CHILDREN'S PARTICIPATION IN THE PLANNING OF ACTIVITIES IN PRESCHOOL EDUCATION

Children's participation in decision-making on matters that are important to them has become one of the central themes of recent pedagogical debates, including in the field of early childhood education. Although the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) obliges States Parties to ensure that children are free to express their views on all issues affecting them, the interpretation of these views is prejudged by taking into account the child`s age and maturity. In this paper, we present the results of a study that examined the relationship between teachers` attitudes towards children`s participation and children`s ways of participating in the planning of kindergarten activities. The study also investigated such involvement in relation to the first and second age groups, teachers' seniority, their training and their own exploration of children's participation. The results showed that children's participation in the planning in pre-primary education is associated with teachers' attitudes on this involvement, their seniority, children's ages and, above all, self-initiated knowledge acquisition in this area.