Chapter 7 Children’s and Youths’ Perspectives on Value Diversity in Education
Implications for Teacher Education and Educator Professionalism
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Abstract
This chapter examines Finnish children’s and youths’ perspectives on encountering value diversity in education. Our examination builds on an ecological approach (e.g., Bronfenbrenner, 1979, 2005; Sameroff, 2010) to learning and development along individual life trajectories (e.g., Kuusisto, 2011; Kuusisto & Gearon, 2017a; Lamminmäki-Vartia et al., 2020). The empirical findings presented here are based on various mixed methods data sets gathered from children, youths, parents, and professionals, in which our main focus is on the age groups 9 to 10, 12 to 13, and 15 to 16 (N = 2781) in Estonia, Finland and Sweden, and in particular the Finnish sub-sample of 1,301 children. This chapter presents a synthesis across a set of empirical studies, highlighting children’s and youths’ own perspectives encountering diversity in education. We conclude by discussing children’s and youths’ value learning trajectories in the changing Finnish society, and how the results can be used to inform teacher education programs and teachers’ professional development on (super)diversity in school, thereby contributing to our understanding of educating good teachers for tomorrow’s schools and the role of values in education.