Societal conditions impacting on parenting have radically changed during the past two decades. There is variation between and within societies depending on social, cultural, political and economic factors. Today, Early Childhood and Care (ECEC) services play an increasingly important role in supporting families with young children during birth to…

In this article we will present a reflexive way of producing a narrative analysis on teaching and learning that involves all participants of the pedagogical process. Our theoretical contribution rests on the concept "lived pedagogy", adapted from Max van Manen's term "lived experience". Like van Manen, we start by asking the…

Teachers' learning and occupational well-being is crucial in attaining educational goals both in the classroom and at the school community level. In this article teachers' occupational well-being that is constructed in teaching-learning processes within the school community is referred to as pedagogical well-being. The article focuses on exploring…

This study was conducted during the academic year 2002-2003 in a municipality in Eastern Finland. It focuses on pre-school education assessing its quality factors from the parents', teachers' and children's points of view. Theoretically, the study focuses on analyses of the purposes of the national core curriculum and pedagogical issues that are…

This study investigated ethical conflicts in early childhood education as experienced by early education teachers. The study's focus was the themes and main interactive relationships involved in such conflicts. Twenty-six Finnish kindergarten and elementary teachers were asked to write about a real-life moral dilemma they had experienced in their…

Reports that the cooperation of the classroom teacher and the remedial reading teacher leads to more individualized instruction and better parent/teacher relationships in Finland. (FL)

Compared parent and teacher expectations concerning development and learning in 3- to 5-year-olds in Finland and Ireland. Found that both Irish and Finnish teachers consider social skills with peers the most important for preschoolers; however, Irish teachers stressed language and preacademic skills, while Finnish teachers stressed…

This paper discusses ethical dilemmas in early childhood education as identified by 26 kindergarten and early elementary school teachers. Ethical dilemmas are investigated in the theoretical framework of virtue epistemology. The method used in the study is a relational reading of teachers' narratives. Interpretive accounts are created to allow…