PERCEPTION OF ENVIRONMENT AND MILIEU IN TEACHING EDUCATION FOR CHILDREN

ABSTRACT

The perception and understanding of the environment and milieu concepts is essential in Early Childhood teacher training. Through a case study, based on a sample of 377 4th Grade Early Childhood Education students for the period 2016-2020, results indicate a distortion in the understanding of both concepts. Using the pictorial representations and its brief explanation as a research tool, results also show a predominant teaching vision of the environment as “close social milieu” and as “close and concrete local milieu”. In the case of the milieu, there are many representations such as “natural milieu and distant” and “general local milieu”. In this way, deficiencies related to interdisciplinary perception and glocalization processes are manifested, while a lack of these deficiencies could contribute to transform teacher training.

KEYWORDS
perception; environment; milieu; transforming teacher training; Early Childhood Education