Abstract:
Values education, the process through which students learn values, is one of the primary purposes of education and should be given a more prominent place in educators’ practice, especially in the early childhood years. Values education research in New Zealand primarily focuses on the primary and secondary school sector. Since educators play an important role in the lives of children in early childhood centres, their perceptions shed light on values education in the early years in New Zealand. In this thesis, New Zealand early childhood educators’ perceptions of values education were explored through individual semi-structured interviews and analysed using qualitative thematic analysis based on phenomenography. Findings showed that early childhood educators recognised values education as relevant within early childhood education and appeared to understand it primarily in terms of evidenced behaviours. Values education, however, was only found to be an intentionally prominent feature in the classrooms of a minority of the sample group of eight early childhood educators. Educators’ perceptions leaned towards traditional and constructive approaches for implementing values education and their personal context, rather than professional context, guided their practice. Further, educators perceived values education as having a ripple effect, positively benefitting the children, their future, educators, parents, and society. Finally, values education was found to be challenging, primarily due to educators’ assumptions about children which influenced their expectations of children and their efforts in educating children about values. Values education is thus an important area in early childhood education that requires educators to intentionally consider their own understanding, implementation, and evaluation of it. Implications for management, families, and educators, especially in terms of training in values education through initial teaching programmes and ongoing professional development, are drawn, and directions for future research are identified.