as a multidimensional phenomenon in preschool. Theories of competition are outlined here in relation to an empirical study of how preschool children compete constructively and how they themselves express and conceive competition in different situations. The data consist of video observations, individual and group interviews as well as children’s drawings. The results show that cooperation and constructive competition exist simultaneously. Competition enters children’s lives at an early stage, and constructive competition is a dimension that can motivate children to achieve better at the same time as it makes activities more exciting. Constructive competition is also a dimension of children’s cooperation as well as individual activities.

Preschool Routines, Peer Learning and Participation

The aim of this study was to examine what children learn spontaneously from each other in everyday activities within the preschool culture. It involves an interpretation and analysis of specific situations, which focus on the spontaneous learning that occurs in childrens actions and communication . Everyday activities in preschool are associated with routines in situations like meals, circle time and play activities. In these situations children have opportunities to learn about rules, ways of acting, routines, codes and discursive practices; knowledge and skills which are often tacit but which children learn from each other through social practices.

Conditions for collaborative learning and constructive competition in school

Background: Teacher-organised group work, in which pupils work together in groups or pairs, is one of many learning situations pupils may encounter at school. Research (Williams, P. and Sheridan, S., Collaboration as one aspect of quality: a perspective of collaboration and pedagogical quality in educational settings. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 50, no. 1: 89–93, 2006) shows that even though pupils are aware of the benefits that working in groups can generate, they tend to avoid structured group work at school. Purpose: The aim of this study is to gain knowledge about necessary conditions for collaborative learning and constructive competition to develop among pupils at school. What conditions are necessary for collaboration and constructive competition to develop in learning situations among pupils at school? Sample: The study was carried out in Sweden and involved a total of 66 children, 6–18 years of age, and 25 teachers. Both sexes were equally represented among the pupils. The participating schools and teachers were selected by means of a stratified sample involving different geographical and socioeconomic areas and different educational programmes. Twelve children were selected from each of school grades 1, 5 and 9, whilst a total of 30 students were selected from five different upper secondary school programmes. Design and methods: To study the conditions under which constructive competition could develop in school, the methodology used involved individual interviews. The analysis was qualitative and focused on the phenomenon of constructive competition and situations in which pupils and teachers compete. The process of analysis was interplay between empirical data and interactionistic theory, an analytical process of abduction, which consists of interpreting data and devising a theory to explain them. The intentions were to highlight perspectives of constructive competition in a variety of ways. The analyses converge, as well as generating information and knowledge about how pupils and teachers understand constructive competition. Conclusions: Several factors emerged as important for collaboration and constructive competition to develop among pupils in school. These were categorised into three conditions: attitudes, organisation and the meaning of learning. Competition between pupils and teachers does occur in school but it is not often explicitly articulated. The ways in which competition develops, either in destructive or constructive directions, becomes more a question of chance or coincidence than as evolving out of a conscious choice. To compete constructively in a conscious manner requires knowledge of how to be able to control the situation in a positive manner, about the characteristics of this kind of competition and of how – that is to say under what kind of conditions – it will develop constructively between people in school contexts. Content and conditions are thus seen as inseparable in the development of constructive competition.

Preschool – an arena for children’s learning of social and cognitive knowledge

The aim is to investigate Swedish preschool teachers’ accounts of children’s learning in relation to the goals in the Swedish preschool curriculum. The research question is: “What do preschool teachers see as fundamental aspects of learning in preschool practice?” The study is based on interactionist perspectives founded in Urie Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory in which individuals and environment influence each other in a dynamic, reciprocal interaction. The data consist of interviews. The results show two themes that describe what teachers express as fundamental learning aspects in preschool practice: children’s learning of social knowledge and children’s learning of social and cognitive knowledge as integrated. The results show that some preschool teachers view social knowledge as fundamental to children’s learning. Others have a broader learning-oriented approach, which is grounded in the Swedish preschool curriculum and in modern theories of learning. This is an integrated learning approach, which is assumed to promote children’s learning and development in a long-term perspective.

Children Teaching Children.

This study describes children’s awareness of what it means to teach a game to a peer where the act of teaching becomes expression of the child’s possible awareness. Awareness is defined as the attention to different aspects of the teaching process shown by the teaching child, sometimes through their own verbal reflection. This implies an interpretation of the child’s spontaneous actions and expressions in a specific situation, which the child chooses to focus on. The interpretation resulted in a qualitative description of four children’s ways of teaching a peer the game of Chinese Checkers. The idea of teaching someone something was observed in all four of the teaching children but it is not a homogeneous process. All four teaching children show a deliberate goal to bring about a change in the learning child. The children have different goals with the task and differ from each other depending on what their goals are.

Group Size and Organisational Conditions for Children's Learning in Preschool: A Teacher Perspective.

Background: There is a limited amount of research about group size in preschool, and how it impacts on teachers’ working conditions and their ability to support children’s learning and knowledge development in line with curriculum intentions. Purpose: From a perspective on quality, this article examines the organisational conditions for children’s learning in preschool in relation to group size. The questions at issue are: how do teachers explain how they organise the child group and the learning environment in preschool, and why? Sample: The sample consists of 12 preschools from different parts of Sweden. The preschools selected for the study are stratified in order to represent small and large group sizes in Swedish preschools as defined by the Swedish National Agency for Education. The sample contains both urban and rural regions and represents districts that differ geographically, demographically, ethnically, and which include varied socioeconomic structures. The 12 preschools had children in three age groupings: 1–3, 3–5 or 1–5. The number of children in the participating preschools ranged from 12 children to 45 children, with seven of the preschools having more than 30 children in their groups. Design and method: The article is based on interactionist perspectives, Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory, a critical ecology of the early childhood profession, theories of children’s learning, and four dimensions of pedagogical quality. Together, these theoretical perspectives contribute to an understanding of the relationships between policy issues, educational goals, group size and teachers’ competence in organising and creating conditions for children’s learning. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with two teachers from each of the 12 preschools. The interviews lasted between 40–60 minutes and were recorded and transcribed verbatim. The analytical process was conducted in three steps and can be described as an analytical process of abduction. The four dimensions of pedagogical quality were used as analytical lenses to discern and understand critical aspects related to the teachers’ understanding of group size. Result: Irrespective of group size, most of the children participate in different group constellations throughout the day, some organised by the teachers and some by the children themselves. Teachers’ competence to organise the children in such ways that good conditions for learning were created, differed between preschools, and depended on the teachers’ approach, which can be described as either intentional or unintentional learning. Conclusion: Teachers’ organisational approaches influence the quality of the preschool and conditions for children’s learning in distinct ways.

Children's Ways of Experiencing Peer Interaction.

Educational practice in age integrated child groups rests on the assumption that children learn from their peers. The benefits of age integrated teaching is to enhance the value of heterogeneity in child groups. The fact that children are different from each other with different experiences is seen as an asset, which both children and teachers can benefit from. 22 children in a school class with children of mixed age; ranging from 7‐9 years, were interviewed about their conceptions of peer interaction. How do children conceive peer collaboration, and what does it mean to children to teach someone something? A phenomenographic research approach is being used to discern the variation in ways of thinking about how children do when they teach someone something, and how they conceive peer collaboration at school. Children are conscious about the fact that they are able to teach their peers, and they can express this in different ways. Children also shift in their roles as “teacher” and “learner”. In some examples it is the “teacher” who plays the active role, in others it is the “learner” who has to be active by imitating the model/teacher.

Swedish preschool teachers' ideas of the ideal preschool group

In Sweden, preschool has been noted as being of a high quality compared to many other countries. However, dramatic changes in the preschool sector are taking place. A recent law states that it is a child’s right to get a preschool place within a few months. As a consequence, the number of children in preschool has increased, which could influence group sizes since there is no state regulation of the number of children in a group. This article based on the project The impact of group size on children’s affordances in preschool aims to describe and analyse preschool teachers’ ideas of what an ideal preschool group is. It is a qualitative study based on a questionnaire with mainly open-ended questions, answered by preschool teachers. The results show that preschool teachers define a well-functioning group as having a balance between gender, age and ethnicity. The preschool teachers stress that they prefer a group with fewer children than they have today. A key aspect of having a well-functioning group is also the preschool teachers’ competence and the preschool environment. Preschool teachers’ ideas of what constitute an ideal group of children may contribute to why they perceive the group size too large.