Canning, N., Teszenyi, E., Pálfi, S. 2022.: Are you listening to me? Understanding children's rights through Hungarian pedagogic practice, Journal of Childhood, Education & Society 3 (3), 218-232,
Abstract
Hungarian pedagogues agree that children should be listened to, have their rights recognised, and their voices heard. The UNCRC recommends that children’s rights should be part of early childhood education, but this is not typical in Hungarian kindergartens and there is little pedagogical material to support the education of children about their rights. This paper focuses on 5 kindergartens each typically accommodating over 150 children between the ages of 3-6 years old across Hungary. Six pedagogues worked with multi-age groups (4 kindergartens) and same-age groups (2 kindergartens). The research adopted participatory methods to gather children’s views recognising them as valuable collaborators. Children provided insight into their own lives through play based creative activities that focused on eliciting children’s thoughts and feelings. Pedagogues collected video data using a ‘toolkit’ of children’s play activities during a 6-week period of the COVID-19 pandemic. Pedagogues reflected on children’s play through a series of online focus groups with emphasis on how children expressed their views and preferences through play. Participants were encouraged to examine the power relationships between children and adults and analyse their role in knowledge production rather than knowledge extraction. Six themes emerged through thematic analysis, mapped to the 4 guiding principles of children’s rights: participation, survival, development and protection. The findings highlight the juxtaposition between children’s life-as-experienced and life-as-told by adults; the skill of pedagogues to hear and sensitively interpret children’s voices based on their play and the challenge to slow down and reflect on practice.
Vargáné Nagy, A., Pálfi, S., Németh, N.: Hungary: Kindergarten Educator and Primary Teacher Training in Hungary: With Diverse Pedagogical Competencies to Unleash Early Childhood Opportunities. In: Educating Pre-primary and Primary Teachers Today: Quality Initial Professional Studies for Teachers in Six European Uni-on Countries. Ed.: Barbora Loudová Stralczynská, Jana Stará, Philip Selbie, Petra Ristić, Charles University Faculty of Education, Prága, 129-154, 2022. ISBN: 9788076033337
Abstract
The right to educationis regulated by law , which requires compulsoryschoolinguntil the ageof 16 in Hungary. Citizens have the right to education in their mother tongue at primary level and the Ministryof Human Resources is responsible for public educationin kindergartensand primary school s . The ministry‘s responsibilitiesalso include issues of Romaintegration , programmes to catch up with the disadvantaged, and developments related to equal opportunities. The current law in force, which forms the basisof the operation of the education system , is Act CXC of 2011 on National Public Educationwhere there is a high degree of centralised management of public education. Until 2016, primary school swere maintained by local government showever, starting from the 2016/2017 schoolyear, this role was taken over by the Klebersberg Institutional MaintenanceCentre, which divided the centralised management of the institutionsinto school districts. The public education systemwas organised and operated according to detailed principlesincluding the development of greater state involvementin order to achieve uniformand high-quality educationwhich emphasised the educational role of the school and the right balance between education and training. In addition to the regulations for maintaining and organising educational institutions , increasing the prestige of the teachingprofession was also a stated objective.
Pálfi, S., Vargáné Nagy, A., Teszenyi, E.: Re-Imagining Socialist Childhoods: Changing Narratives of Spatial and Temporal (dis)Orientations: Journal of Childhood, Education & Society Vol. 3 No. 3 (2022).
Abstract
The focus of attention of this special issue has both personal and professional significance for the guest editors and most of the contributors, whose childhoods were touched by either the experience of socialism or its collapse and consequences. Influenced by Foucault’s (1977) idea that reporting evidence and significant moments from the past contributes to histories that are authentic and accurate, this special issue offers insights into the changing narratives of socialist and post-socialist childhoods. We are mindful of the risks associated with revisionism; that is, revisiting and, through that, re-evaluating the past in light of what we know in the present. Mitigating this risk, to some extent, is that many of the authors whose secondary research papers are published in this issue were privileged to work with original documents written in local languages. In this way, they were able to interrogate the past and reveal the nature of discourses and practices in order to make a contribution to better understand the present (Skehill, 2007).
Murray, J; Teszenyi, Eleonora; Nagy Varga, A; Pálfi, Sándor; Tajiyeva, M and Iskakova, A (2018). Parent-practitioner partnerships in early childhood provision in England, Hungary and Kazakhstan: similarities and differences in discourses. Early Child Development and Care, 188(5) pp. 594–612.
Abstract
Whilst international policymakers have reached consensus on the importance of investing in early childhood development and increasingly monitor that investment using standardized measurement, the nature and rationale of early childhood education and care (ECEC) provision remain diverse. In the context of that disparity, this article explores an aspect of ECEC provision that is commonly recognized for its potential to enhance young children’s development and learning, yet for which characteristics remain variable: partnerships between ECEC practitioners and parents. The article reports and discusses results from a cross-cultural narrative study that investigated the nature of such partnerships in three different countries: England, Hungary and Kazakhstan. During focus group interviews, ECEC academics (n = 16) discussed five themes that emerged from literature reviews. Findings indicate more differences than similarities between the countries’ narratives concerning ECEC parent-practitioner partnerships, suggesting such partnerships may be an aspect of ECEC provision for which a homogeneous approach and quality measure across countries are not feasible.
Teszenyi, E., Pálfi, S.: Vegyes vagy azonos életkorú óvodai csoport?: pedagógiai kérdések és a szülői döntés dilemmái. Gyermeknevelés. 7 (2-3), 136-155, 2019.
Absztrakt
A magyar köznevelési rendszer egyik sajátossága, hogy az óvodai nevelés 2015 szeptemberétől már hároméves kortól kötelező. A statisztikai adatok a vegyes életkorú csoportok növekvő tendenciáját mutatják nemzeti szinten (KSH, 2017). Ugyan a szülőknek lehetőségük van vegyes vagy azonos életkorú óvodai csoportot választani a gyermekeik számára, az kevésbé világos, hogy milyen szempontok alapján döntenek egy bizonyos óvoda vagy csoportszervezési forma mellett (Török, 2004). Egy esettanulmányt (Yin, 2018) végeztünk, ami feltárja egy keletmagyarországi megyeszékhelyen a szülők döntését befolyásoló tényezőket, valamint vizsgálja a véleményüket az általuk választott csoportszervezési formáról. Jelen tanulmány a Teszenyi és Hevey által végzet 2015-ös kutatási eredmények második fázisú elemzését tartalmazza: 2015- ben kvalitatív és kvantitatív módszertani elemek kombinálásával az adatfelvétel 12 óvodában történt kérdőívek (n=251) és interjúk (n=9) felhasználásával. Ebben a tanulmányban a 9 szülői interjú és a kérdőívekben rögzített 72 kvalitatív megjegyzés eredményeinek az elemzését mélyítjük. Ez azt mutatja, hogy a legfontosabb befolyásoló tényező az óvoda választásban a földrajzi fekvés és a pedagógus személye. Bár a szülők általában elégedettek a kiválasztott óvodai csoporttal, a kvalitatív eredmények nagyobb mértékű tudatosságot jeleznek a szülők részéről a vegyes életkorú csoportok felé, különösen a családias jellegük miatt. Az eredmények között az iskolára való felkészítés miatti aggodalom is tetten érhető. Az elemzés és a konklúzió megfogalmazása során kérdéseket teszünk fel a vegyes életkorú csoportok felé hajló tendencia mögötti pedagógiai tényezőkről és a további kutatás szükségességének felismerésével újabb kutatási irányokat javaslunk.