Likvärdighet och kvalitet

Swedish preschool teacher profession has changed. In the preschool teacher education, students must develop professional identities and know how to independently take responsibility for pedagogical activities, teaching and providing for children’s right to care, play, development and learning. The aim of this study is twofold: to investigate how students articulate their conditions for learning and professional development in their teaching practice, and to study how their education may be affected by being carried out in preschools of varying quality. The study is based on quality evaluations with the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS) at 153 Swedish preschools. The quality evaluations were related to a survey that 125 students answered in a preschool teacher education focusing on equivalence, the relationship between theory and practice and the quality in their teaching practice. The research questions we posed were: What characterizes the quality of preschools? Which aspects contribute to equality in teaching practice? How do the students describe the quality of the preschool? Bronfenbrenner’s ecological system theory frames the study. The analysis was informed by an interaction between empirical data and theory and thus was an abductive analytical process. The results show that the quality of preschools varies, creating unequal conditions for student learning. The students report inconsistent conditions for their learning in preschool. The political investment has enhanced the collaboration between preschool teacher education and preschool and visualized critical aspects, forming a point of intersection for the preschool teacher profession's quality.

Fragmented boundary zones between theory and practice in preschool teacher education in Sweden

Research dealing with preschool teacher education has been, for a long time, criticalof a binary divide between theory and practice. Based on that issue, this studyinvestigates a preschool teacher education programme in Sweden. It focusses onreflection upon theory and practice as an affordance offered to students in studies andwork. The study used a questionnaire with two groups: campus studentsfollowing the regular programme and students who were nurses already working atpreschools. Analysis shows a fragmented education where the groups faced differentproblems, but also that neither of them could connect reflections on theory andpractice at the workplace to their own learning approaches in either studies orworking matters. How the students experienced affordances depended on theireducational skills and knowledge, and the programme relied mostly on individualreflection as the solution to the binary divide. This reliance seemed to work better forcampus students, who were challenged by the new environmental affordances. Thestudents in the field-based programme were close to the preschools’ pedagogicalmicro-practice, which limited the possibility for critical reflection on theory andpractice and its contextual conditions, especially for students who were nurses.Workplace routines seem to structure the students’ learning instead.

Preschool Teacher Education As An Example Of Open Social System

With the realization of the substantial long-term educational, social, and economic benefits produced by high-quality preschool education, preschool teachers’ education is becoming more focused on in recent years. Moreover, other than the studies focus on providing evidence for the impact of the preschool education on the children outcomes, studies showing large benefits occur only when teachers are professionally prepared and adequately compensated are also increased. On the other hand, studies focusing on the program evaluation or educational systems mainly consider the issue from a more structured and multidimensional view. In this respect, as an example of open social systems, teacher education depends on many interrelated components that affect each other directly or indirectly. The aim of this study is to review and discuss some of these components of preschool teacher education Turkish context such as the student selection policy, faculty development, recruitment policy and competencies of the graduates. Current issues of preschool teacher education are reviewed within the light of the research and related documents in order to understand the context within a macro perspective.Keywords: Preschool teacher education, educational policy, open social system, Turkish context