Abstract:

Slovakia has a strong tradition of pre-school education. However, its availability is limited. Children's participation in pre-school education programmes is low compared to other EU countries. This situation is also due to the low participation of children from socially excluded localities. For example, in the 2017/2018 school year, just under a third of these children, mainly of Roma ethnicity, attended kindergarten. In 2021, a law came into force that made pre-primary education compulsory for all 5-year-olds. The measure is also expected to improve the pre-school education of Roma children and increase their participation in kindergartens. In this context, it is interesting to explore to what extent kindergartens are prepared for this change. In this paper, we present the results of a research study that investigated what kindergarten teachers are concerned about and how they feel prepared to work with children with diverse needs, specifically children from socially excluded localities.

The research was designed as qualitative-quantitative. It was conducted in several phases:
1) online data collection and analysis (150 FB comments),
2) teacher interviews and analysis (10 respondents),
3) questionnaire data collection (280 respondents).

Qualitative analysis showed that the teachers feel insecurity in several areas:
1) in the area of cooperation with Roma parents,
2) in the area of working with Roma children,
3) in the area of working with the curriculum and
4) in the area of classroom management.

We have also noted the teachers' sceptical views towards Roma. In this paper, we focus on a particular aspect, cooperation with parents. We identified six perceived problems, which we called "barriers to cooperation". The results of the questionnaire suggest that teachers' concerns about cooperation with families of children from different sociocultural backgrounds are comparable to concerns about cooperation with children with disabilities or giftedness. The biggest barrier was considered by the kindergarten teachers to be the resistance of parents to adapt to the standard kindergarten regime. There was no correlation between subjectively perceived barriers to working with parents and the intensity of experience working with children with diverse needs. Similarly, there was no evidence of an effect of the stated quality of preservice education or opportunities for further training in this area. However, the perception of this barrier correlates with the subjective perception of oneself as a curriculum designer/performer. The research results point to an important aspect of the quality of preprimary education, which is cooperation with the families of children, especially if they come from different socio-cultural backgrounds. On the basis of the results, we can formulate the conclusion that the ability to work creatively and autonomously with the curriculum strengthens the teacher's perception of several barriers to inclusive practice in preschool education.

Keywords:

Preschool children, socio-cultural background, cooperation, preschool teacher.