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This study assumes that preventing the risk of social exclusion (RSE) of children, in the context of ECEC, entails guaranteeing ECEC availability and pedagogical practices that provide children with the necessary skills for healthy and successful development. This can be achieved by strengthening the protective factors in the child's surroundings. The overall research goal was to determine the accessibility and describe the quality of attendance of children at risk of social exclusion in the Croatian ECEC system. The sample consisted of 3,500 children from 66 ECEC facilities, or 6% of all children aged 5 to 7 attending ECEC programs at that time, from 10.4% of all the ECEC facilities operating in Croatia. Data were collected through a questionnaire to assess the etiological and phenomenological aspects of RSEs among early years and preschool age children (ECEC teachers' version). The research confirmed that RSEs did influence the children's ECEC attendance. The greatest obstacles to accessibility of ECEC are risk of poverty and minority ethnic identity of children. Inconsistencies in the quality of the Croatian ECEC system are explained as a missed opportunity for the potential of ECEC to prevent RSEs.

Recognizing children at risk of social exclusion (RSE) is one of the key prerequisites for providing direct and appropriate support to children and their families. Timely and proper identification of children at RSE requires collaborative and team-based assessments that include standardized procedures outlined in protocols to accommodate child personality, family factors, and other needs. The objective of the research is to analyze the capacities of early childhood education and care (ECEC) teachers to assess the RSE of children by comparing their assessment with the assessment of parents. We used the data about 443 children between 5 and 7 years of age who were attending 10 ECEC institutions in Croatia. Children were assessed with two versions of the questionnaire. Data were analyzed on a descriptive level, and Cohen's kappa coefficient was used to determine the agreement between parents' assessments and ECEC teachers' assessments. It was found that at least 30% of children in Croatian ECEC institutions had one or more RSE. The results indicate a low proportion of children at RSE recognized both by parents and by ECEC teachers. The Croatian ECEC teachers are not familiar with information that is important for a child's development, such as poverty, quality of family relationships, and involvement in specialized treatments. These data highlight the need to improve the capacity of Croatian ECEC teachers to participate in the process of assessing the RSE of children.

The aim of this paper is to explore how parents, teachers and children in early years' education understand the concept of resilience. The paper analyses the understanding of the concept of resilience in a Croatian kindergarten using qualitative and quantitative research methods. The qualitative research consists of a thematic analysis of data collected through 3 focus groups with 10 parents, 9 teachers and 11 children respectively. The quantitative research includes an analysis of data collected through the Scale of Socio-emotional Wellbeing and Resilience in Preschool Children which teachers and parents completed to assess the resilience of 116 children from a public kindergarten in a city of northern Croatia. The qualitative data indicates that parents and teachers have a different understanding of the resilience concept, while the quantitative data shows that parents, in comparison with teachers, assess all aspects of children?s resilience more positively.

In European post-socialistic countries or more commonly known as Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) countries, regardless of their differences and specifics, the common communist and post-communist legacies in the field of educational sciences are still recognisable. The aim of this article is to explore research activity in the educational sciences in 15 CEE countries: 11 EU member states and 4 from the former Yugoslav Republic in the period from 1996 to 2013. The purpose of this research is to recognise the specificity and dynamics of subject and content issues, and development of methodological approaches in the educational science research. The sample consists of abstracts of 2,395 papers by CEE authors published in 265 journals indexed in Scopus between 1996 and 2013. Content analysis was applied, where the abstracts were grouped into specifically created categories describing the content and methods of the paper and analysed on the basis of two criterion variables -- CEE and non-CEE or international journals. The ?[superscript 2] test showed that the field of educational sciences in 15 European post-socialist countries changed over time in terms of quantity, content and methods, becoming more expansive and diverse, which is recognisable in papers published both in international and in CEE journals.

The main aim of the present article is to analyse some aspects of collaboration in inclusive educational practice in Croatian schools by analysing teachers' experiences. Special attention is devoted to the professional support resources available to teachers, as well as to teachers' views on the content and usefulness of the professional support they utilise. The article presents partial results of a larger research project regarding various components of inclusive practice in Croatian primary schools, organised at the Faculty of Teacher Education in Zagreb. A total of 69 primary school teachers were interviewed regarding the elements of inclusive practices in their own schools. Each teacher also completed a short questionnaire about their opinions on elements that weaken inclusive practices in their school, as well as on some general data about schools. The data obtained were analysed on both the qualitative and the quantitative levels. The results suggest that, at the present time, collaboration in Croatian schools is not well organised and defined. It is shown that only a relatively small number of various professionals who could support teachers and students in inclusive processes work in schools. Furthermore, it is established that schools do not compensate for this problem with stronger collaboration between schools and professionals in local communities. Teachers would like to receive more specific advice, as well as more concrete assistance in the education of students with disabilities. The author concludes that a better conceptualisation of collaboration between schools and local communities is needed (especially a higher level of team work). This would certainly contribute to improving the quality of inclusive education in Croatian schools.

The main aim of this research is to examine the basic features of student teachers' professional beliefs about the teacher's role in relation to teaching mainstream pupils and pupils with developmental disabilities. The starting assumption of this analysis is that teacher professional development is largely dependent upon teachers' beliefs about various facets of their professional work. These concepts strongly influence the way that teachers teach and the way that they develop as teachers. The participants in the research are 314 student teachers at the Faculty of Teacher Education of the University of Zagreb who are being prepared to teach in lower grades of primary school. The beliefs were explored using a metaphor technique derived from cognitive theory of metaphor. The differences between beliefs about the perceived teacher role in general, and the perceived teacher role in the education of pupils with developmental disabilities were analysed. The results indicate that the dominant belief about the teacher's role in teaching mainstream pupils is of the teacher as a transmitter of knowledge, while the findings regarding the dominant belief about the teacher's role in teaching pupils with developmental difficulties appeared to be self-cantered orientation. No differences were found between student teachers at different study levels. The findings are discussed in the light of the curriculum of initial teacher education.