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Being part of a peer group and feeling a sense of belonging increases the well-being of children in early childhood education and care (ECEC). Still, children face exclusion and rejection by peers. This study examined children's peer exclusion experiences in pre-primary school settings, investigating children's voices and perspectives through researching children's narratives. Ten children participated in the interviews in Finnish pre-primary school during spring 2018. Children's narrations about exclusion took place during free play time in children's peer groups. Results showed common features but also a variety of children's experiences and strategies when facing exclusion, and suggests that children with positive experiences with peers can cope with occasional exclusion. Children had a clear understanding of exclusion and they were capable of expressing their experiences verbally. Furthermore, by researching children's narratives, we can increase our understanding of peer exclusion in early childhood educational settings.

The concept of pedagogy is the key to understanding pedagogy in early childhood education (ECE) in the Nordic countries, which are known for their high quality of life and education. However, in ECE, there are several different approaches toward pedagogy and it can be said that pedagogy is a multidimensional and dynamic concept. In this paper, the different approaches to pedagogy are defined and reconceptualized through an integrative literature analysis focusing on scientific papers and research reports of the concept. Five approaches to pedagogy were constructed: pedagogy through interaction, pedagogy through scaffolding, pedagogy through didactics, pedagogy through expertise, and pedagogy through future orientation. The identified tensions and elements within the five approaches are presented. Finally, the shared elements among these pedagogical approaches are presented in a dynamic model.

In numerous countries, primary school class teachers have problems regarding music teaching. It has been reported that there is a lack of both confidence and musical skills. However, the question often relates not only to a lack of self-efficacy beliefs but also to the organisation of the studies. This research looks for sources influencing the formation of self-efficacy beliefs through the lens of self-efficacy theory considering music studies and seeks possible solutions to motivate and develop student teachers' interest in teaching music at the primary school level. The research revealed several self-efficacy factors that had a significant influence on student teachers' later motivation for teaching music in the future.

Early childhood education and care is a current interest in many countries. Many international studies have highlighted the importance of high-quality early education environments where learning and play are integrated. Studies show that these types of learning environments have a positive impact on children's future prospects and overall development. Critical curriculum steering documents from Finland and Brazil form the basis of this study and can similarly be shown to define the quality of these environments, as well as providing definitions of playful learning in these differing cultural contexts. A content analysis explores patterns of the cultural and pedagogical difference of definition. This descriptive comparison permitted similarities and differences between the countries with regard to play to emerge. In this article, the authors explore what these different cultural and pedagogical definitions of play and playful learning are and what they might mean. The article thus makes a methodological contribution to a broader discussion of comparative studies of national curricula in early childhood education with specific regard to children's engagement, learning and development in and through play. The theoretical conclusions are, however, more tentative, but the authors suggest some innovative ways to conceptualise cultural and pedagogical differences in play by making an analogy with Wittgenstein's analysis of games in his Philosophical Investigations.

Blended teaching and learning, combining online and face-to-face instruction, and shared reflection are gaining in popularity worldwide and present evolving challenges in the field of teacher training and education. There is also a growing need to focus on transversal competencies such as critical thinking and collaboration. This study is positioned at the intersection of blended education and transversal competencies in the context of a blended ECEC teacher-training program (1000+) at the University of Helsinki. Blended education is a novel approach to training teachers, and there is a desire to explore how such an approach supports the acquisition of transversal competencies and whether the associated methods offer something essential for the development of teacher training. The aim is to explore what transversal competencies this teachertraining program supports for future teachers, and how students reflect on their learning experiences. The data consist of documents from teacher-education curricula and essays from the students on the 1000+ program. They were content-analyzed from a scoping perspective. Students' experiences of studying enhanced the achievement of generic goals in teacher education, such as to develop critical and reflective thinking, interaction competence, collaboration skills, and independent and collective expertise. We highlight the importance of teacher development in preparing for education in the future during the teacher training. Emphasizing professional development, we challenge the conventional teaching paradigm by introducing a holistic approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Embodiment and bodily experiences are vital parts of communication and learning in the early years. Children are believed to develop their thinking processes and language skills through sensory and motor experiences in early childhood education while they show, touch, mimic, and think by doing; in other words, they are learning by doing. In this paper, embodied and playful learning activities are explored through a translanguaging approach. The embodiment experiences in education can be understood as modalities of learning; this especially concerns play. Thus, the pedagogical scaffolding of these modalities by teachers can be analysed through a translanguaging approach. In Finnish early childhood education, there is a whole-child approach that considers children to be active agents in learning. Moreover, recognizing the whole child and viewing their development from social, physical, and mental perspectives have been rooted very strongly in pedagogical philosophy and practices in ECEC Finland through the playful learning approach. In this paper, we emphasize the expression of children’s embodiment and non-verbal communication when combined with spoken verbal languages and fantasy animal languages using a translanguaging approach. We focus on children’s translanguaging practices and embodied expressions. Embodiment in learning practices is essential for children in their sensory-motor or pre-operational phase of development because they show, touch, mimic, and think through an active approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we describe the professional development towards distributed leadership among different organizational levels in Finnish day care centres within the Helsinki metropolitan area. The aim of the study was to monitor the progress of professional development between educational administration and practitioners. The data was based on descriptions of reflective practices used in the development projects of each research day care centre. Participants were asked to describe developing practices and reflect on their own contributions to the process as both individuals and together as working teams during the two years of the development project. The researchers collected these reflections, analysed them to produce results and then delivered this evidence to participants for utilization in reflection and further processing of working practices with the support of the mentor. Directors and mentors viewed distributed leadership as a good way to encourage development practices and brought out the role of staff as important agents in the development process. The distribution of leadership seems to be best realized among the participants at the lowest and middle hierarchical levels.

Research Findings: Research has shown that self-regulation can support child development in the areas of children's attentional flexibility, working memory, and inhibitory control for excluding impulsive responses. How this is actually related in everyday pedagogical early childhood education (ECE) activities has rarely been studied in detail. In this article self-regulation in a Finnish ECE context was analyzed. The data were collected with a survey questionnaire from 706 teaching teams that involved 2,222 individual teachers located in the capital area of Helsinki, Finland. Self-regulation was analyzed through teachers' perceptions within the context of participatory learning in ECE. The main categories of analysis answered research questions about self-regulation experiences offered to children, teacher support for children's engagement in self-regulation experiences, and children's participation in self-regulation experiences. The findings suggested that the teachers provided children with self-regulation experiences through play activities with their peers and teachers. These activities, which concerned discussing, negotiating, and making suggestions in interaction with others, were seen as an essential part of the children's self-regulation. The results showed that teachers supported children's self-regulation through participation by ensuring children's independent initiatives and listening to their voices and opinions; they also created opportunities for children to participate in decision making. Practice or Policy: Our results imply that using the framework of participation is promising when studying children's self-regulation in a pedagogical context where children need both social and cognitive support for their self-regulatory activities.