A 175 Éves Vajdasági Magyaróvodapedagógia A Nemzeti Identitásés Az Anyanyelvhasználat Kérdésének Tükrében

There were sevaral academic papers that address the education system in Vojvodina (Pálinkás 1984, Tóth 1994, Gábrityné – Mirnics 1997), however, there were few written about the history of the Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) that examines the rights of ethnic minorities living in this region. In recent decades, however, academic attention turned to the region’s rich ECEC history, both from Serbia (Gavrilović 2001, Kopas-Vukašinović 2004, Mačković – Runje – Srdić – Vass 2004; Stojanovic – Kovacevic – Bogovac 2018) and from Hungary (Pukánszky – Németh 1997, Molnár – Pálfi – Szerepi – Vargáné 2015). Our aim was not to produce a comprehensive historical overview of the nurseries (bölcsőde) and kindergartens (óvoda) of the Hungarian national minority in Serbia, but to mark and celebrate 175 years since the first Hungarian nursery opened in Subotica. We will cover the influence of early educational and cultural traditions and values giving specific attention to the usage of the native language that is fundamental to cultural identity.