Examining the Concept of Child Agency Within Two Frameworks: "Child as a Social Actor" and the "Theory of the Agentic Human" and Its Educational Implications for Early Childhood Educators
Subject Areas :
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Keywords: agency in childhood, kindergarten teachers, early childhood,
Abstract :
According to the research, the teacher is one of the most influential and popular people who can influence his students, and this influence is more in the younger years, especially in the early years. First of all, this influence depends on the teacher's view of the child and the application of that view in each part of the education process. One of the most recent views on the child in early childhood educational research is the view on the child as an agent. This research was done with the aim of explaining the concept of agency in childhood and its educational implications for kindergarten teachers. For this purpose, descriptive-analytical and analytical-inferential methods were used. Research findings show that the concept of agency has different meanings from different philosophical, sociological, and psychological perspectives. Also, the concept of agency in childhood with a range of features such as; Being "free", "thinker", "doer", "participator" was defined. as well as listening to the child's voice in different ways by educators, understanding their perspective on content and environment as a prerequisite for learning, prioritizing children's lived experience and their participation in matters related to themselves and affecting their lives, cooperating with educators and teachers in the education process, such as; The teaching-learning process, evaluation, adjustment and design of the educational environment were emphasized in order to strengthen and nurture the agency capacity of children
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