engleski

Early education agendas and practice in the upbringing of young children in post-conflict regions in eastern Croatia

During the 1990s, Croatia experienced war on its own territory. There were significant numbers of casualties, among them civilians. Today Croatia is a member of the European Union and implements its recommendations in its own agendas. One of these fields of political activity is early education. To find out which values are formally supported in contemporary early education agendas in Croatia, content analysis of the National Curriculum for Early and Preschool Education was conducted. Also, assessment of preschool environment in post-conflict regions was conducted with the main purpose of gaining insight into the pedagogical reality in these areas. As the results showed, the National Curriculum for Early and Preschool Education underlines several values: responsibility and inclusion, competence (i.e. key competencies and citizenship) and participation along with freedom of choice. However, the de facto situation in the regions previously affected by war has revealed dual practices: some institutions nurture segregation and animosity, while others are oriented towards inclusive and multicultural values. The latter ones also have a higher level of overall quality. These findings indicate the following: (1) supporting values such as participation, citizenship and inclusion can facilitate overall quality of early education, (2) institutions are immerged into local community climate and thus mirror contemporary social relations, (3) values are a complex issue driven by social and individual factors, and (4) education is seen as a tool for administrating political interests which is the opposite of child’s best interest. The implications of this survey are theoretical, and can be used to incorporate a philosophical approach in education research.

early education, post-conflict context, quality, values

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