engleski

Play and child-centeredness in Romania and Croatia

Play, i.e. children learning through play has been identified as one of the principles of child-centredness (Bogatić, Višnjić-Jevtić, Campbell- Barr, Georgeson, 2018), however both play and child-centredness can be quite differently interpreted in ECEC literature depending on the specific theoretical starting points. Both play and child-centredness can be viewed from different perspectives, with different emphases put on different aspects of these two complex notions. This preliminary research therefore aims to gain insight into what scientists and professionals research and write about when dealing with play and/or child-centredness in Romanian and Croatian journals. A more specific aim is to gain insight into the nuanced meanings of the two complex notions being researched and written about by the authors (depending on their selected theoretical background). To achieve this aim, a literature search was conducted in prominent databases of Romanian and Croatian journals using keywords denoting ‘play’ and ‘child- centredness’ in the Romanian and Croatian language respectively, as well as in English. The search focused on journal articles, regardless of the articles’ categorization, published within the last 3 years, after the Romanian new national ECEC curriculum was passed, changing the position of play in their context. The results of this small- scale research will further understandings of play and child-centredness within and between these two different contexts, adding to the corpus of international literature on the subject in languages other than English.

child-centredness, Croatia, journals, play, Romania

Igra odnosno dječje učenje kroz igru identificirano je kao jedan od principa usmjerenosti na dijete (Bogatić, Višnjić-Jevtić, Campbell-Barr, Georgeson, 2018), no i igra i usmjerenost na dijete mogu biti vrlo različito interpretirani u literaturi o ranom i predškolskom odgoju i obrazovanju ovisno o odabranim teorijskim polazištima. I igra i usmjerenost na dijete mogu se promatrati iz različitih perspektiva, a važnost se različito može pridavati različitim aspektima ova dva kompleksna pojma. Ovo preliminarno istraživanje stoga za svoj cilj ima dobivanje uvida u teme koje istražuju i o kojima pišu znanstvenici i stručnjaci kada pišu o igri i/ili usmjerenosti na dijete u hrvatskim i rumunjskim časopisima. Konkretniji je cilj dobivanje uvida u konkretne nijanse (različitih) konceptualizacija navedena dva kompleksna pojma koja su u fokusu odabranih članaka ovisno o odabranom teorijskom okviru. Kako bi se navedeni cilj postigao, provedena je pretraga literature u prominentnim bazama članaka rumunjskih i hrvatskih znanstvenih i stručnih časopisa koristeći ključne riječi koje označavaju 'igru' i 'usmjerenost na dijete' na rumunjskom i hrvatskom, kao i na engle