Young children’s perceptions and practices of democracy in an early years setting, Scotland

Tez Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: University of Edinburgh, Beşeri Bilimler Fakültesi, Çocukluk Çalışmaları, İngiltere

Tez Danışmanı: Prof Kay Tisdall, Dr Marlies Kustatscher

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2018

Tezin Dili: İngilizce

Desteklendiği Program: Diğer

Özet:

Democracy is a multidimensional concept which is more than a form of government. The term of democracy holds the patterns of social structure of the community in itself. For this reason, the intelligibility and applicability of democracy by all sections of society are important. The impact of early ages on the future is remarkable and the knowledge and skills gained in these years are vital in terms of the democratic outlook of future generations. To this end, the understanding of democracy for the children in their early ages is investigated. Thus, this exploratory project is aimed to investigate the perceptions and daily democratic practices of young children in a nursery setting. The method of ethnography was used to provide participatory field notes as the data collection method. The fieldwork was conducted in a nursery setting in a large Scottish city. The qualitative data was analysed through the thematic analysis procedures and three broad themes are identified: collaboration, respect and participation. It is suggested that children’s democratic practices are exercised dominantly in their play and findings suggest that they are capable to perceive democracy mainly in a collaborative, respective and participatory way in their daily lives.