scholarly journals Reconceptualising and (re)forming early childhood professional identities: Ongoing transnational policy discussions

2020 ◽  
pp. 147821032097601
Author(s):  
Sonja Arndt ◽  
Kylie Smith ◽  
Mathias Urban ◽  
Tomas Ellegard ◽  
Beth Blue Swadener ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Teacher Identity ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The United States ◽  
Professional Identities ◽  
Early Childhood Professional ◽  
Education And Care ◽  
Childhood Professional ◽  
Professional Self ◽  
Teacher Professional

Problematic policy constructions of the purpose of education implicate professional identities and working conditions of professionals working with the youngest children. This paper builds on our earlier writing, to contest teacher professional identities in Australia, Ireland, Denmark and the United States of America, to illustrate the crucial importance of contextualised policy landscapes in early childhood education and care. It uses prevailing policy constructions, power imbalances and tensions in defining teacher identities, to ask crucial questions, such as what has become of the professional ‘self’. It questions the fundamental ethics of care and encounter, and of worthy wage and other campaigns focused on the well-being of teachers when faced with a world-wide crisis. The cross-national conversations culminate in a contemporary confrontation of teacher identity and imperatives in increasingly uncertain times as evolving in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Envisioning the Impact of Decisions Made about Early Childhood Professional Development Systems by Different Constituent Groups

2007 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 255-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peggy Apple ◽  
Mary Benson McMullen
Keyword(s):  
Professional Development ◽  
Early Childhood ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Early Childhood Professional ◽  
Education And Care ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Childhood Professional ◽  
Principal Decision Making ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Joint Problem Solving

In this article the authors explore the need for early childhood practitioners and scholars to engage in joint problem solving to create and support early childhood education and care (ECEC) professional development systems in which all constituents benefit. Primary constituent groups and principal decision-making bodies are defined and analyzed, and the interrelated influences within professional development systems are considered. At the heart of the discussion is how decisions made by all constituent groups are interrelated and affect all parts of the system. For instance, decisions made about professional qualifications have an impact upon pre- and in-service ECEC professionals, current ECEC professionals, children and their families, and individuals within ECEC businesses and communities. Although the discussion in this article is about these issues as they are played out within the USA, the authors believe that the implications raised may be usefully considered by ECEC professionals and those engaged in professional development in other cultures and contexts.

scholarly journals Contesting early childhood professional identities: A cross-national discussion

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 97-116 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonja Arndt ◽  
Mathias Urban ◽  
Colette Murray ◽  
Kylie Smith ◽  
Beth Swadener ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Professional Identities ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Policy Context ◽  
Early Childhood Professional ◽  
Local Contexts ◽  
The Usa ◽  
Childhood Professional ◽  
Divide And Rule ◽  
Cross National

In this collective article, the authors explore constructions of early childhood practitioners and how they disconnect and reconnect in a global neo-liberal education policy context. The contributions to the conversation provide windows into shifting professional identities across five national contexts: New Zealand, the USA, Ireland, Australia and Denmark. The authors ask who benefits from the notion of distinct professional identities, linked to early childhood education as locally and culturally embedded practice. They conceptualize teachers’ shifting subjectivities, drawing on Kristeva’s philosophical conception of identity as constantly in construction, open and evolving. Arguments for the urgency to counter the global uniformity machine, streamlined curricula, standardized assessment and deprofessionalization are not new. However, the authors wonder whether these arguments are missing something. Does our localized and highly contextualized identity construction enable ‘divide and rule’ politics by global agents such as the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, World Bank and international corporations? The authors’ (preliminary) answer is to build individual and collective professional identities that are grounded in diverse local contexts and in a broader transnational professional (political) consciousness and collective voice.

scholarly journals Business managers in children’s playground : Exploring a problematic (or not!) identity construction of early childhood teachers in New Zealand

2021 ◽  
pp. 146394912198936
Author(s):  
Olivera Kamenarac
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Early Childhood Education ◽  
Business Managers ◽  
Professional Identities ◽  
Education Policies ◽  
Childhood Education ◽  
Teacher Professional ◽  
Early Childhood Education Policies ◽  
Policies And Practices

The impacts of neo-liberal education reforms on the early childhood education sector have been a focal point of scholarly critiques in New Zealand. Interestingly, only a few studies have addressed how teacher professional identities and professionalism have changed in response to the neo-liberal context of New Zealand early childhood education. It has been, however, recognised that understanding the complexity of teacher professional identities within the rapidly transforming landscape of early childhood education is a key consideration in implementing and sustaining a change agenda in education policies and practices. In this article, the author draws on data from her research study about how teachers’ professional identities have been reconstructed in response to the shifting discourses in New Zealand early childhood education policies and practices. Specifically, the author explores the construction of teachers as business managers, which has emerged through an interplay of discourses of marketisation and privatisation driving some of the country’s early childhood education policies and practices. It is argued that the construction of teachers as business managers has altered core professional ethical values underpinning the teaching profession, professionalism and the purpose of early childhood education in New Zealand, which were traditionally embedded in discourses of collective democracy, equity and social justice.

Minority-world professionals in majority-world early childhood contexts: How do international field experiences promote intercultural competence or reinforce “professional” ethnocentrism?

2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 199-205
Author(s):  
Samara Madrid Akpovo ◽  
Lydiah Nganga
Keyword(s):  
Early Childhood ◽  
Intercultural Competence ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Field Experiences ◽  
Early Childhood Teacher ◽  
Teacher Education Programs ◽  
Education Programs ◽  
Majority World ◽  
Early Childhood Professional ◽  
Childhood Professional

This colloquium problematizes the use of early childhood international field experiences as a tool for professional development with Euro-Western pre-service and in-service teachers. The authors critique experiences where minority-world educators teach or implement internships within majority-world contexts. It is critical for Euro-Western teacher education programs to provide pre-service and in-service teachers with opportunities to expand their global views of the early childhood professional through international field experiences. But how can this be done when conceptions of the “professional” are constructed in Euro-Western images, ideas, curricula, ideologies, and privilege? The authors make a call for early childhood teacher educators to reconsider, deconstruct, and re-examine themselves and their pre-service and in-service teachers’ rationale for engaging in international field experiences.

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