Research On The Rights Of Kindergarten Children In China And Singapore

Every healthy, mature person invariably has passed through childhood, but, not necessarily a happy childhood in the true sense. Play is children's way of life; Lack of play in childhood, a person's development can hardly be considered complete. "The Rights of Children" promulgated by the United Nations Convention leads the public to come to a consensus that "Play" is a fundamental right for children.Teachers' depth of understanding on this particular right of the children; their attitude and practical behavior towards this children's rights not only will reveal their concept towards children education, their development and their rights to play, they will also reflect the nature of the future society.The study undertaken has confined to China & Singapore, 2 countries with diverse social & cultural background. Through the teachers provide the selection of play for the children in their actual education practices, it aims to explore the questions of safeguarding the rights of children to play. The questions to be explored are: (1) what are the distinguishing feature about the selection methods of play by teachers of these countries? (2) How do the teachers regard & interpret the selection methods taken? (3)What are the possible factors influencing teachers to provide the selection methods of play? (4) What have teachers in these countries attempted or carried through to safeguard the "Children's Rights in Play"?Furthermore, are there room for adjustment & improvement, and means to maximize the practices of "Children's Rights in Play" in kindergartens? The course of investigation & finding answers to the questions form the basic framework of the study,which consists of 5 chapters. The findings and critical points are listed below:The first chapter concentrates on the review of literature. The research scope &essence of this study is an analysis of existing research dynamic. It gives consideration to review on the latest research of choices of play, rights of play and selection methods of play offered to children by their teachers; also included, the methodology applied by the teachers to select methods of play and how they relate to the different culture and education system.The second chapter is mainly the definition of relevant concepts and research design of this study.This study adopts both quantitative & qualitative research. The collection of data utilizes questionnaire and semi-structured interviews, which may be with set purpose as well as convenience sampling. The participants are frontline Chinese language teachers of universal kindergartens from both China & Singapore,the number totaling 90. The participants from China came from Nanjing of Jiansu,Fuqing City of Fujian, and Dehong City of Yunnan. While participants from Singapore came from 3 major preschool education sectors.The third chapter presents the results and description of the study, provides answers mainly to questions (1) & (2) appeared in the 2nd paragraph of this article. It has been found that teachers in China often provide children with 3 types of choices in sequence as: (?) Plug-in Card; (?) Free Choice; (?) Sign Display . Whereas, teachers in Singapore are more inclined to (?) Plug-in Card; (?) Priority;(?) Taking Turn. Obviously, the common method favoured by teachers of both countries is "Plug-in Card". The outstanding characteristics of the choices taken appear to display that teachers in China tend to autonomy and teachers in Singapore are more inclined to control. Hence, on selecting methods of play within these 2 countries, there is similarity but there is' also diversity.The fourth chapter aims at answering question (3) in the 2nd paragraph above.Applying the human development ecology theory as the comparison guideline, factors such as the degree of executing education policies by their executors, the depth of concerns towards these policies by the teachers, the management policies of schools plus the teachers' personal understanding & safeguarding attitude towards children's rights in play are affecting & influencing the 2 countries in definite different degree.The fifth chapter provides answer to the final question (4) above. Dissecting the thoughts behind the teachers of these 2 countries on selecting the types of play & on attempted measures to protect the children's right to play, some thoughts and consideration are being offered. Finally, starting from the very practical base of existing kindergartens, ;"TRUST" must the principle guide,then,proceed to realize the full concept of children's right to play and prepared for the feasibility of progressive demands.