E
THNICITY
,
STAFF RESPONSIVENESS AND CHILD
ENGAGEMENT IN THE
S
WEDISH PRESCHOOL CONTEXT
ACCORDING TO CHILD CHARACTERISTICS AND STAFFING
–
A
PATH ANALYSIS WITH A MULTIGROUP ANALYSIS
INTRODUCTION
Research on children of ethnic minorities in Swedish preschools and their engagement has been a
main focus area for research, even though Europe is facing a migration crisis. Child engagement
predicts, among other outcomes, future academic performance and mental well-being. Child
engagement should be promoted by the staff according to the curriculum for preschool. More
research on ethnicity, engagement and staffing is needed.
Johannes Finnman1, Henrik Danielsson2, Mats Granlund3, Madeleine Sjöman3 & Lena Almqvist1
1 Mälardalen University, School of Health, Care and Social Welfare; 2 Linköping University, Department of Behavioural Sciences and Learning; 3 Jönköping University, Department of Special Education
JOHANNES FINNMAN
Doctoral student
School of Health, Care & Social Welfare
Mälardalen University
johannes.finnman@mdh.se
www.mdh.se/hvv
AIM OF THE STUDY
The aim of this study was to investigate which child related variables and child environment variables that were
associated with child engagement in a Swedish preschool context and to see if these associations differed between children of Swedish ethnicity and of ethnic minorities.
FINDINGS
Two path models were found were
child:staff-ratio and conduct problems did not contribute to the models and were excluded.
The multigroup analysis for the models showed few and small differences between the groups. The common pattern for all models and groups were that age, behaviour difficulties and
preschool staff responsiveness affected child
engagement and that child engagement affected staff responsiveness.
METHOD
Data was collected from 106 preschools and included 832 children (424 boys) in the age span of 13 to 71 months. The variables included age of the children, children difficulties, child:staff-ratio and staff responsiveness. This was analyzed with a path analysis and a multigroup analysis, to see how the factors related and if there were any differences between children of Swedish ethnicity and children of ethnic
minorities.
CONCLUSION
The finding that children’s engagement both affects, and get affected by, staff responsiveness could indicate that children with lower engagement affect their staff
negatively and are in risk of being neglected by their staff, thus ending up with even lower engagement.
Children of ethnic minorities tend to have a higher
prevalence of lower engaement and more difficulties, and therefore are more likely to affect their staff more
negatively than children of Swedish ethnicity.
