How do early and preschool teachers assess their profession: an "inside" look of the professional identity

Profesionalni identitet odgajatelja definira se kao jezgra odgajateljske profesije. Dio profesionalnoga identiteta „čine uvjerenja o sebi, vlastitoj profesionalnoj ulozi i o djetetu“ (Leavy i sur., 2007, Korthagen, 2004, prema Domović, Vizek Vidović, 2013:497). S obzirom na spoznaje da su uvjerenja ta koja uvjetuju promjene u našem profesionalnom identitetu i putem kojih odgajatelj filtrira svoje znanje i regulira svoje ponašanje (Slunjski i sur., 2012.) za potrebe ovog rada uvjerenja odgajatelja smo promatrali kao jedan od temeljnih elemenata profesionalnog identiteta. Istraživanje je provedeno na uzorku od 158 odgajatelja iz gradskih i privatnih dječjih vrtića na području gradova Samobora i Zagreba. Korišten je upitnik koji je konstruiran za potrebe ovog istraživanja kojim smo htjeli ispitati uvjerenja odgajatelja o profesionalnim ulogama, o djetetu i o učenju te njihovu povezanost s odabranim sociodemografskim karakteristikama odgajatelja. Analiza podataka pokazala je da odgajatelji općenito imaju visoke rezultate na suvremenim uvjerenjima o profesionalnim ulogama i na uvjerenjima o suvremenoj ulozi u poticanju učenja i poučavanja, a kada se radi o slici o djetetu, kod odgajatelja je podjednaka podjela i prema tradicionalnim i prema suvremenim pogledima na dijete. Ujedno smo nastojali potvrditi povezanost između godina radnog staža sa spomenutim uvjerenjima kao i povezanost razine obrazovanja sa spomenutim uvjerenjima. U jednom i drugom slučaju potvrdili smo povezanost između navedenoga. U raspravi ističemo nužnost novih istraživanja kojima bismo istražili povezanost dobivenih rezultata s neposrednim odgojno - obrazovnim procesom odgajatelja, te impliciramo na propitivanje na koji način se može utjecati na odgajatelje kako bi se povećala njihova razina suvremenih uvjerenja o profesionalnim ulogama, poticanju učenja i poučavanja i slike o djetetu.The professional identity of the early childhood and preschool teachers is defined as the core of the educational profession. Part of a professional identity are beliefs about yourself, your own professional role and about a child. Given the knowledge that beliefs are the cause of changes in early childhood and preschool teachers professional identity and through which the teachers filter their knowledge and regulates their behavior (Slunjski et al., 2012), for the purposes of this work, the beliefs of the educator were seen as one of the fundamental elements of professional identity . The survey was conducted on a sample of 158 teachers from kindergartens in Samobor and Zagreb. Questionnaire designed for the purpose of this research was used to examine the beliefs of the teachers about their professional roles, the child and the learning and their correlation with the selected sociodemographic characteristics. Data analysis has shown that teachers generally have high scores on contemporary beliefs about professional roles and beliefs on the contemporary role of learning and teaching, and when it comes to an image of a child, teachers are equally divided according to both traditional and contemporary views of child. At the same time, we sought to confirm the correlation between the years of work experience with the mentioned beliefs and the correlation of the level of education with these beliefs. In one and the other case we have confirmed the connection between the above. In the debate, we emphasize the need for new research to investigate the correlation between the results obtained and the immediate educational process of the educators, and imply a question of how can teachers be influenced to increase their level of contemporary beliefs about professional roles, encouraging learning and teaching and image of a child