Mid Sweden University

This paper explores how student teachers construct the notion of teacher professional identity in relation to their understanding of their future role as teachers of young children. Qualitative data were collected consisting of 61 open-end questionnaires and 5 personal semi-structured interviews. The major findings show that there is an obvious connection between the student teachers’ prior work experiences and their choice of being teacher of young children. In describing their view on teacher profession and professional learning, the student teachers of primary school early years emphasize learning of subject matter and pedagogical knowledge; while student teachers of pre-school focus on the importance of ethic of care and knowledge of child development, and they prefer to identify themselves as pedagogues rather than as teachers. The results also indicate a common sense of viewing teacher’s work as an important, multiple and challenging profession by both groups of student teachers.

Information communication technology (ICT) has been bringing increasingly greater changes in education such as educational system, policies, programs, curricula, resources, teaching methods, and other aspects related to education, among which teacher education is one important area. “Technology Enhanced Teacher Professional Development (TETPD) in Sweden and China” is a three years’ research project funded by The Swedish Research Links. The purpose of the project is to study TETPD in Sweden and China, aiming at exploring status quo of TETPD in both countries, especially teachers´ attitudes, experiences, and understanding of technology-enhanced learning and teaching, and identifying TETPD models and the common factors that contribute to successful TETPD. This paper is based on the findings from the first stage of the project by Swedish researchers, which focuses on policies and status quo of teacher education and TETPD in Sweden. A preliminary comparative study based on the findings from Sweden and China will be carried out collaboratively by researchers from Sweden and China at the next stage.

This article is about changes in Chinese early childhood education in recent years. The content, process and outcomes of reform in early childhood education in China have been affected by the national goals of reform, the social context of early educational institutions, their organizational characteristics, family structure, family policy, the specific professional culture of teaching and learning, as well as the global influence. The previous welfare model of kindergarten, which was regarded as one of the outcomes of a socialist system, is being transformed into a new market competitive model to meet a political demand for the marketisation of society. The curricula of early educational program, teachers� attitudes to children, and their professional activities have been re-shaped according to new ideas about the needs and abilities of children, new conceptions of child development and, not least, the new modernisation �knowledge� that gained ascendancy in China.

Sweden and China have different histories and traditions in the field of early childhood education. In the secondary part of the 1990s, both counties adopted national curricula for preschool. The purpose of this study is to compare the preschool education of these two countries at policy and ideological level by examining and analyzing the frameworks and content of the national curricula for preschool within their respective social, political, cultural and pedagogical contexts. The special emphasis is on the similarities and differences in the statements on goals, tasks, and pedagogy for early childhood education in the national official documents. The major result shows that both curricular are goal directed policy documents in forms of regulations or guidelines. No methods for preschool work are stated, which leaves much room for the local and individual implementation. Learning and development of the child are stressed. Play is viewed as the important means for learning of preschool children in both curricula. The Swedish curriculum emphasizes on the fundamental democratic value for preschool, and the perspectives and values of children�s learning and development. The preschool model is based on the premise that children learn and develop in all the contexts in which they are involved. The Chinese curriculum stresses both childcare and education, and the main task of preschool is to promote physical, moral and intellectual development of the child in a harmonious way. The content of educational activities that is selected and organized in a planed way is seen as important. The idea of �respecting children� has been promoted.

Teachers´ professional development is crucial to bring about educational effectiveness and school improvement. In the New Century teachers must be able to work effectively within context of change, paradox and instability. However, the current policy approaches to teacher education in Sweden are far from this demand of developing teachers as critical professional experts. In this article, we exam the use of the ideas of action research in carrying out a course within an in-service teacher training program for master degree at Mid Sweden University, in which teachers� inquiry into their own practice and their reflective learning were stressed. Fourteen teachers who took this course participated in this study. The data we collected into this study includes questionnaires, the writing reports of teachers� action research, the curriculum documents of programme, and conversations with the focus group. Using the constructive frameworks of professional knowledge, teacher professionalism, action research, reflective practice in analysing the data, we find that teachers become more aware and sensitive to questions and ideas concerning educational and pedagogical issues, as well as develop knowledge and a heightened sense of their own professional work through this kind of reflective practice. We argue that carrying out in-service training programmes based on ideas of action research can make teacher education more relevant to the demands for teachers� learning and their professional development, support the tendency of an inclusive approach in schools, and thus promote educational effectiveness and school improvement.

Denna studie behandlar förändringar av den kinesiska förskolan under de fyra moderniseringarna efter Maos död. Med bas i det fältarbete som genomfördes i Kina 1997 undersöks förändringar på två nivåer; dels en systemnivå (strukturella förändringar) och dels en verksamhetsnivå (läroplan, aktiviteter och ideologi), med betoning på förändringar under 1990-talet. Förändringar inom förskolan beskrivs och diskuteras i ett historiskt kontext, där förändringar av både policy och praxis undersöks. Förändringar inom utbildning är nära knutna till sociala, politiska, ekonomiska och kulturella förhållanden. Sålunda har innehåll, process och resultat av reformer av den kinesiska förskolan påverkats av nationella målsättningar med reformerna, förskoleinstitutionernas sociala kontext och organisatoriska karaktär, familjestruktur och familjepolitik samt undervisningens och lärandets specifika professionella kultur. Senare strukturella reformer inom den kinesiska förskolan har präglats av det övergripande nationella målet - ekonomisk utveckling. Den tidigare välfärdsmodellen inom förskolan, vilken betraktades som en del i ett socialistiskt system, är under omvandling till en ny konkurrensutsatt modell i syfte att svara upp mot det politiska kravet om marknadsanpassning. Förskolans läroplan, lärares attityder till barn och deras professionella aktiviteter har därför omformats i anslutning till nya föreställningar om barns behov och förmågor, nya uppfattningar om barns utveckling samt, inte minst, den nya "moderniseringskunskap" som har blivit alltmer dominerande i Kina under 1990-talet.