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Background: The role of early childhood education and care (ECEC) is crucial in the implementation of the physical activity recommendations during long ECEC days. Young children should engage in 180 minutes of physical activity spread throughout the day, including 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA). To attain the goal more information is needed on children's time use and physical activity (PA) in children's activities. Aim: The purposes of this quantitative observational study were twofold: (1) to examine children's time use and (2) to describe which children's activities best generate physical activity, specifically MVPA, in ECEC. Setting: Altogether, 2879 Finnish children, aged from 1- to 6-years, participated in this study. Methods: The data of 57 881 observations were analysed using cross-tabulation and a z-test. Results: "Daily routines" (e.g. eating, dressing, napping and transition), "task or seatwork" and "material play" accounted for almost 70% of children's sedentary behaviour and less than 10% of MVPA. The best MVPA generators were "physical activities" (that generated 57.4% of all MVPA in boys vs. 62.8% in girls, respectively), "rule play" (11% in boys vs. 6.7% in girls) and "role play" (10.1% in boys vs. 9.9% in girls) as well as "action not allowed" (3.3% in boys vs. 1.2% in girls). Conclusions: Educators should integrate "physical activities," "rule play" and "role play" more in ECEC day to support the realisation of the recommendations.

Research on the involvement of autistic children in daily activities in inclusive early childhood education is scarce. In Finland, all children, including autistic children, under the age of seven (before basic education) are entitled to participate in early childhood education and care. Children also attend compulsory, free-of-charge pre-primary education during the year before their basic education begins. Furthermore, attending early childhood education and care is not dependent whether a child requires day care because of their parents' work. Autistic children attend early childhood education in inclusive day care centres. Thus, in this study, we examined the involvement of autistic children by focusing on the objects of their attention during daily activities in inclusive day care centres in Finland. The data were collected between 2017 and 2020, during the research and development project Progressive Feedback, in which children were observed using systematic sampling. The study material consisted of observations of seven autistic children as part of a larger sample of children. The data were analysed using statistical methods. The results indicated that, during their deepest involvement, autistic children expressed positive emotions regarding participation and collaborated with and directed their focus towards other children. Moreover, autistic children demonstrated the most intensive involvement during adult-supported play.

In this paper, we present research that focuses on pedagogical leadership that is evaluated by the staff in the early education unit. The evaluations relate to the observed indicators of the well-being of children and leadership evaluations conducted by the early education centre directors. The methods include systematic observation of children, educators' evaluation of leadership and directors' evaluation of their leadership. The measurements are independent of each other. The data were collected between 2017 and 2019 in Finnish early education units. The results indicate the connection between the pedagogical leadership of director and observed activities of children, including involved learning, positive emotion, physical activity and participation. The connection between pedagogical leadership evaluated by the staff was also connected with leadership evaluated by the director, highlighting the need for the director to focus on pedagogical leadership and staff involvement. The results provide a perspective to help the director to focus on the main task of early education, the well-being of the children.

Background: A large body of earlier research has focused on studying children's self-regulation (SR) skills and frustration with different methods. However, considerably less attention has been given to hearing children's own voice. The current study sought to demonstrate children's own comprehension and highlight it as a valuable and unique tendency to fill the scientific gap in the research area. Aim: This research aimed to contribute the empirical understanding of how SR, as mental ability, supported children's coping strategies and comprehensions which they will possibly use in a hypothetical frustrated context in the Finnish early childhood education and care (ECEC) environment. Setting: Self-regulation and strategies in a frustrating context were studied with mixed methods in a sample (n = 383) of 48-87-month-old children in Finland. Self-regulation was assessed by their own teachers with an evaluation form. The coping strategies of frustration were studied by interview where the children's open-ended descriptions provided the strategies told by themselves. Methods: The study's was conducted by using mixed methods. Two independent instruments to measure SR and strategies for frustration were used. Self-regulation was assessed by teacher with an evaluation form. The coping strategies of frustration were studied via child interview. Results: Good SR skills were related to persistent coping strategies and not giving up in a simulated situation. Weak SR skills related more with uncertain or withdrawal coping strategies, like giving up, or abandoning the situation. Conclusion: Self-regulation skills have an important role in guiding children with their use and narration of suitable coping strategies on overcoming the frustration effectively. The concrete strategies would allow teachers to work concretely with children in enhancing their SR skills and coping strategies further.

The study presented in this article is part of a larger study called Progressive Feedback (blogs.helsinki.fi/orientate), which is an early childhood education and care (ECEC) research and development project. The aim of this article is to find out: (1) how children's tested creative thinking abilities, fluency, originality and imagination correlated with children's social orientations in kindergarten; and (2) how children's participative orientations occur in relation with the teacher and peers. The data consist of Reunamo's child interview tool and the Thinking Creatively in Action and Movement (TCAM) test. The data (280 children from 23 kindergartens and pre-primary schools) were gathered from two municipalities in southern Finland. The results show that the participative orientation was strongly connected with creative thinking abilities, but it was rare in social situations concerning adults. In participative orientation, children concern the situation and intend to change it.

Quality factors are the subject of increasing interest in the research and practice of early childhood education and care (ECEC). The purpose of the article is to emphasize the importance of the children's voice in relation to the quality of ECEC. This article focuses on children's negative experiences of ECEC as they can be used to improve services and increase children's wellbeing. The data was collected by means of a questionnaire from 2500 children aged 2-6 years (girls 50.4%) in Finland. The data was analysed using qualitative and quantitative content analysis. According to the results, children mentioned both structural and process factors. Peer interaction among children was mentioned the most when referring to negative experiences in ECEC. We conclude that children's negative experiences provide an opportunity for ECEC professionals to support children's resilience and a sense of belonging, which are important elements in the process quality of ECEC.

Children with non-Finnish cultural or linguistic background face challenges to interact socially in the early childhood education (ECE) context in Finland. The present study aims to clarify (1) what kind of social roles children typically have in ECE, and (2) what sort of activities and play are typical to children with Finnish and non-Finnish cultural or linguistic background. The research data is systematically sampled large-scale observation data (1147 children, 22,149 observations) of 5-6-year-old children. According to our findings, non-social roles and less participative actions were found to be more common amongst diverse background children than with Finnish background children. Children with diverse background were found to be more involved especially in rule play but they were less participative in role play. The results suggest that ECE educators could pay specific attention to play-based interventions and to the shared cultural creation.

The present study investigated the role of music education in early childhood education and care (ECEC) in relation to the daily activities of children ages one to three, i.e. "toddlers" (N = 918) in Finnish ECEC units (N = 327). A total of 23,142 random observations were conducted. The observations focused on children's involvement, emotional expressions, social orientations and interaction with their immediate caregiver. An independently conducted survey was used to evaluate music emphasis in groups to which the observers did not have access. The data consist of the analysis of teachers' self-evaluations concerning the role music plays in daily activities and developmental orientations of toddlers in ECEC. The connections between the large-scale observations and independently measured music emphasis are discussed in the Results section. The results of the study highlight the importance of music in ECEC pedagogy for toddlers. The children in groups where music/singing was emphasised exhibited more sustained intense activity and less low or interrupted involvement. These groups also exhibited more positive emotions, increased social adaptation and increased social involvement with adults. Special emphasis on music enhanced the pedagogical learning environment.

This paper aims to determine possible gender differences in children's observed emotional expressions and their relationship with teacher-rated self-regulation (SR) skills in the setting of early childhood education and care (ECEC). Supporting SR and emotional wellbeing in early childhood can be considered a favourable pathway towards holistic development (e.g. Shonkoff et al. [2012]. The lifelong effects of early childhood adversity and toxic stress. "Pediatrics," 129(1), e232-e246; Bagdi & Vacca [2005]. Supporting early childhood social-emotional well being: The building blocks for early learning and school success. "Early Childhood Education Journal," 33(3), 145-150). The participants included 1213 (44.2%) boys and 1075 (41.0%) girls which were 13-83 months old. The SR data was collected through an evaluation instrument. Emotional expressions (N = 50480) were observed with an independent instrument. The results indicated how girls were observed to have more "neutral," "calm" or "peaceful"-related emotional expressions, while boys tended to express more "surprise," "curiosity," "anger" or "frustration"-related emotions. Boys' and girls' ability for SR was related to their emotional expressions. Boys' and girls' SR skills had the same tendency in weak, moderate and good SR categories.

A randomized controlled parallel-group trial was conducted to investigate the effectiveness of two 10-week early childhood education and care (ECEC) interventions "SAGA" and "Pikkuli" for supporting social-emotional and verbal development. All children above the age of 4 were invited from 15 Finnish volunteer ECEC groups (n SAGA = 52, n Pikkuli = 56, n control group = 42). The children and caregivers, but not the personnel (who carried out the intervention), were blinded to the group assignment. Children in the SAGA intervention advanced in prosocial behavior and social orientation and had fewer internalizing and externalizing problems after the intervention. Children in the Pikkuli intervention advanced in prosocial behavior and had fewer internalizing problems after the intervention. There were no significant changes in any of the aforementioned outcomes in the control group. The results suggest that both interventions have good potential in supporting children's social-emotional development in the ECEC environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Finnish early childhood education and care (ECEC) curriculum, there is no specific content for education for sustainable development (ESD). Thus, it is not possible to get direct guidelines on how to conduct ESD in ECEC from the curriculum. We seek to look at the preferences of Finnish early childhood educators through the model of extended environmental education. Behind this model is Palmer's tree model and an emphasis on empirical, social and ethical components of ECEC. The research method employed a survey. Altogether 924 teams in Southern Finland evaluated their learning environments. By using a factor and reliability analysis, we extracted three factors relevant to the extended Palmer's model. The teachers primarily emphasised the understanding (learning) aspects of ECEC. The second most important aspect comprised the social aspects of education. The third most important aspect included the ethical and participant aspects of ECEC. Potential implications and indications to the practice of ESD are discussed.

This quantitative study examines the connection between the years that children spent in early childhood education and care (ECEC) and their social orientations and main objects of attention. The data were collected within the Progressive Feedback project by observing children: 20,457 observations of 972 six-year-olds from 360 child groups in Finland. According to the results, the years children spent in ECEC have a connection to their social orientations and main objects of attention, and differences between genders were discovered. The longer the children had attended ECEC, the less adaptive orientation was observed. The children that had attended ECEC for under a year were observed to be the least participative. Dominant orientation increased the longer the children had attended ECEC. Those that had been in ECEC for more than four years rarely paid attention to non-social objects and adults and often paid attention to several children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Documentation in early childhood education and care (ECEC) institutions has been developed for decades in various contexts. Today, documentation is preferred as an inclusive method of evaluating, planning, and developing ECEC in the curricula of many countries. Qualitative research on documentation has increased in past years, but quantitative research on the connections between documentation and ECEC practice has remained behind. We will present a study in which a total of 2889 children, 194 kindergartens and preschools, and 179 teams of ECEC educators in 13 municipalities in Finland participated. On the basis of our quantitative analysis, we argue that documentation is inherently connected with child-centred and carefully planned ECEC practices and the children's participation, well-being, and ability to learn. One of our main findings is that documentation is not yet fully exploited in the Finnish ECEC. As a result, we encourage ECEC officers and educators to develop documentation further.

Bullying is a common phenomenon in early childhood education. It is also difficult to erase from the classroom activities and it may have long-lasting effects on children. In this article, bullying is studied from the perspective of the victims. Three- to seven-year-old children answered the question 'another child comes to tease you, what do you do?'. Children's strategies were classified as accommodative, participative, dominant, withdrawn or uncertain [Reunamo, J. T. (2007). "Adaptation and agency in early childhood education." "European Early Childhood Education Research Journal", 15(3), 365-377]. The classified interview data were inserted to the observation data of children's activities. The participatory strategies for tackling bullying increased with age. The different strategies described in the interview were connected with children's observed action. These tendencies resulting in different kinds of learning are discussed. Both the victims and the bully should get practice with a rich variety of strategies for participation to find more positive strategies for interaction.

The article describes a comparative case study on children's agentive orientations in two Hong Kong preschools, one is play-based and the other is academically focused. Agentive orientations were measured using Reunamo's interview tool, which focuses on children's uses of accommodative and agentive orientations in everyday situations. The findings show that children in the academically oriented preschool had more uncertain and less participative orientations than those in the play-based preschool. Boys in the academically oriented setting were found to be more vulnerable than both girls and their counterparts in the play-based preschool when confronted with a conflict setting. The results indicate that the play-based environment stimulated children's capacities for agentive and participative social engagement, suggesting that play provides children with the opportunity to develop more versatile social tools and strategies. These competences are of vital importance for successful engagement in collective settings such as classrooms and schools.

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in pedagogical documentation and the way in which it can be applied to advance pedagogical practices in early childhood education. This study is a case analysis which focuses on the transition phase from home to kindergarten of a toddler, Leo, and his family. Documentation was performed by the educators and parents with a tool called the Fan. Our analysis sought to demonstrate how the traces and inscriptions were created during the documentation process, and how they were applied and shared between Leo's family and the educators. This was done by utilizing the idea of documentality, and in relation to the concepts of traces, registrations, inscriptions, and documents. Our analyses demonstrated that pedagogical documentation with the Fan not only served as a tool for the registration of facts but also offered institutional value. The Fan mediated information about Leo's life between home and kindergarten, making his interests and feelings visible.

In this research, children's creativity in pretend play and the conditions for creativity during high involvement are studied from four points of view: as a zone for proximal development, as a skill, as a personal orientation and as a culturally shared environment creation. The theoretical model is influenced by Vygotsky's ideas of creativity as cultural mediation. The research methods are systematic observation and skill evaluation. The participants are 280 Finnish four- to five-year-old children in day care. The results highlight the importance of play both by sheer volume and also by children's involvement in it. Children's internalised skills result in personal choices and a personal network of peer contacts. The different choices result in different creative culture production environments. Creative children attract each other and they meet in creative social processes. However, less creative children get excluded from the creative core. Thus, children who need creative scaffolding the most get it the least. The possibilities of involving children in creative processes are discussed.

The purpose of the study was to investigate the dynamics of physical activity (PA) in day care and preschool. The participants were 823 Finnish 1-7-year-old children from 50 day care centres and preschools. The research methods were systematic observation, evaluation of children's skills and interviews with children. Altogether 18,366 observations were collected. Vygotsky's concept of the "zone of proximal development" is redefined in relation to PA. The results of the study show that environmental factors, and specifically peers, do indeed play a significant role in enhancing PA among children. There are cogent reasons for paying more attention to the dynamics of children's PA. Furthermore, there is reason to ponder extensively how to provide opportunities for PA and, more precisely, the development of motor competence in the day care and preschool context.

Research is not just a simple application of research methods. It is undertaken by human beings who hold personal views on the environment. The way in which the researcher sees environmental changes may have an impact on the research questions and the choice of research practices. The researcher may be a contributor to cultural development either through influential research results, powerful theories or models, or through the choices of research orientations or personal preferences. These contributions are especially important in the research for education for sustainable development (ESD), where it is hard to avoid a stance on environmental change. In this article, the researchers of ESD describe their preferences for research. The descriptions are evaluated in reference to four research orientations to get a full-bodied perspective on research preferences and practices. The article gives a glimpse of the researchers' own ideas about their work and its relation to environmental change. (Contains 2 figures.)

Children's stress in day care is related to the stressful qualities of the environment and to children's orientations in that environment. The study involved 55 children in five day centres in Finland. Baseline saliva samples for measuring cortisol (stress) levels were collected five times during the day. Children were interviewed to measure their orientation in regard to perceived change. The educators of the groups evaluated the learning environment qualities. The high cortisol levels at the wake-up time were correlated with chaotic, hectic and emotionally restricted learning environment qualities. However, in the afternoon, the correlations between cortisol levels and the learning environment had disappeared and were replaced by children's orientation to change. Children with more accommodative views had lower cortisol levels and children with uncertain views had higher cortisol levels. The children's different orientations seem to impact their stress levels and participate in the production of the learning environment stressful qualities. (Contains 7 figures and 3 tables.)

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe the research preferences and differences of education for sustainable development (ESD) researchers. A model with the continuums assimilation-accommodation and adaptation-agency was applied resulting in quantitative, qualitative, theoretic and participative research orientations. Design/methodology/approach: Reunamo's general model of agentive perception was used to design the 32-item questionnaire, Research for ESD so as to reveal the degree to which the researchers are accommodating their thoughts and actions to real phenomenon, and considering their research as having theoretical or practical agency. The questionnaire was administered to 83 ESD researchers, mainly from European countries. Findings: The most valuable discovery was the desire of ESD researchers to contribute to societal development. The results describe the first continuum of research activity with the need for opening up to the requisites and possibilities of environmental change while applying the existing prerequisites of scientific rigour and validity. The second continuum highlights the research as a knowledge resource for just political or individual choices on the one hand, and the direct application of the models and actions for needed change on the other hand. Research limitations/implications: It would be difficult to create a reliable register of ESD researchers worldwide. Thus, the opportunity sample of ESD researchers available to the authors was used in the study. Practical implications: The model, after adjustments, appears to be a promising tool in the study of research orientations. To study complex and controversial subjects such as sustainable development, the researchers need to be aware of their preferences and orientations. Originality/value: The paper shows the possibilities of the agentive perception model in the case of ESD researchers. (Contains 1 table.)

This paper reports on a study undertaken to investigate international perspectives of what constitutes research in education for sustainable development (ESD). By employing inductive thematic content analysis, the authors sought to examine the perceptions of 66 ESD researchers from 19 countries. The findings reveal a concern with the methodological aspects of research and an emergent need for synergy between the methodology of educational research and specific themes relevant to ESD research. The significant overlap of themes and aspects of ESD research apparent across the different contexts within which the researchers were embedded indicates a unified core of ESD research, although there is also evidence of contextual factors influencing the research agenda. Based on the findings of this study, the paper concludes that there is an overlap between educational research and ESD research, but that the latter has its own specific aims, themes and political supporters. In an endeavour to develop a shared understanding about ESD research across disciplines and research context, a common language has to be developed to facilitate a constructive dialogue and research capacity building in this novel field.

This article condenses the milestones of a long project. The ambition of the project has been to seek a balanced view of early childhood education, where both the adaptive and agentive nature of action is considered. A model based on the relationships between perception and environmental change serves as the project's theoretical foundation. The theory has been operationalised with 73 kindergarten children as research participants. Children's differing views about educational settings produce environmental change, in which they not only perceive agency, but where the perception has an agentive property in and of itself. This brings children forward as producers of learning content. The agency of perception applies also to the early childhood educator. Teachers and children of 284 kindergartens in Helsinki have been taking part in the production and refinement of the pedagogical tools, two of which are presented in the article. (Contains 6 figures.)

The aim of this study was to obtain new information about the diversity of everyday activities and social relations among children with special education needs (N = 145) in Finnish early childhood education and care (ECEC) units. In this research children´s daily activities, involvement, target of attention and social relations during play and other social activities in different groups formed according to children's special educational needs are investigated. Results revealed that children with problems in self-regulation and children with major disabilities spent less time with peers and in various social activities than children with developmental language disorder and children without special education needs. The results suggest that inclusive practices are still only under development within the Finnish ECEC units. Practical implications of the results concerning ways to support children's equal participation in daily activities in early childhood education and in building peer relationships, regardless of the amount of needed support are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]