Supporting Children’s Participation in Finnish Child Care Centers

Abstract

Children’s participation in the early childhood education context is a multidimensional issue and educators have a significant role in enhancing participation. In this paper, we focus on the existing challenges to children’s participation and the ways that child care educators can work as teams to meet those challenges. The data were collected with a questionnaire from 1,114 child care teams working in the Helsinki metropolitan area. These teams consisted of almost 4,000 educators who took care of almost 20,000 children. Through ESEM factor analysis, the variables were organized into five factors: Adult–Child Ratios, Professional Skills; Managing Work; Work Practices and Special Needs. The team members felt they had a varying impact on the different challenges: highest on professional skills and managing work and lowest on Adult-Child Ratios. The results offer material for reflecting on practices in early childhood education especially when children’s participation must be developed.