Principals’ Views on and Descriptions of Preschool Education for Sustainable Development

Author
Borg, F. & Vinterek, M.
Year
2020

Purpose

The study investigates the views of coordinators in environmentally certified and non-environmentally certified kindergartens regarding sustainable development education. The research questions are: 1) How do the coordinators describe learning activities related to sustainable development at the environmentally certified and the non-environmentally certified kindergartens? 2) How do the coordinators view the importance of learning activities that are related to sustainable development? 3) What are the similarities and differences in the coordinators’ views on and descriptions of pedagogical work related to sustainable development in their kindergartens?

Result

The results show that the coordinators view sustainable development education as a crucial learning activity in kindergarten and believe it must be incorporated into the teaching. Based on the coordinators’ descriptions, it seems that the environmentally certified kindergartens prioritise sustainable development education to a greater extent than non-environmentally certified kindergartens.

Design

The data material consists of interviews with seven kindergarten coordinators in a total of 22 kindergartens in six Swedish municipalities. The interviews were audio recorded, transcribed and thematically analysed.

References

Borg, F. & Vinterek, M. (2020). “Principals’ Views on and Descriptions of Preschool Education for Sustainable Development”. jATES: Journal of Applied Technical and Educational Sciences, 10(2):18-40.