Documenting towards democratic early education curriculum in the Republic of Croatia

ABSTRACT

Democratic society, which is developing in the Republic of Croatia, has aspired for a flexible and developmental curriculum oriented towards the individualization of the educational process, cooperation of all participants and positive communication. Such curriculum is enhanced by pedagogical documentation of the educational process, constructive dialogue, and critical reflection on continuous reflective practicums of educators. The outcome of such professional development of educators is the gradual equalization of democratic values in a stimulating learning context. The qualitative approach to the pedagogical practice of the early education curriculum has been changed and improved in three periods of research by action research through ethnographic records. The research was conducted in a Croatian kindergarten, and the results confirm the need to use pedagogical documentation, continuous and honest discussions of educators during which the democratic dialogue raises the level of professional development of educators, and consequently the development of democratic values in children.

KEYWORDS:

• Action research
• democracy
• ethnographic elements
• pedagogical documentation
• professional development of educators

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s)

Notes

1 Državni pedagoški standardi (Croatian)*.

*The footnotes are identifying the documents for referencing purposes hereinafter.

2 Zakon o predškolskom odgoju i naobrazbi (Croatian).

3 Nacionalni okvirni kurikulum za predškolski odgoj i opće obvezno obrazovanje u osnovnoj i srednjoj školi (Croatian).

4 Nacionalni kurikulum za rani i predškolski odgoj i obrazovanje (Croatian) – in later text: NKRIPOO.

5 Konvencija o pravima djeteta (Croatian).

6 Etički kodeks Odbora za etiku u znanosti i visokom obrazovanju (Croatian).

7 Etički kodeks istraživanja s djecom (Croatian).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by University of Slavonski Brod.