Parent and teacher expectations for developing young children: A cross-cultural comparison between Ireland and Finland

Abstract

The aim of this study was to compare parent and teacher expectations concerning the development and learning of 3 to 5-year-old children cross-culturally using national representative samples in Finland and Ireland. Expectations concerning the following areas were examined: preacademic skills, motor~physical skills, self-expression, language skills, social skills with peers, social skills with adults, self-sufficiency and self-assessment. Respondents were asked to rank the importance of these areas, to predict the expectation preferences from each others point of view and to prioritise developmental and learning responsibilities both from their own point of view and each others. The results show that both in Ireland and Finland teachers consider social skills with peers the most important skills for the development of 4 to 5-year-olds. However, the importance of language and preacademic skills was stressed more among Irish than Finnish teachers. In Finland the importance of self-sufficiency was considered more central. Finnish parents agreed almost totally with teachers' preferences while in Ireland the level of agreement was low. The differences between the countries were even clearer when comparing what teachers perceived as being their responsibilities. Teachers in Ireland felt quite strongly that both preacademic skills and language skills were among their responsibilities while this was not the case in Finland, where preacademic skills were considered the least important. R~SUME L'objectif de cet article est de comparer les attentes des parents et celles des enseignants quant au ddveloppement et ~ l'apprentissage des enfants de 3 71 5 ans, enFinlande et en Irlande. Nous avons examind les domaines suivants : les capacitds pr~acaddmiques, Ies compdtences motrices, l'expression personnelle, les compdtences langagi~res, les compdtences sociales entre enfants, et avec l'adulte, l'autonomie et l'auto dvaluation. On a demandd aux parents et aux enseignants de classer par ordre d'importance ces divers domaines, d'imaginer les choix prdfdrentiels des autres, et de prdciser les responsabilitds principales de chacun en mati~re de ddveloppement et d" apprentissagne. Les rdsultats montrent que, dans les deux pays, les compdtences sociales entre enfants sont considdrdes par les enseignants comme les compdtences les plus importantes pour le ddveloppement des enfants de 4 et 5 ans. Toutefois, les enseignants irlandais ont accordd plus d'importance que les finnois au langage et aux capacitds prdacad~miques. En Finlande, l'autonomie occupe une place plus centrale. Les parents finnois sont en parfait accord avec les choix des enseignants. Ce n'est pas le cas des parents irlandais o~ le niveau d'accord est faible. Les diffdrences entre les pays sont encore plus claires Iorsqu'on comparare ce que les enseignants consid~rent comme dtant de leur responsabilitd. Les enseignants irlandais estiment que ce sont les capacitds prdacad4miques et le langage, ce qui n'est pas le cas en Finlande o~ les capacitds prdacaddmiques sont considdr...

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