De yngste barns barnehage. Kvalitetsaspekter i tilbudet for ett- og toåringer.

In relation to assessing the quality of Norwegian daycare facilities, the purpose of this study is to investigate the specific skills of the early childhood educators in working with toddlers as well as the child-adult ratio of the daycare facilities and their use of contact persons to the children. The study asks if children in daycare meet early childhood educators with adequate skills within early childhood education and care.

The study shows that on average there are 4.9 early childhood educators per daycare facility, and that there are 0.8 early childhood educators per daycare facility with specialist qualifications in early childhood education and care. Moreover, the study shows that more than 25% of the daycare facilities do not use contact persons at all or only for a very short period (less than a month). The researchers conclude that using contact persons is not the only way to safeguard the needs of children. Social relations and friendships between toddlers and using a bodily perspective on the actions of the youngest children are seen as important conditions for creating a good pedagogical environment for this group of children. Nevertheless, the researchers perceive contact persons as a good starting point in ensuring sensitive and empathic relations between early childhood educators and children. Almost two thirds of the daycare facilities organise their youngest children in groups of children of one to two years old or in toddler groups with children under the age of three. At total of 15% of managers describe staff stability as “not that good” or “not good”.

A total of 145 managers at daycare centres participated in a questionnaire survey. Data was collected over two periods; 117 managers answered the questionnaire in 2008, whereas 28 other managers answered the questionnaire in 2010. All respondents took part in the Norwegian BONDS-project (the Behavior Outlook Norwegian Development Study). The data material was analysed using the SPSS Statistics software.

Moser, T. & Martinsen, M. (2012). De yngste barns barnehage. Kvalitetsaspekter i tilbudet for ett- og toåringer. I: Rønning, F., Diesen, R., Hoveid, H. & Pareliussen, I. (red.). FoU i praksis 2011 (s. 317-329). Trondheim: Tapir Akademisk Forlag.