Abstract
The paper discusses the phenomenon of child autonomy from the perspective of educators' personal epistemologies and power relations in the adult-child interaction in the practices of institutional education in Montenegro. The construct of child autonomy is approached from the standpoint of critical-constructivist theory and the self- -determination theory, as a socio-cultural product shaped by ethnopedagogies and personal epistemologies of educators. The main goal of the ethnographic study conducted in three preschool educational institutions in Montenegro was to explore the epistemological theories of educators through the analysis of institutional educational practices, given that "the ways of thinking about childhood fuse with institutionalized practices" (Prout & James, 2005, p. 22). We conclude about the existence of an objectivist epistemological theory of educators and the dominance of normative power relations in educator-child interactions, and discuss a special type of epistemological "over-power". The comparability with the results of similar research in the region is stated, and it points to a possible explanatory connection between collectivist culture and the controlling motivational style and authoritarianism in education.
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