Caring for the Whole Child in Preschool Education: Repositioning ‘Religion’ in Socially Sustainable Educational Professionalism
2025 (English)In: The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Education / [ed] Liam Francis Gearon (ed.), Arniika Kuusisto (ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2025, p. 588-602Chapter in book (Refereed)
Sustainable development
According to the author(s), the content of this publication falls within the area of sustainable development.
Abstract [en]
This chapter employs a holistic view of the child in its examination of socially sustainable preschoolteacher professionalism, raising in particular the necessity of acknowledging the role of a child’s personalworldview as a part of it. Thereby, we aim to contribute to knowledge in the field and the discussions onsocial justice, Religious Education (RE), relational ethics and Early Childhood Education and Care(ECEC or preschool). Our argument stems from an understanding of preschool teacher professionalismthat in the daily lives of children and their families can notably contribute towards sustainable justice insociety. The chapter takes its starting point from our theoretical and analytical model for sociallysustainable communities of care (Raivio, Skaremyr & Kuusisto, 2022), for a further elaboration onpreschool as a caring community. The tool builds on previous theoretical, conceptual and empiricalstudies and focuses on five levels: International level, Societal level, Community (here preschool) level, aswell as the levels of Situations, Events and Acts of Care. Our holistic view of the child builds further onpostcolonial and feminist ethics of care, through which the model highlights the importance of theteacher’s sensitivity towards the child’s worldview with its religious or spiritual, ethical, and existentialelements. Caring for the child’s worldview is seen as vital for the child’s resilience, contributing tolearning, well-being, and sense of belonging, both in the daily events in preschool and in the longerperspective on their individual life trajectories. Thereby, receiving care also for this aspect of individualdevelopment is critically important for social sustainability in any society. The chapter concludes withreflections and implications for socially sustainable educational professionalism in preschool.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2025. p. 588-602
Keywords [en]
early childhood education and care, ethics of care, postcolonialism, preschool teacher professionalism, religion, sense of belonging, social sustainability, well-being, worldviews
National Category
Pedagogy
Research subject
Teacher Education and Education Work
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:hb:diva-34180DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198869511.001.0001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105016695971ISBN: 9780191905841 (electronic)ISBN: 9780198869511 (print)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:hb-34180DiVA, id: diva2:1994526
2025-09-032025-09-032025-11-28Bibliographically approved