engleski

Young Children’s Conceptions of Sustainability in Croatia

This research focuses on young children’s understandings about economic, social, and environmental sustainability. Participants were 43 children, aged from 3 to 7years of age, recruited from two kindergartens in Croatia. Children’s ideas were discussed through semi- structured interviews that focused on saving, spending, recycling, justice, inequality, diversity, gender stereotypes, interdependence, help-ing others, environmental pollution, and care of the environment. The interviews included closed and open-ended questions and photographs were used to illustrate the sustainability concepts discussed. The analyses of children’s ideas about sustain-ability concepts and practices considered the complexity of children’s ideas, using the SOLO learning outcomes framework. Older children were familiar with almost all key topics (e.g., use of money, recycling, diversity) but less familiar with the term justice, although they did have some understandings of its meaning. The youngest children had fewer ideas about sustainability. The findings indicate that kindergar-tens and preschools can provide foundations for lifelong learning about sustainabil-ity and important implications are that teachers can promote children’s understand-ings through enriching pedagogical activities

Early Childhood Education (ECE) ; Economic sustainability ; Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) ; Environmental Sustainability ; Socio-cultural sustainability

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