Aντιλήψεις νηπίων για την οικονομική κρίση: Μια μελέτη περίπτωσης στην Ελλάδα

Abstract

Μore and more children around the world are experiencing the changes and stressors that impact their everyday lives as a result of the economic crisis. The better teachers and parents understand how young children make sense of what is happening and how this affects their ideas and behaviours, the better equipped we will be to help them cope, as well as create policies that will support optimal development and learning. This paper reports on data collected by teachers in one region of Greece about how young children (ages 4-to-6 years) perceive the economic crisis. The children were asked to report on what they think when they hear the term “economic crisis”, how they feel about it, and what they think they can do about it. A total of 29 teachers reported on their conversations with children resulting in 276 responses from children; some children gave more than one response within the 276 total. There were also responses that included drawings about the economic situation made by the children. In this article the results were analyzed and we made recommendations for teachers and parents to guide efforts to help young children cope and grow in these economically troubling times. Our recommendations were based on what we learned from the young Greek children in our survey, as well as on the efforts of others to help children around the world deal with economic and other societal crises.