Premisser för hållbarhet i den finländska utbildningen av lärare inom småbarnspedagogik - En kritisk granskning av visioner och verklighet

Abstract

Premises for sustainability in Finnish early childhood teacher education-from vision to implementation. Finnish Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) should, according to national policy documents and curricula, promote sustainable development and a sustainable life style. Early childhood educators play a key role in implementing strategies of sustainability in ECEC. This implies that sustainability should have a prominent position in early childhood teacher education. However, this is not the case. The aim of this article is to present how sustainability is formulated in Finnish policy documents as well as the premises for sustainability education in early childhood teacher education. Methodologically the study builds on a triangulation of three types of research material; national policy documents, a study of teacher students' understanding of the concept of sustainable development, and a survey concerning courses on sustainability in early childhood teacher education. The results show a discrepancy between the vision and implementation of sustainability in Finnish early childhood teacher education. Based upon the study's findings, we discuss how sustainability could be reinforced in early childhood teacher education.

Transitioning to Quality Education

“…Educating teachers who are teaching in early childhood education about sustainability issues should be as important as the development of curriculum plans that include sustainability (Pramling Samuelsson and Park 2017). The fact is that, for instance, in Finland, there is a gap between vision and the implementation of sustainability in early childhood teacher education (Furu et al 2018). Wolff and Furu (2018) have investigated how Finnish student teachers in early childhood education understand the concept of sustainable development.…”

“…The fact is that, for instance, in Finland, there is a gap between vision and the implementation of sustainability in early childhood teacher education (Furu et al 2018). Wolff and Furu (2018) have investigated how Finnish student teachers in early childhood education understand the concept of sustainable development. The research (ibid) show that the student teachers in early childhood education in Finland possesses a limited understanding of the sustainability concept, and likewise graduated teachers (Wolff et al 2017), and even teacher educators in Finland (Hofman 2012).…”

“…The research (ibid) show that the student teachers in early childhood education in Finland possesses a limited understanding of the sustainability concept, and likewise graduated teachers (Wolff et al 2017), and even teacher educators in Finland (Hofman 2012). In another article, Furu et al (2018) take it as far as to state that sustainability has such an inconspicuous position in the Finnish early childhood teacher education that it can be called insufficient. The same problem also seems to be common in other levels of education in Finland and other Nordic countries, all the way from the base to the top in the educational system, even though the education in the Nordic countries is considered to be high quality education.…”

Transformation toward sustainability in Finnish teacher education policy: Promises and shortcomings

“…By this choice, we want to present an example of the situation from the view of a country with a high performance and renowned academic teacher education. A few earlier studies have focused on Finnish teacher education study programs (Hofman, 2012;Cockerell, 2020), the student teachers' change agency (Koskela and Kärkkäinen, 2021), student teacher preconceptions (Furu et al, 2018), obstacles for implementing sustainability in teacher education (Wolff et al, 2017), and curricula and educational policy in general (Jónsson et al, 2021). This study uses new lenses, and wants to shed light on the situation focusing on teacher education policy.…”