scholarly journals The learning trajectory of emerging professionalism: A Finnish student teacher negotiating world-view education and early childhood education and care superdiversity

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 297-311
Author(s):  
Silja Lamminmäki-Vartia ◽  
Saila Poulter ◽  
Arniika Kuusisto
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Student Teachers ◽  
Learning Process ◽  
World View ◽  
Teacher Professionalism ◽  
Learning Trajectory ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Education And Care ◽  
Value Learning

This article examines the learning trajectory of the emerging professionalism of Finnish early childhood education and care student teachers, focusing in particular on their professionalism in early childhood education and care world-view education in the context of cultural and world-view superdiversity. Of specific interest here is what students postulate as meaningful in their professional learning processes and why, and what kinds of directions this value-learning process has taken. The data was generated over a year-long learning process in a group with seven early childhood education and care students and six in-service early childhood education and care teachers through survey responses, reflective learning diaries and retrospective in-depth interviews with the students. Using the Kuusisto and Gearon (2017a) value-learning-trajectory model as an analytical tool, the findings are presented through an in-depth case study depicting one student’s learning throughout the process and across the data sets. To conclude, the conceptual working model is developed further to depict the development of emergent early childhood education and care teacher professionalism with a particular focus on world-view education and early childhood education and care superdiversity.

scholarly journals Supporting teacher professionalism through tailored professional learning

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Nolan ◽  
Tebeje Molla
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Learning Opportunities ◽  
Teacher Professionalism ◽  
Reform Agenda ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Education And Care ◽  
Quality Learning ◽  
Continuing Professional Learning

The issue of continuing professional learning for educators in the early childhood education and care sector is in the spotlight in Australia due to the government's reform agenda, which seeks to professionalize the workforce. In an effort to ensure quality programmes are on offer for all children, educators are expected to upskill. The assumption is that quality learning opportunities for children are aligned with a more skilled and capable workforce. This is problematic due to the diversity of the early childhood education and care workforce and its ability to convert professionalization opportunities into achievements. The focus of this article is a study that problematized the alignment of professional attributes valued in the policy space and in the field of practice to understand educator agency, a key element of professional capability. Once this alignment is known, professional learning experiences can be tailored to better support the professionalization of these educators.

Problematising early childhood teacher registration as a mechanism to improve quality early childhood education and care

2020 ◽  
pp. 146394911989602
Author(s):  
Marianne Fenech ◽  
Samantha King
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Early Childhood Teachers ◽  
Early Childhood Teacher ◽  
Teacher Professionalism ◽  
Small Scale ◽  
Teachers Perceptions ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
National Review ◽  
Education And Care

Regulatory drivers of teacher quality and teacher professionalism are increasingly being utilised in Australia and internationally to improve children’s outcomes. In the context of a recent national review on teacher registration, this article reports on findings from a small-scale study that investigated three early childhood teachers’ perceptions of teacher registration in New South Wales, Australia. The participants rejected discursive truths about the need for and benefits of teacher registration, associating this relatively new mechanism of teacher accountability as a threat to teachers’ professional practice and job satisfaction, and to centres’ provision of quality early childhood education. The findings problematise a discourse of teacher professionalism made enticing by a vow to bring early childhood teachers in from the margins of the educator sector.

Social Investment and Childcare Expansion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margarita León
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Perfect Match ◽  
Preschool Education ◽  
Conceptual Level ◽  
Social Investment ◽  
Trade Off ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Education And Care

The chapter first examines at a conceptual level the links between theories of social investment and childcare expansion. Although ‘the perfect match’ between the two is often taken for granted in the specialized literature as well as in policy papers, it is here argued that a more nuance approach that ‘unpacks’ this relationship is needed. The chapter will then look for elements of variation in early childhood education and care (ECEC) expansion. Despite an increase in spending over the last two decades in many European and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, wide variation still exists in the way in which ECEC develops. A trade-off is often observed between coverage and quality of provision. A crucial dividing line that determines, to a large extent, the quality of provision in ECEC is the increasing differentiation between preschool education for children aged 3 and above and childcare for younger children.

scholarly journals Professionalisation of early childhood education and care practitioners: Working conditions in Ireland

2021 ◽  
pp. 146394912110101
Author(s):  
Geraldine Mooney Simmie ◽  
Dawn Murphy
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Women Workers ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Performance Management ◽  
Working Conditions ◽  
The State ◽  
Developmental Needs ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Care Workers ◽  
Education And Care

The last decade has revealed a global (re)configuring of the relationships between the state, society and educational settings in the direction of systems of performance management. In this article, the authors conduct a critical feminist inquiry into this changing relationship in relation to the professionalisation of early childhood education and care practitioners in Ireland, with a focus on dilemmatic contradictions between the policy reform ensemble and practitioners’ reported working conditions in a doctoral study. The critique draws from the politics of power and education, and gendered and classed subjectivities, and allows the authors to theorise early childhood education and care professionalisation in alternative emancipatory ways for democratic pedagogy rather than a limited performativity. The findings reveal the state (re)configured as a central command centre with an over-reliance on surveillance, alongside deficits of responsibility for public interest values in relation to the working conditions of early childhood education and care workers, who are mostly part-time ‘pink-collar’ women workers in precarious roles. The study has implications that go beyond Ireland for the professionalisation of early childhood education and care workers and meeting the early developmental needs of young children.

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