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Early Childhood Educ J (2013) 41:273281 DOI 10.1007/s10643-012-0551-8
How do Early Childhood Education Teachers Perceive Their Expertise? A Qualitative Study of Child Care Providersin Lapland, Finland
Iiris Happo Kaarina Maatta Satu Uusiautti
Published online: 17 October 2012 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012
Abstract Every preschool age child in Finland has the right to child care. Well-educated staff consists of all-round experts who work in versatile contexts with various children in a multi-professional collaboration. This staff is one of the strengths of the Finnish child care system. The aim of this article is to clarify the expertise of those early childhood education teachers, who have the competence of kindergarten teachers (n = 80) and discuss how the development of early childhood education teachers expertise could be supported in a small country like Finland, and more specically, in its northernmost part, the province of Lapland. This was a qualitative study. The data consisted of the early educators stories of their growth toward expertise. The analysis method was content analysis. Four themes emerged from the analysis of the early educators growth toward expertise. According to the informants, education, work experience, personal life history and personal attitudes toward work had been the most inuential variables in the process of growth toward their expertise. This research showed that the development of early childhood education teachers expertise necessitates new kinds of working methods and measures for educational planning. In addition, there is need for individual development plans as the work has become more and more collegial and it is necessary to expand a notion of individual expertise into the realm of collaborative and socially shared expertise.
Keywords Expertise Early childhood education
teachers Competencies Professional development
Finnish Lapland
Introduction
In Finland, the system of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) has two main goals. One is to fulll the preschool age childrens child care needs and the other is to provide early childhood education. Day-care services are open to every childin other words, all children below school age are entitled to receive municipal child care. Adultchild ratios in day-care services are the following: one adult per seven children, aged between three and 6 years; one adult per four children up to the age of 3. Preschool education starts at the age of...