Abstract
Our research traced the ways in which teaching and teaching conditions in kindergartens have changed because of the introduction of inclusive education in the updated Framework Educational Programme for Preschool Education. Th e aims of our research were designed to address the needs of educational policy makers and were narrowed down to two areas: (1) the structuring of data into key categories, addressing the experiences, attitudes, opinions, and ideas of kindergarten teachers working in inclusive education; (2) in the interpretation of the data, to highlight areas that are essential for the successful implementation of inclusive education in kindergartens.
Th e starting point of our theoretical approach was the connection between the values that are intrinsic to a personality-orientated concept of education and those that are intrinsic to inclusive education. As a data collection method, we conducted semi-structured interviews.
Our sample group consisted of ten kindergartens from Prague and ten from the South Bohemian region. We fi rst processed the data by creating case studies of individual schools, and then we created an overall study.
Th e results are structured into four areas: (1) conditions relating to the attitudes of the kindergarten teachers who were interviewed; (2) conditions relating to external circumstances 524 Hejlová, H., Tomková, A. that aff ect the kindergarten as an institution; (3) pedagogical processes: changes within the organisation of the school, the organisation of classes, the concept of the work, taking care of the classroom climate, the compulsory education of children in the fi nal year of kindergarten; (4) the model of the kindergarten implementing inclusive education. In our conclusions, we consider what conditions the kindergarten needs in order to implement inclusive education successfully.
We structure them into fi ve areas of recommendations for educational policy makers: (1) support the personality-orientated concept of education in the curriculum of preschool education; (2) provide education for the pedagogical staff ; (3) link the number of children in the class to the number of staff who can care for them and oversee their development; (4) the cooperation of kindergartens with external counselling centres; (5) support for families, especially those who are disadvantaged.