The development of early childhood autonomy and Early Childhood Education pre-service teachers. Intervening variables

Abstract

This study aims to discover Early Childhood Education (ECE) pre-service teachers’ beliefs about early childhood autonomy (0-3 years). A questionnaire was elaborated and applied with a sample of 165 ECE University Degree students from two universities, one of them private and the other one public. After obtaining inconsistent results in an initial stage, participants’ responses were centered and analyzed according to the following variables: autonomy-heteronomy, gender, previous studies and ownership of the university. Results indicate the fragility of early childhood autonomy development. Even if some of participants’ beliefs are informed, many others stay simplistic and are unrelated to the university training, so they are believed to be associated with the parenting styles that participants experienced in their family context. Data analyses showed that heteronomy predominates over autonomy, that the feminized nature of the profession and of the university training evidences a maternalistic style, that pre-service teachers who had taken an ECE Vocational Training tend to value the practical aspects of the profession over the theoretical preparation, and that the ownership of the university shows differences in terms of educational style.