Rudnytska-Yuriychuk I. The development of Ukrainian preschool education and upbringing in the USA and Canada

The preschool education and upbringing in the Ukrainian diaspora of the USA and Canada is the research object. A comprehensive pedagogical analysis of the formation and functioning process of the Ukrainian preschool education and upbringing system in the United States and Canada, identification of its pedagogical ideas and experience for dissemination in the educational space of Ukraine is the research aim. The research methods: analysis, synthesis, systematization, generalization, theoretical comprehension, interpretation, comparison, pedagogical observation, conversation. For the first time the comprehensive analysis and generalization of theoretical provisions and practical experience of Ukrainian preschool education in the United States and Canada, highlighted and characterized the conditions of origin and activity of Ukrainian preschools in these countries (social, political, cultural, pedagogical) have been conducted, the types of preschool educational institutions in the Ukrainian diaspora in the USA and Canada have been defined, the author's periodization of the evolution of the studied phenomenon has been carried out, the professional training specifics of Ukrainian preschool teachers in the US and Canada and features of improving their professional growth has been identified, the main directions (national, religious, moral) of preschool children education, forms (compulsory classes with group, pair and individual work of teachers and students), methods (educational (verbal), practical, visual, stimulation and control) and means (simple and complex) of educational activities of Ukrainian preschool educational institutions in the USA and Canada have been substantiated. The essence of the term «Ukrainian preschool institution in the diaspora» is clarified. The problems in the educational activities of preschool educational institutions in the Western Ukrainian diaspora and its structural components, the content of the concept of «preschool education and upbringing in the Ukrainian diaspora in the United States and Canada» have been further developed. Little-known works in of Ukrainian diaspora teachers’ of the second half of the XX century on the problems of education and upbringing the preschool children in a multicultural environment and organizational and pedagogical principles of Ukrainian preschool educational institutions in the United States and Canada have been put into scientific circulation.