Purpose
The study presents kindergarten teachers’ narratives about ethically valuable encounters with children in kindergarten. The purpose of the study is to provide increased insight into how kindergarten teachers talk about ethics in their practices, and into the types of values that appear in the kindergarten teachers’ stories.
Result
The study showed that giving kindergarten teachers the opportunity to reflect on what was valuable to them when they did something as routine as meeting the children gave the kindergarten teachers opportunities to develop their professional values. The kindergarten teachers highlighted their own emotional involvement in their encounters with the children. The authors of the article argue that such professional and, to a greater or lesser extent, personal emotional involvement is an important part of the kindergarten teachers’ role and work, not only in their caregiving work, but also in their pedagogical work.
Design
Seven kindergarten teachers in Sweden participated in the study. The data collection was carried out in two stages: Firstly, the kindergarten teachers recorded answers to a series of open-ended questions during a workday. An app was used for this. After the workday had ended, they were interviewed based on the responses they had recorded in the app. Audio recordings were made of the interviews. The researchers then performed a thematic narrative analysis of the kindergarten teachers’ accounts.
References
Löfgren, H. & Manni, A. (2020). "Valuable everyday encounters in early childhood education: narratives from professionals". Early Years.