Exploring Taiwanese preschool children’s perspectives on the value of caring

ABSTRACT

The current study explores Taiwanese preschool children’s understanding of the value of caring in school. This study offers researchers and practitioners opportunities to study children’s perspectives in a particular cultural setting and discuss the connectedness of culture and children’s views on caring. Participatory research and qualitative methods were used, encompassing the collecting of children’s speech, photography, and drawings. The findings regarding the understanding of caring indicated the following: (1) Children interpret caring among peers and from school surroundings; (2) children perceive teacher care in daily classroom routines; (3) children learn about values when outdoors, in learning areas, and during transition times; and (4) children exhibit the ability to distinguish non-caring behaviour. This study shows that for children caring was most frequently defined as helping others in need and as teacher care in daily routines. The children’s views on caring were influenced by culture, and they created meanings for caring.

KEYWORDS:

• Children’s perspectives
• caring
• values education
• preschool
• culture

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge all the research participants who participated in this study.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Science and Techonology Council, Taiwan [grant number MOST 107-2410-H-845-014].