6 JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY EDUCATIONAL STUDIES 1/2014
Editorial
Dear readers, the first issue of this year’s volume includes a wide selection 
of texts from the area of education. We hope reading them will give you scholarly 
pleasure and perhaps stimulate you to respond to what the authors have written. 
We are lacking in more polemical contributions to our journal, and we will be glad 
to receive your expertly argued responses.
The topic of the first contribution is from the area of preschool education. In 
The professional challenges of the Reggio Emilia pedagogical approach: Curriculum 
planning and the evaluation of educational work in preschools, Mojca Kovač 
Šebart and Andreja Hočevar critically analyze the thesis of the supporters of 
the Reggio Emilia pedagogical approach, who claim that a curriculum planned 
and structured in advance does not put the child center stage; rather, they 
maintain that guidelines for planning educational work hinder children from 
becoming the focus of the educational process. Yet Kovač Šebart and Hočevar 
demonstrate that such an exclusive logic does not withstand critical examination. 
They believe it would be reasonable to insist on the convergence of curriculum 
planning strategies, which would enable maintaining their advantages as well 
as establishing safeguards against their disadvantages. The authors also discuss 
the concept of preschool quality evaluation that problematizes evaluation based 
on the empirical data gathered through methodologically appropriate prepared 
instruments. The critics of such an approach to evaluation state it is a concept 
founded on universal norms formulated by experts, leading to classification and 
normalization. The authors of the article, however, argue that – at least as far 
as the extensive network of public preschools in Slovenia is concerned – such a 
concept of preschool quality evaluation is less risky and more in accordance with 
the objective reality.
The always topical issue of Multilingual learning and teaching as a principle 
of inclusive practice, as it is defined in the title of the next article, is investigated 
by Sonja Rutar. Her thesis is that multilingual learning and teaching are founded 
on human and children’s rights. She approaches multilingualism as a pedagogic 
principle of ensuring inclusion which – due to the various forms of and reasons 
for bilingualism and multilingualism – retains the child’s first language and 
develops sensitivity toward children in the process of second-language acquisition. 
Conceptualizing bilingualism/multilingualism in preschools and schools, the author 
aims at drawing attention to the laws and characteristics of the educational process 
that includes children whose first language does not represent the dominant 
language in the children’s formal educational environment and who primarily 
come from socially underprivileged backgrounds. In particular, she emphasizes 
the fact that children’s (and their parents’) first languages enjoy different statuses 
and levels of recognition in society. Consequently, the inclusion of children coming 
from non-dominant cultures and weak socioeconomic backgrounds is significantly 
more difficult than – as well as different from – the situation of children coming 

Editorial 7
from dominant cultures and environments where those languages are spoken which 
children, but especially parents tend to choose as a second language worthy of 
understanding, speaking, and writing, i.e., what they perceive to be as the language 
that could enable their children to connect, communicate, and learn about other 
cultures. The author relates her findings to the issue of Roma children learning 
Slovenian as a second language. She argues that Roma children find themselves 
in a less favorable situation with respect to preliteracy competence acquisition in 
their own language, which they could use when learning their second language after 
entering school since they gain fewer skills in their language which are needed for 
good academic achievement in school. Preliteracy competences are developed both 
orally and in various written forms in children’s everyday environments (books, 
posters, newspapers, etc.). Roma children, however, have very few opportunities, 
if any at all, to develop such competences in their first language. Based on her 
findings, the author develops the principles of planning multilingual teaching 
based on the inclusive paradigm of theory and practice.
While the third article, Reflection on sensible adjustments for students with 
special needs through different perspectives by Adrijana Biba Rebolj, addresses 
the questions that our academic practice considers, there is little theoretical 
basis in the professional literature to enable the formation of a concept regarding 
adjustments for students with special needs. Therefore, we often encounter 
doubts and embarrassment when adjusting the study process for students with 
special needs. Specifically, there is an incorrect understanding of the meaning of 
adjustments, a fear of lowering academic standards, and a feeling of incompetence 
when planning and implementing adjustments. On the one hand, there is the 
inexperience of educators, and on the other hand, the insecurity of students. As 
for adjustments, the author stresses the following two dimensions: adjustments 
at the declarative level and adjustments at the interpersonal level. Rebolj focuses 
on adjustments for students with special needs at the interpersonal level, which 
she understands as an interaction between a member of the pedagogical staff 
and the student with special needs. This interaction is marked by the viewpoints 
and expectations of both participants with regard to the adjustments. The 
author starts from the assumption that educators are autonomous when defining 
standards for each subject, while students have a right to sensible adjustments. 
If communication between the parties is not established, an unproductive or 
even conflicting relationship is very likely to develop. An additional reason for 
that lies in the disagreements between students and educators regarding what a 
sensible adjustment is. Moreover, there are few provisions and guidelines for how 
adjustments should be planned and implemented. The article primarily attempts 
to present different perspectives of adjustments for students with special needs at 
the micro level to contribute to the search for fair, sensible, effective, and useful 
adjustments for all participants involved in the process.
The articles just summarized can be said to examine the different aspects 
of the very broad topic of providing learners with special needs with good-quality 
education. Following these articles is the text by Klara Skubic Ermenc, in which 
the author considers certain fundamental terminological problems of educational 

8 JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY EDUCATIONAL STUDIES 1/2014
sciences that we are commonly faced with when translating established Slovenian 
terms into English and vice versa. In her article Translating an educational term 
into the English language and example of comparative education, she states that 
translation dilemmas are further worsened by the Anglicization in the academic 
and research fields, which is why educators often connect issues of translation with 
issues of the identity of their science. As far as the Slovenian term “pedagogika” is 
concerned, according to the author, it can be translated into English as “pedagogy” 
when it retains its normative assumptions and therefore situates its research 
questions, research procedures, and interpretations within the norms it strives 
for; when it emphasizes the balance between theory and practice, that is, when it 
conducts both research and practical actions dialectically; and when it connects 
to other sciences by maintaining the centrality of its research topics and research 
principles, while at the same time enriching and updating its research with the 
findings of other sciences. In relation to translation issues, the author also analyzes 
the position of comparative education as an education science discipline. It is 
characterized by defining itself in terms of its normativity, focusing on educational 
questions, or associating the research of education with them. At the same time, 
it looks for a balance between the inductive and deductive approaches, between 
theory and practice, and between explaining phenomena and developing useful 
solutions.
The next article introduces a topic that has not been frequently explored by 
scholarly contributions to the Journal of Contemporary Educational Studies thus 
far. In Drama in education: key conceptual features, Gökçen Özbek presents the 
key conceptual characteristics of the drama method, particularly in educational 
contexts, and analyzes its various manifestations and their related approaches 
(drama as an art form, drama in education, and the so-called integrative approach 
to drama). The author defines drama that includes and takes account of the 
individual’s cognitive and emotional dimensions as a learning process in which 
learning happens through pre-structured and planned experiences, including 
playing, reorganized playing, and the drama context. After presenting this 
theoretical background, the author concludes her article by elaborating on the 
structure of drama in education, which has some distinguishing characteristics 
in comparison with traditional teaching methods. The author is right in stressing 
that drama in education should not be understood as a substitute method or an 
exclusive alternative to established didactic strategies. Rather, it should be seen 
as a complementary didactic activity that can be used productively for a better 
quality and more effective attainment of certain educational goals in various 
educational programs.
The last contribution to this issue of our journal, Design-based research in 
educational research context, was written by Majda Cencič and Tina Štemberger. 
They present a type of research that examines how to bring educational research 
closer to the needs of pedagogical practice. Although design-based research is well 
known and fairly widely used abroad, only a few texts can be found in Slovenian 
scientific literature. Therefore, the authors start by reviewing the beginnings, 
development, and distinctive features of this research type. They compare design-

Editorial 9
based research to both action research and pedagogical experiment. Cencič and 
Štemberger underline both the advantages and usefulness of the design-based 
research as well as its drawbacks. The advantage, according to the authors, is the 
fact that design-based research is undertaken in a genuine educational situation. 
Additionally, the collaboration of practitioners, researchers, and innovators relates 
different disciplines and expertise, thereby narrowing or closing the gap between 
educational research and the reality of educational practice. It is directed toward 
improving practice (i.e., instruction) as well as developing theory in a specific 
area. The disadvantage that the authors see in this research type is the weak 
theoretical methodological foundation and the dilemma regarding the criteria for 
the acceptance, abandonment, or continuation of design-based research.
Dr. Jasna Mažgon,
Editor-in-chief