What is the Role of Science in Post-Socialist Education and Society? Insights from a Survey of Preschool Teachers from Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia

The paper presents the results of a survey conducted among preschool teachers in Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia, the aim of which was to investigate the attitudes of the participants towards the role of science in education and society. Recent global trends in economic development have introduced new educational concepts in national curricula worldwide, one of which is scientific literacy. Preschool teachers have been encouraged to introduce scientific activities with children into their practice and adopt a new outlook on the role of the natural sciences in education. Social change within the post-socialist context implied that adopting the new outlook required a value shift for all members of the education community. We therefore wanted to explore whether this process was actually taking place, and whether it was impacting the perception of science amongst preschool teachers. We applied Inglehart’s modernisation theory of materialist and postmaterialist values. The results showed that preschool teachers in all three countries were inclined to a postmaterialist view of science, but that it was possible to distinguish between two value-orientations, which we named “post-materialism” and the “materialist image of the child”. Older teachers accepted the “materialist image of the child” more than younger teachers, confirming a certain intergenerational value change, which we have interpreted as a shift from a collectivist to an individualistic approach to education.