"Stig Brostrcm" <STIG_B@dlh1.dlh.dk>
Stig Brostrcm (STIG_B@dlh1.dlh.dk)
Fri, 17 Nov 1995 11:20:21 GMT+0100
As associate professor at the Danish Royal School of Educational
Studies (Teacher's University) I teach and lecture educational
theoris in general and specially early childhood education.
My present research interest are play, didactic theory
(curriculum), analyzing the culture of day care centre, kindergarten
and grade one in school.
In early childhood education I have carried through a cross
cultural study with following abstract:
On basic of ethnological research methods, the everyday life of
one Danish and one American kindergarten class in school is
described. In the American kindergarten class teaching of the 3R's is
predominant whereas play constitutes the life in the Danish
classroom. The study hypotheize that the American teacher controlled
'academic' practice and the children's concrete cultural background
contribute to the development of motivation for learning (Leontjev)
at the age of 6 years. On the other hand, the American children are
very egocentric and have difficulties in participation in group
activities. In contrast, the more 'child controlled' practice in the
Danish kindergarten class develops social competencies but neglects
the development for learning. With a comprehensive development as the
educational aim, neither the American teacher controlled academic
practice nor the Danish child controlled play approach is quite
adequate, which calls for a new paradigm in early childhood education
(Child & Youth Care Forum, 24, 2 pp 107).
Moreover my reaearch has been aimed on play, where I have contributed
with a description a a new type of play for the 6 year-olds: frame
play (The Querterly Newsletter of the Laboratory of Comparative Human
Cognition, 1992, vol 14, number 1, pp 17-24).
At present time together with researchers from Sweden and Finland I
am doing a Nordic research on 5-year-olds in their day care centres
in order to from the child's perspective to describe quality in the
child's life (Projectdescription in ERIC DOCUMENT ED 366 415).
Stig Brostrom, Ass. Prof.
Centre of Early Childhood Research
Royal Danish School of Educational Studies
101. Emdrupvej
2400 Copenhagen NV.
Denmark
Phone (45) 39 69 66 33
Fax (45) 39 66 00 81