Teachers’ Understanding of Children’s Right to Participation in Finnish Early Childhood Education and Care

Abstract

Every child has rights, not only as a human being but also as a participant in early childhood education and care (ECE). The rights of children are well documented in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and in Finnish steering documents for ECE. This paper specifically focuses on children’s participation as one of the key rights in Finnish ECE. In a previous study (Mansikka and Lundkvist, Nordisk tidsskrift for pedagogikk & kritikk 5:111–129, 2019), it became clear that the focus of current Finnish ECE is more oriented towards learning than nursery care, more towards children’s participation than simply teacher-oriented activities and more towards children’s own perspectives and rights. This study examines in detail the views of 10 early childhood education teachers on important aspects of children’s right to participation in early learning environments in Finland. The data used in this paper is based on interviews with early childhood education teachers in ECE. Content analysis was performed on this empirical data to identify key themes in teachers’ understanding of children’s rights to participation in ECE. The results indicate that teachers are aware of the importance of the curriculum and the idea of children’s participation, but that the concept of rights generally needs to be deepened in pedagogical activities.