This book highlights contemporary questions around Early Childhood Education in Finland. It explores a range of issues relating to policies and practices in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). The book features many aspects of the so-called Nordic model that is evident in different practices and policies of the Finnish ECEC system. Among others topics, it discusses playful learning, storycrafting, scientific literacy, pedagogical leadership, family-related variables, and Sami language learning. The findings provide important insights into the Finnish ECEC model and illustrate relevant issues facing Finland. All of the 14 chapters present unique research and give the reader the opportunity to understand how the ECEC services during children’s early years are defined and implemented. Each chapter includes a discussion of the educational outcome and highlights critical perspectives. In Finland ECEC is seen as an investment in the future. The Finnish ECEC system is one of the most equal in the world. The high-quality education is available to both private and public sectors. National curriculum and laws for early education have gone through a significant reform during the last decade, with the quality, practices and teachers’ competences being defined in order to support children’s future learning skills. ECEC in Finland is a unique combination of international influences and local intentions to put each child and family at the centre of the services. The systematic and goal-oriented ECEC system consists of upbringing, education and care with an emphasis on pedagogy in order to produce excellence for the future. Its overall planning, guidance and monitoring system is one of a kind.

What is childhood like in Finland? What kind of practical solutions have been created and evaluated that aim at both providing good childhood experiences and supporting children’s positive development? What practices aim to prevent child exclusion from regular education and social experiences and to foster children’s healthy development in emotional, social, and behavioural terms? This book considers the reality of childhood in Finland. It discusses the realisation and evaluation of early childhood education and addresses aspects of research and practice concerning children under the age of 10. It examines the growth and development of young children, how learning and teaching are organised, practices of rearing children and the state of child care in Finland. Contributors represent a variety of universities and sub disciplines in the science of education and focus on perspectives of children’s well-being, special viewpoints of early childhood education, care, and research in Finland. This book was originally published as a special issue of Early Child Development and Care.

What is childhood like in Finland? What kind of practical solutions have been created and evaluated that aim at both providing good childhood experiences and supporting children’s positive development? What practices aim to prevent child exclusion from regular education and social experiences and to foster children’s healthy development in emotional, social, and behavioural terms? This book considers the reality of childhood in Finland. It discusses the realisation and evaluation of early childhood education and addresses aspects of research and practice concerning children under the age of 10. It examines the growth and development of young children, how learning and teaching are organised, practices of rearing children and the state of child care in Finland. Contributors represent a variety of universities and sub disciplines in the science of education and focus on perspectives of children’s well-being, special viewpoints of early childhood education, care, and research in Finland. This book was originally published as a special issue of Early Child Development and Care.

Although it is rarely given sufficient consideration in either scholarly or political debates, early childhood education plays a crucial role in the integration process of young immigrants in European countries, since it not only enables the children to be integrated into society, both linguistically and culturally, but it also provides their parents with the opportunity, through their children, to view the society more directly and to reflect on their own values in the encounter, or to potentially seek new orientations. The quality of young migrants’ educational achievements, which have repeatedly caused current political debates in European countries, should not be considered independently of the elementary education measures since they are very closely related. Prof. Dr. Ednan Aslan is Chair of Islamic Religious Education at the Institute for Islamic Theological Studies at the University of Vienna.

Early childhood care and education (ECCE) settings offer an opportunity to provide children with a solid beginning in all areas of their development. The quality and efficacy of these settings depend largely on the individuals within the ECCE workforce. Policy makers need a complete picture of ECCE teachers and caregivers in order to tackle the persistent challenges facing this workforce. The IOM and the National Research Council hosted a workshop to describe the ECCE workforce and outline its parameters. Speakers explored issues in defining and describing the workforce, the marketplace of ECCE, the effects of the workforce on children, the contextual factors that shape the workforce, and opportunities for strengthening ECCE as a profession.

The best-selling book of easy-to-implement classroom lessons from the world’s premier educational system—now available in paperback. Finland shocked the world when its fifteen-year-olds scored highest on the first Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), a set of tests evaluating critical-thinking skills in math, science, and reading. That was in 2001; even today, this tiny Nordic nation continues to amaze. How does Finnish education—with short school days, light homework loads, and little standardized testing—produce students who match the PISA scores of other nations with more traditional “work ethic” standards? When Timothy Walker started teaching fifth graders at a Helsinki public school, he began a search for the secrets behind the successes of Finland’s education system. Highlighting specific strategies that support joyful K–12 classrooms and can be integrated with U.S. educational standards, this book, available in paperback for the first time, gathers what he learned and shows how any teacher can implement many of Finland's best practices. A new foreword by the author addresses the urgent questions of teaching, and living, in these pandemic times.

This book focuses on quality issues in early childhood education and care in Korea.