Purpose
The study investigates how the concept of resilience is expressed in national and international kindergarten guidelines and how this can contribute to sustainability in a rapidly changing world. The research questions are: 1) To what extent is resilience addressed in the guidelines? 2) How can kindergarten education support resilience in the face of global challenges?
Result
The results showed that resilience is implicitly expressed in the guidelines, but rarely related to sustainability issues. Instead, the guidelines mainly limit resilience to the psychological dimension and the individual child. The researchers conclude that kindergarten is a suitable context for supporting resilience in several ways. They propose the use of a holistic understanding of resilience to promote guidelines for kindergarten that incorporate various perspectives from families and communities, include the voices of indigenous peoples, and acknowledge the connection between humans and the non-human world.
Design
The study analyses five national and four international guidelines for kindergarten education. The national guidelines come from Finland, New Zealand, the Philippines, Slovenia and Sweden, while the international documents include the Tashkent Declaration, the WHO-UNICEF-Lancet Commission, the ARNEC Document and the EUCR Document. The content relevant to the research questions was systematically summarised, analysed and interpreted to identify explicit and implicit messages about resilience.
References
Furu, A.-C., Chan, A., Larsson, J., Engdahl, I., Klaus, S., Navarrete, A. M., & Turk Niskač, B. (2023). Promoting Resilience in Early Childhood Education and Care to Prepare Children for a World of Change: A Critical Analysis of National and International Policy Documents. Children (Basel), 10(4), 716.