This paper aims at investigating the changing constructions of childhood in two Finnish pre-school education curricula during the time of pre-school reform in the late 1990s and early 2000s. These constructions are part of the underlying curriculum containing postulates and values that influence the written curriculum documents. They determine the…

Children's participation in the early childhood education context is a multidimensional issue and educators have a significant role in enhancing participation. In this paper, we focus on the existing challenges to children's participation and the ways that child care educators can work as teams to meet those challenges. The data were collected…

In this study we examine parents' and teachers' perceptions of the early childhood education and care (ECEC) quality in Finland. The study is based on the paradigm of inclusionary quality and the assessment is based on the quality evaluation model. The parents and teachers assess the quality to be good. The strength of the quality was the effect…

Altogether 38 girls and 46 boys aged four to five years were studied to analyse the linear and non-linear development of fundamental motor skills. The children were grouped into one experimental and one control group to study the effects of an eight-month preschool physical education curriculum. In the course of one year, the balance skills of the…

This study examined the diversity of teaching practices to illuminate the qualitative variety of instructional teaching practices among preschool teachers. Further, teachers' self-rated educational goals were explored to complement the multifaceted nature of preschool teachers' instructional teaching practices. The study was carried out as a case…

This article gives a general picture of the policy and main structural features of early childhood education services for the younger children in Finland. It also provides an overview of the research on 1 to 3-year-old children in day care centres carried out in Finland during the last 15 years, the focus being on a review of all the eight…

The aim of this study was to examine whether the current literacy programmes in European Union kindergarten curricula support and enhance young children's reading and writing development. This study investigated whether the kindergarten curricula of 10 European countries: Britain, Belgium, France, Finland, Greece, Ireland, Luxembourg, Portugal,…

This Information Bulletin contains an introduction and three articles on preschool education. The introduction notes the unsolved problem of providing care outside the home for children below the school age of seven, day care and preschool education being the alternatives considered. The first article "Pre-school Education in Finland"…