Varhaiserityisopettajien ajatuksia työhön kohdistuneista muutoksista

Authors

• Elina Viljamaa Oulun yliopisto, Finland
• Marjatta Takala Oulun yliopisto, Finland

Keywords:

inclusion in early childhood education, inkluusio, changes in early childhood special education, muutos, teachers of early childhood special education, varhaiserityisopettaja, varhaiskasvatus

Abstract

This study focused on the thoughts about changes in the work of early childhood special education teachers in one Finnish municipality. In this district, all the special groups and integrated special groups that had been functioning as kindergartens were closed down, and the children were placed in regular groups. The teachers’ work profile changed to that of more consultative teachers shared by several kin-dergartens and groups. The early childhood special education teachers’ thoughts on change were collected with an electronic questionnaire repeated three times within a period of three years. The responses were interpreted through the theories of change and narrativity (Bruner, 1986; Fullan, 2001). In their responses, the early childhood special education teachers reflected on past and ongoing changes, sug-gesting solutions to issues they saw as problematic. They positioned themselves and their work as a target of change, and not as active actors in the process of change. They described the changes that had taken place as a process that they were con-sidering both from the outside (the decisions were not theirs) and as their own in-ternal thoughts about this process of change. The early childhood special education teachers associated the change with inclusion and inclusive education. They under-stood inclusion as the right of children with special needs to join the same groups as other children. They wanted to develop early childhood education in a composed manner, looking for flexible models.