The heart of collaboration : educational partnership in early childhood education as narrated by parents of a child exhibiting challenging behaviour

Abstract

This dissertation research examined the educational partnership in the context of early childhood education and care (ECEC) in Finland by analysing narratives of parents with a child exhibiting challenging behaviour. A child’s challenging behaviour is understood from both the developmental and contextual perspectives as the development of skills for regulating emotions and behaviour. This study focused on the two essential relationships in the educational partnership, namely the teacher–child and parent–teacher relationships. The educational partnership is examined from three empirical perspectives: (1) the teacher–child relationship and how the child is positioned in this relationship; (2) parental agency and emotions in the parent–teacher relationship; and (3) parental trust in the educational partnership. These perspectives were addressed in three empirical sub-studies based on semi-structured interviews with 23 parents. Data were analysed using narrative methods. First, the analysis revealed three different teacher–child relationships, namely problematic, neutral and caring. The positioning of the child in these relationships varied from troublesome to unconventional and unique. Second, the analysis indicated that parental agency, including the emotions related to it, in the educational partnership varied from proactive and confrontational to hindered. Worry and fear concerning the child’s well-being functioned as triggers for all three types of agency. Third, two key elements of parental trust were identified: the well-being of the child, and supportive parent–teacher relationships and collaboration. Critical elements in creating a trustful educational partnership with the parents of a child with challenging behaviour lay in parents’ confidence in their child’s well-being in a daycare center, the image of their child mediated to them by the child’s teachers, and practices supporting their proactive agency in their child’s ECEC.