Within Australia, over 87% of children attend a registered early childhood setting in the year before formal schooling. Early childhood education is delivered by a range of service providers, including religious organisations. All early childhood settings across Australia implement the Australian Early Years Learning Framework Belonging, Being and Becoming 2.0 to support young children’s learning and development. Within this document, the concept of ‘spirituality’ is mentioned in relation to a child’s self-identity construction. Spiritual development is to be supported alongside the child’s physical, personal and social and emotional wellbeing in regards to learning. In this chapter, we explore current Australian early childhood teacher education programs and professional learning activities in how they support spirituality in early childhood. These programs should be designed to support specific pedagogical practices implemented with young children to support spiritual development. Undertaking a review of current programs, we report a lack of focus on spirituality within teacher education and limited opportunities to engage in professional learning around supporting spirituality with young children. Findings are important, given that spirituality is mentioned in key learning frameworks for young children in Australia.

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Spirituality in Australian Early Childhood Education and Care

  • Susanne Garvis,
  • Anne Keary,
  • Haoran Zheng

摘要

Within Australia, over 87% of children attend a registered early childhood setting in the year before formal schooling. Early childhood education is delivered by a range of service providers, including religious organisations. All early childhood settings across Australia implement the Australian Early Years Learning Framework Belonging, Being and Becoming 2.0 to support young children’s learning and development. Within this document, the concept of ‘spirituality’ is mentioned in relation to a child’s self-identity construction. Spiritual development is to be supported alongside the child’s physical, personal and social and emotional wellbeing in regards to learning. In this chapter, we explore current Australian early childhood teacher education programs and professional learning activities in how they support spirituality in early childhood. These programs should be designed to support specific pedagogical practices implemented with young children to support spiritual development. Undertaking a review of current programs, we report a lack of focus on spirituality within teacher education and limited opportunities to engage in professional learning around supporting spirituality with young children. Findings are important, given that spirituality is mentioned in key learning frameworks for young children in Australia.