This article presents the findings of a research study examining the impact of creative puppetry activities on aggressive behaviour in preschool children. The aim of creative drama was to allow for experiences that help children understand interpersonal relations, put themselves in another’s shoes and see alternative possibilities of behaving or acting in given situations. Play with a puppet in small groups offers children opportunities to establish pro-social peer interactions and learn socialisation skills including solving minor conflicts. The research was conducted with 22 preschool teachers in Slovenian preschools and first grades of elementary schools (including 460 children aged 4–7). The teachers completed a scale of social behaviour for each child in the group before introducing the puppetry activities and after concluding them, i.e. after three months of intense, daily creative work with puppets. The paired difference t-test showed that according to the teachers’ assessments after the three-month conduct of creative puppetry activities in the group, the frequency of the occurrence of aggressive behaviour in the total population was diminished, especially in the children who had the lowest scores in the initial assessment.
The present article examines the changes in Slovene preschools subsequent to Slovenia’s independence in 1991. In the socialist period, the national education programme for preschools was highly structured, goaland content-oriented and subject to schoolization. The Curriculum for Preschools (1999) brought conceptual changes towards education “based on the child” and the process approach, as well as giving more autonomy to preschool teachers and their assistants. In the empirical study, we examine changes in planning and evaluating educational work compared to the past. The results show that the majority of professionalworkers have reduced the high level of structure and rigidity in planning, and that there is better cooperation between preschool teachers and teachers’ assistants. Unlike in the past, most professional workers regularly evaluate their educational work. As the data was gathered in two phases, before and after the training of professional workers in the Reggio Emilia concept, we also search for the (probably indirect) influences of this training. We conclude that after the training the participation of children in planning and evaluating educational work is higher.
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