Profession, holdning og habitus: Forholdet mellem pædagogers og forældres holdninger til pædagogiske spørgsmål i daginstitutioner.

This study is based on the attitudes of early childhood educators and parents of young children towards specific pedagogical issues about cooperation with parents and about children's (deviant) behaviour. The purpose of this study is to uncover the attitude patterns and differences and similarities between parents and early childhood educators.

On the basis of the results, the study concludes that there is no conflict of values between early childhood educators and parents. The results suggest that structural conditions are not very important for forming profession-specific attitudes in particular, as is otherwise claimed by several theories.

The study shows that attitudes of early childhood educators and parents of young children towards specific pedagogical issues are generally identical, and that there are greater differences in attitudes internally within each of the groups of respondents.

There are small differences in the degree of importance placed on the values dealt with in the study by early childhood educators and parents . The parents are more likely to attach importance to having guidelines, and that no individual considerations should be made, whereas the early childhood educators are more likely to emphasise attentiveness and dialogue with the parents. Moreover, the parents place less emphasis than the early childhood educators on the fact that pedagogical issues are brought up for discussion in the staff group, whereas the early childhood educators consider the discussions in the staff group as important contributions to their professional skills.

The data material is based on a vertical, quantitative vignette methodology in which respondents relate to a number of cases and questions linked to these. More specifically, early childhood educators and parents of children aged 0-10 years were presented with two cases (the Nikolaj case and the Karl Emil case) which describe two different pedagogical incidents. The first case (vignette) represents the general everyday cooperation with parents at the daycare centre (parents' wishes in connection with mealtime). The second case (vignette) represents a more rare situation relevant for the issue of deviation and stigma (of a boy who wears dresses). Early childhood educators and parents were asked how they think an early childhood educator or a manager should act in the situations described.

The respondents were selected at three random tests in which two were drawn from Statistics Denmark in 2010, and the third was drawn from among early childhood educators who took part in thematic days held for a representative cross section by Danish municipalities in 2009. The selection criterion for the parent respondent group was that they had a child aged 0-10 years. The selection criterion for the early-childhood-educator respondent group was that they worked as early childhood educators at a daycare centre for children aged 0-10 years. In an online questionnaire, the parents were presented with a number of background questions as well as two cases with related questions (the Nikolaj case and the Karl Emil case). These background questions were compared with the answers from the early-childhood-educator respondent group. This group, selected in 2010, answered questions regarding the Nikolaj case through an online questionnaire, whereas the group selected on the basis of participation in the thematic days answered a questionnaire (not online) regarding the Karl Emil case.

Ejrnæs, M. & Monrad, M. (2013). Profession, holdning og habitus: Forholdet mellem pædagogers og forældres holdninger til pædagogiske spørgsmål i daginstitutioner. Dansk Sociologi, 24 (3), 63-83.