Preschool teachers’ competencies for inclusive practice and partnership with parents – experiences from Croatia

Proceedings of ‏The 2nd International Conference on New Approaches in Education

Year: 2020

DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.33422/2nd.icnaeducation.2020.03.133

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Preschool teachers’ competencies for inclusive practice and partnership with parents – experiences from Croatia

Anka Jurčević Lozančić and Ivana Golik Homolak

 

ABSTRACT: 

The competencies preschool teachers need to acquire and the skills they need to develop have changed in the last few decades, turning them into professions which require continuous critical reflections, objective insights and acceptance of one’s own role in the inclusive practice. Preschool teachers are required to understand and know how to establish a close, trusting and accepting relationship with parents. They are also expected to be able to balance expectations, norms and requirements they put on themselves and parents. In order to achieve this, they should use the contemporary educational partnership procedures in their immediate inclusive practice. Given all that, the competencies for inclusive practice actually represent a continuous process which implies the ability to contribute to and build the corpus of the existing knowledge, as well as to develop the practical and reflective skills and professional attitudes. The aim of the current paper is to analyze the preschool teachers’ professional competencies for inclusive practices and partnerships with parents in the Croatian preschool facilities. With the help of a semi-structured interview, the examinees gave their opinions on the inclusive practice and partnership with parents, the type of cooperation with parents, and the way of acquiring competencies for maintaining partnership with parents.

Keywords: social inclusion, dialogue, difficulties and support.