TY - CHAP
T1 - Municipal Awareness of Gifted and Talented Children in Finland Swedish Early Childhood Education and Care in Finland
AU - Stolt, Sofia
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - An including and egalitarian early childhood education and care (ECEC) requires individualised practices, differentiation and an awareness and acceptance of gifted and talented children. The purpose of this chapter is to present Finnish bilingual municipalities that offer early childhood education and care, to show if and how the municipalities approach gifted and talented children. This descriptive and cross-sectional study was conducted based on a questionnaire aimed at Directors of Education and on characteristics of the bilingual municipalities in Finland. Based on the municipal characteristics, the education providers have different attitudes and actions for organising teaching for gifted and talented children. The results show that there is a discrepancy in the characteristics of the municipalities in this study, however, despite municipal size, budget and the socio-economic background of its citizens, there is an awareness of giftedness even if the characteristics do not impact the tendency to consider the concept of giftedness. Even if the education provider does not have formalised instructions for assessments and evaluation for gifted and talented children, teachers usually develop and implement informal practices. The trend towards individualism and freedom of choice as well as educational equity and national policy affecting gifted education is discussed.
AB - An including and egalitarian early childhood education and care (ECEC) requires individualised practices, differentiation and an awareness and acceptance of gifted and talented children. The purpose of this chapter is to present Finnish bilingual municipalities that offer early childhood education and care, to show if and how the municipalities approach gifted and talented children. This descriptive and cross-sectional study was conducted based on a questionnaire aimed at Directors of Education and on characteristics of the bilingual municipalities in Finland. Based on the municipal characteristics, the education providers have different attitudes and actions for organising teaching for gifted and talented children. The results show that there is a discrepancy in the characteristics of the municipalities in this study, however, despite municipal size, budget and the socio-economic background of its citizens, there is an awareness of giftedness even if the characteristics do not impact the tendency to consider the concept of giftedness. Even if the education provider does not have formalised instructions for assessments and evaluation for gifted and talented children, teachers usually develop and implement informal practices. The trend towards individualism and freedom of choice as well as educational equity and national policy affecting gifted education is discussed.
KW - 520 Other social sciences
KW - Early Childhood Education
KW - Educational Policy and Politics
KW - Educational equity
KW - Egalitarian early childhood education
KW - Gifted and talented children
KW - Municipal awareness
KW - Municipal characteristics
KW - 516 Educational sciences
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-030-99910-0_4
DO - 10.1007/978-3-030-99910-0_4
M3 - Chapter
SN - 978-3-030-99909-4
T3 - Early Childhood Reasearch and Education: An Inter-theoretical Focus
SP - 49
EP - 65
BT - Assessing and Evaluating Early Childhood Education Systems
A2 - Garvis, Susanne
A2 - Harju-Luukkainen, Heidi
A2 - Kangas, Jonna
PB - Springer
CY - Cham
ER -
