Childcare Practitioners and the Process of Professionalization

Child Care Quarterly, 2001

The question of professionalization in Child and Youth Care continues to be important as the field moves into the new millennium. This article provides the personal and professional reflections of the author on the issues we face in pursuing professionalization in Child and Youth Care. The article seeks to raise issues and questions for the field to consider as it moves forward in its search for greater recognition and acceptance as a profession.

Paper presented at the NZARE annual conference, 2001

This paper draws on interview, journal and observational data collected during 5 qualitative case studies of starting childcare to explore how the teachers constructed their identities as teachers during this event. The case studies involved 5 under-three year old children, their mothers and their teachers in five childcare centres in a major city in New Zealand. Using an approach of "listen [ing] to the teacher's voice" it argues that the teachers constructed their identity with reference to societal and psychological discourses about motherhood and early childhood teaching. These discourses posit the mother's role as primary and that of early childhood teacher/worker as secondary / second best. They also construct early childhood teaching as akin to mothering thus creating tensions and contradictions which in this study affected the way the teachers spoke about their practice and enacted their "theories of practice". This paper argues that early childhood teachers need to reflect on how this positions them in their working relationships with mothers as well as in their role as members of the teaching profession.

Professional Development in Education

Emphasis on professionalisation of the childcare workforce internationally is associated with evidence that links education and experience of early years practitioners; quality of early education and care; and outcomes for children and families. In England, this has led to a proliferation of vocational undergraduate programmes. This article draws on research carried out with early years practitioners who were completing a sector endorsed foundation degree in early years programme that provided students in full-time employment with opportunities for professional and workplace learning. The students' views and experiences, documented in personal reflections and learning stories and voiced during focus groups, were complemented by those of early years managers and mentors. A critique of the findings to learn about developing early years practitioners' identities as professionals and as professional learners suggests that the students became confident, reflective professionals and learners who shared their learning and sought to implement change in their settings. This research has implications for developing early childhood education and care (ECEC) practitioners, new to academic study, as learners and as confident, reflective members of a professional workforce at a time of ongoing change and uncertainty in ECEC policy and practice nationally and internationally.

International Journal of Elementary Education, 2019

Despite the relevance of early childhood services to children, families and nation states, the sector is largely undervalued and under resourced and, is not recognised as an established profession. Using collaborative auto ethnography, researchers from six different countries (Australia, Chile, England, Germany, Ireland and the United States) all members of the EECERA Professionalisation Special Interest Group (P-SIG) share their reflections on the professionalisation of early childhood. While professionalisation is associated with discretionary decision making that is premised upon an accepted body of knowledge, neoliberalism imposes constraints from on top, identifying through various forms of curricula, legislated standards, and policies what is appropriate and desirable practice. As a consequence, early childhood personnel are restricted in their professional agency and, their work is characterised by tension, as they strive to balance external expectations from a neoliberal stance and their own perspectives that prioritise a children's rights perspective. This paper questions how the sector manages the constraints imposed on it in a neoliberal political and social world. It calls upon those in the profession to resist neoliberalism and, to make a stand in terms of what is considered best practice. It further argues that ongoing debate is required as to the boundaries of what would be called the early childhood profession: considerations of ways in which the different sectors (education, health, and welfare) contribute to a holistic approach in working with children balanced against the requirement for a profession to have an identified and discrete body of knowledge. The implications of this for professionalisation of early childhood are widespread and, worthy of debate. While the inclusion of different sectors for example, addresses the holistic nature of early childhood work, it risks creating a broad and diffused knowledge base that might make it difficult to claim professionalisation. We hope that this paper contributes to reenergizing conversations on the professionalisation of the early childhood sector.

This paper examines an early childhood care and education practitioner preparation program set in the School of Human Services at Griffith University in Queensland.

International Journal of Early Years Education

It is widely accepted that the early childhood education and care (ECEC) workforce is central to the quality of services. Modernist constructs of quality signal the importance of qualifications for quality, but the preoccupation with qualification levels silences questions about the knowledge required of ECEC professionals. Postmodern perspectives have opened up debates on understandings of professionalism and given voice to those who work in ECEC. However, sociological perspectives of knowledge challenge postmodernism as either creating a dichotomy between modernist technocratic models of professionalism and the ethical models implicated in postmodernism or at worst present knowledge as non-existent. Adopting a sociological perspective of knowledge moves away from the dichotomy, enabling a critical consideration of what is the knowledge-base for ECEC, how it is formed, legitimised and applied. Drawing on Bernstein contributes to the debates on professionalism through providing a model for the ECEC knowledge-base that identifies multiple forms of knowledge, representing both theoretical and experiential knowledge. Theoretical knowledge has strong boundaries that provides legitimacy. However, whilst the social origins of experiential knowledge offers legitimacy,, it requires greater articulation and scrutiny.

2017

2016

The field of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) has been engaged in discussions about professionalism of the workforce for a considerable period. This paper proposes a holistic model of professional identity construction that considers three elements; the head (utilising reflections on knowledge, reason and thinking), the heart (exploring passion, feelings and values and beliefs) and the hands (which represents professionalism as worked out in practice in the workplace). It suggests how these aspects can be constructed into a model of professionalism that remains fluid and flexible, and is able to respond to changing demands. There is evidence to suggest that the model can be utilised as a professional development (PD) tool for use with students and practitioners in the field.

P. Whiteman & K. De Gioia (Eds.), Children and Childhoods 1: Perspectives, places and practices (pp. 16-35). Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing., 2012

"This chapter reports on a one-year project that was implemented with a community based child care organisation that operates three child care centres in Sydney, Australia. The organisation employed an academic consultant to work with the qualified staff and Directors in regard to planning, programming and pedagogical documentation. The project was situated within a change management theoretical framework. Change management requires the leadership to create a space and vision for examining and reframing practices. For this project, this enabled the organisation to transform their pedagogical practices. This project involved several stages to implement the change over a period of a year. At the completion of the project the role of the consultant was evaluated. This chapter will explore the effectiveness of the consultant in terms of managing the changes to planning and programming processes. Conclusions will be drawn as to the support qualified staff require to transform their pedagogical practices and how a change management approach can support professional learning."

2013

This article presents a double perspective on social educators’ professional competence: It discusses how everyday life in day care centres (preschools) is dependent on professional competences that can be conceived as “unnoticed.” These aspects of professional competence are embedded in routines, experiences and embodied forms of knowledge. However, it may be discussed whether these competences are under pressure from increased demands for documentation, standardization and evaluation of children’s learning outcomes. The article will briefly outline this development in the day care sector, followed by a discussion of unnoticed professional competence and the related notion of gestural knowledge. The double perspective on social educators’ professional competences will be illuminated by empirical examples from a research project involving social educators from two day care centres in Denmark.