Transition from early childhood education and care to compulsory school education – the curricular meeting place

Somolanji Tokić, Ida. (2018). Transition from early childhood education and care to compulsory school education – the curricular meeting place. PhD Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of Pedagogy.
(Poslijediplomski doktorski studij pedagogije) [mentor Slunjski, Edita].

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Abstract

In the pedagogical theory and practice the process of starting school is being recognized as a significant moment of the child's life, as well as all other participants of the process. The child takes on new social roles and enters in a new social relationships. At the same time, the child must be successful at the academic level. The new school environment can be in great discrepancy with the child's early experiences therefore the starting school can make it difficult for a child to take part in a new environment. The educational continuity from preschool to primary school will provide the child with the necessary challenges that encourages development. The issue of transition from one educational system to another sets one of the fundamental questions about the understanding of contemporary childhood and the child and hence the purpose of education at all levels. It cannot be limited to developing a strategy to deal with change, but rather to explore what changes are happening, what they depend on and are they necessary. The underlying theory of transition to school that is being considered in this paper is the ecological theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1979), which embraces the child in its overall social environment and mutual relationships, and the theory of social constructivism of Vygotsky (1978), in which learning is understood as the reconstruction of experience and knowledge of the child and its social environment. The paper is not seeking to observe the transition from the perspective of child's readiness, but rather from the perspective of acknowledging the experience and knowledge of all stakeholders. This paper explored the curricular meeting place during the starting school process in the Republic of Croatia from the preschool and compulsory school teacher’s perspective. Theoretical and empirical analysis of the transition process and links between early and preschool education and care and compulsory school education was given. By carrying out the quantitative and qualitative research of the problems at hand, results indicated the low intensity connections of the two educational systems, different motives of such practice and the different image of the child between two educational systems. The new guidelines proposed at the end of the paper imply an intensive and systematic (self) reflection of the existing practices. The (self) reflection involves all professionals from both educational levels as a strong support network. Preschool and compulsory school teachers should not be isolated in their curricular meeting place, but open for all stakeholders and joint collaboration. That only further verifies the need for developed culture of self-reflection and self-evaluation in ensuring the quality of institution development and child experience.

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