The Risks Of Discrimination In Applying Individual Approach In Kindergarten And School

Abstract

The current article presents research on the likelihood that the individual approach in pedagogical practice leads to discrimination practices toward students. Teachers have long been considered as leading figures in Bulgarian society throughout the history and have been actively participating in shaping the nation. With the contemporary changes in teachers’ role, educational tasks and newly formed skills and requirements in the personal development for each student and the ever changing expectations from society toward teachers’ abilities and social and emotional competences, it becomes clear that teachers often relay on their personal attitudes toward a student or a group of students to guide them when evaluating or even giving tasks with a different level of difficulties in order to help them improve which could easily be mistaken as an individual approach. The presented research aims at collecting data from in-service teachers in order to provide further information on the status of use/misuse of individual approach within Bulgarian educational system. The authors do not in any way imply that the teachers are intentionally agreeing to discrimination against one student or a group of students. On the contrary, the article presents the attitudes toward individual approach as a common practice which is used often but also being misused with good intentions. The target group consists of 86 in-service teachers selected randomly from different regions of Bulgaria, teaching in different types of schools and kindergartens. The article presents the outcomes and some applicable recommendations for preventions of discriminatory practices as a result from application of individual approach in education.