KINDknow - Kindergarten Knowledge Centre for Systemic Research on Diversity and Sustainable Futures
KINDknow is a research centre investigating knowledge about kindergartens, predominantly but not exclusively in Norway. The main aim of KINDknow is to explore how living together as social- and ecological citizens can be achieved through improving understandings of how local and global conditions affect practices in kindergartens.
The centre is located at Western Norway University of Applied Sciences (HVL), but will be a collaboration of researchers at HVL, UiT –The Arctic University of Norway and University of Stavanger. These institutions have large cohorts of kindergarten preservice teacher, located in two counties in the north and three counties in the west which have common strategic interests and cooperate closely to changing social and environmental milieus.
The establishment of KINDknow will take place in August 2018. In the final week in August, a series of events will be held at the Kronstad campus in Bergen, Norway, including an initial conference on the 29th of August. This conference will include speakers who are locally, regionally, nationally and internationally renown. The conference program and online booking for events will be announced soon.
The centre aligns itself with the ideas in the United Nations’ Frameworks for Education for Sustainable Development and Futures, the Norwegian kindergarten act, as set out by the Norwegian government, and the curriculum, known as the Framework Plan (FWP). The research of the KINDknow centre will be closely linked to kindergarten teacher education (KTE), master education in kindergarten knowledge and PhD programme, particularly the Western Norway University of Applied Science´s programme ‘Bildung and pedagogical practices’. It will also inform and influence kindergarten teacher education research at partnership institutions, University of Tromsø and University of Stavanger who are partners in the project.