Visions of students of pedagogy about kindergartens

Abstract

This paper discusses female pedagogy students’ visions of kindergartens. Visions are operationalized as a sort of reconstructing procedure of previously experienced things, but they also leave space for creativity, and can be variously combined into new, unique visions that are no longer mental reflections of reality. The research method was thematic writing about the visions of the students. The research sample consisted of 40 female students enrolled in the 1st year of the bachelor’s degree programme Kindergarten Education. It was an intentional decision to choose students at the beginning of their studies, as at that time they are not yet much influenced by the knowledge acquired during their studies. The aim of the research was to discover how female students envision kindergartens, how kindergarten has changed since they attended it as children, what kindergartens should be like, and also what the kindergarten teacher should be like. Consequently, content analysis of all obtained data was carried out. The results show that the students’ visions of kindergartens are connected mostly to the kindergarten environment, and the appropriate kindergarten activities. For the students, cooperation between the kindergartens and the families is of key importance. Moreover, students consider kindergarten an institution that should prepare children for future life. Changes which the students noticed in comparison to when they attended kindergarten were predominantly in the attitude towards children in the kindergarten environment and in the legislation. As far as the female students’ visions of kindergarten teachers go, they consider it crucial that the teacher has a positive attitude towards children and a university degree. © The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology.