IMPORTANCE OF ENCOURAGING THE VALUE OF AUTONOMY IN EARLY CHILDHOOD WITHIN CROATIAN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION B. Tokic University of Zadar (CROATIA) Abstract Discussing an early childhood educator as a reflective practitioner is not visible only in reflecting and planning everyday work within the group, but with taking into account the holistic view on the child's individual needs that ultimately has a great impact in developing a pedagogical relationship within the prepared environment that gives each child the right to competently participate. Children's' participation has been a focus of multiple research in the recent decades, originated from the paradigm of achieving children's rights and building a society in which a child can understand the importance of responsible and autonomous behaviour from its early age. In regards to the self- determination theory, autonomy, competence and relatedness of an individual are now seen as a result of behaviour that is intrinsically motivated and emphasises the importance of social-emotional development. The activity of free play opens a number of opportunities within the early childhood institution as it enables a child to plan, elaborate and define its role within their group and the community that eventually leads up to establishing a role of competent individual that participates in the activities of negotiating, developing and creating a shared culture within the institution. When discussing the educators' role in this process – it is evident that now their professional work requires flexibility and continuous reflecting on their own educational and personal paradigms as to be an important part of the quality educational process. This paper will discuss the guidelines of educators professional work and recent deliberations in regards to children's participation as one of the key components for empowering young individuals from their early age to participate responsibly in the democratic society, in regards to the changes undergoing in the early childhood and educational system in Croatia, that is set on the notion of partnership and relationship between the child and the practitioner, as stated in the National Curriculum values and goals. Keywords: Early childhood, reflective practitioner, Croatian educational system, autonomy in early childhood, child participation. 1 INTRODUCTION In history, the notion of autonomy was used to describe antique Greek countries and their laws, whereas today authors emphasize the autonomy as a personal attribute and desirable quality to possess. Therefore, autonomy is defined as “independence, self-governance” in one’s behaviour. [1], [2, p. 125] In the literature, the value of autonomy is identified with the quality of self-assertion, critical reflection, freedom from obligation,… Polic defines education as “doing based in respecting other as different, autonomous and free being”. [3, p. 117]. Within the active policy of implementing children rights, the issue of child participation is being emphasized in order to signify the multitude of roles a child can take and experience within the different contexts of their life. Participation, therefore, implies children’s activity that enables them to talk, think and make decisions, but also includes the activities of the adults that are responsive to children’s needs and that include children when making important decisions. [4], [5] 2 AUTONOMY IN THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS The process of education could be considered a life-long project whose goal is to cultivate one’s inner attributes by external means (i.e. telling a child what is considered good, what bad,…). Even though children of a young age are still not developmentally or emotionally capable of being completely autonomous, that doesn’t signify they cannot be supported in their process of learning and development of attitudes and competencies that will be needed to become self-regulated as adults. Proceedings of ICERI2019 Conference 11th-13th November 2019, Seville, Spain ISBN: 978-84-09-14755-7 4780