Systems advocacy in the professional practice of early childhood teachers: from the antithetical to the ethical

Dominant constructions of professionalism in early childhood education can diminish early childhood teachers’ and educators’ undertaking of advocacy at the systems or political level. In this paper, we propose an ethically grounded construction of professionalism that provides space for professional practice to move beyond the classroom and into the political sphere. Findings from interviews with four early childhood teachers from Australia who undertake systems advocacy as part of their professional practice show that this work is driven by ethical influences that extend beyond the rule-based imperative, in ethical codes, that teachers should undertake systems advocacy. Findings highlight the value of considering systems advocacy as practice that emerges from an interplay of three theoretical foundations of ethics: deontology, utilitarianism and virtue ethics. Implications for teacher professionalism and the building of a teacher disposition that incorporates systems advocacy are considered.     

The honourable road and its impact on teacher practice: an analysis of China's national honour system in cultivating professional development

China's national teacher honour system, initiated in 1949, is designed to recognise the academic and pedagogical performance of individual teachers and professional collectives at national, provincial, municipal, and school-based levels. This study employs grounded theory analysis to examine the phenomenon of China's teacher honour system by analysing documents, narrative stories of 11 award recipients and five non-recipients, and interviews with four government officials who manage the system. The paper discusses sociocultural aspects of this honour system by exploring the impact of three types of professional honours on teacher professional development. This system aims to balance government leadership in conferring honour with individual pursuit of professional development in one's local setting. Contextualised in a Confucian culture, the teachers immersed in this honour system benefit from collegial support in engaging in professional growth activities. Challenges with this system include the need to enhance teacher efficacy by engaging teachers in shaping the policy, as well as the possibility of political – rather than professional – criteria determining honour conferral, discouraging rigorous pursuit of professional growth.     

Understanding stories of professional formation during early childhood education and care practice placements

Narrative inquiry as a methodological approach enables us to examine how people represent their experiences and selves through storytelling (Chase, S. E. 2005. ‘Narrative Inquiry: Multiple Lenses, Approaches, Voices.’ In The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research, edited by N. Denzin and Y. Lincoln, 651–679. London: Sage). To understand these constructions, other kinds of knowledge are required. Theories of social life, for example, help to interpret areas which narrative inquiry is good at revealing about human experiences such as the animation of temporality, sociality and place (Clandinin, J., V. Caine, A. Estefan, J. Huber, M. S. Murphy, and P. Steeves. 2015. ‘Places of Practice: Learning to Think Narratively.’ Narrative Works 5 (1). Accessed November 30, 2017. https://journals.lib.unb.ca/index.php/NW/issue/view/1799). Drawing on interviews with practice educators and final-year undergraduate early childhood education and care (ECEC) students in North-West Ireland, this paper considers how narrative inquiry and education theories work together to illuminate key learning experiences of ECEC undergraduate students during 12-week practice placements. In this paper I attempt to show how two education theories – ‘Threshold Concepts’ and ‘Communities of Practice’ – shed light on the nature of these key learning experiences. The paper suggests that narrative inquiry offers an emancipatory research approach by uncovering human and reflective elements of learning journeys made by ECEC students during their practice placements.     

Analysing the professional development of teaching and learning from a political ethics of care perspective

This paper uses Tronto's political ethics of care as a normative framework to evaluate a model of teaching and learning professional development. This framework identifies five integrated moral elements of care – attentiveness, responsibility, competence, responsiveness and trust. This paper explicates on each of these elements to evaluate the piloting and implementation of a teaching and learning professional development model at a South African higher education institution. The political ethics of care was found to be a useful normative framework for a group of higher educators to reflect on the process of engaging in teaching and learning professional development in that it revealed the importance of differential power relations, the importance of working collaboratively and being attentive to the needs of both caregivers and care receivers.     

Preparing for educare: student perspectives on early years training in Northern Ireland

Preschool provision in Northern Ireland is government funded and quality assured in all statutory sector settings (nursery schools and units) and in many voluntary/private sector settings (playgroups and daycare facilities). However, three unresolved policy issues continue to divide the sectors: the choices between a teacher or pedagogue role model, graduate or vocational level training, and a competency or reflective model of training. This paper aims to explore the reflections of a sample of students from both graduate and vocational early years training courses on the content and effectiveness of their training in order to inform the broader early years professionalism debate. The design of the research combines quantitative and qualitative approaches, with the data collection methods consisting of questionnaire survey (n = 282) and semi‐structured interviews (n = 22). Findings reveal broad agreement on the part of students, literature and government policy on the essential elements of early years training content; however, weaknesses in all training courses are detected in regard to preparation for significant areas of professional practice.     

Teaching emerging teacher-researchers: examining a district-based professional development course

Using critical constructivism as the theoretical lens, the teacher educator-researcher used practitioner research to systematically examine the experience of PreK-12 teachers in his district-based teacher research professional development course, while also examining his development as a teacher educator. The results of this study showed that, as the teachers made progress toward becoming teacher-researchers, they expressed being empowered by the teacher research process. Moreover, they showed a growing critical awareness in their work, while the teacher educator was challenged to re-examine his conceptions of teacher research. Finally, the teachers faced several important barriers in adopting an inquiry stance in their practice. This research generates both local and global knowledge about teacher research as a form of in-service teacher education.     

Creative development in the early years: some implications of policy for practice

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on the identifying of ‘creative development’ as a desirable early years learning outcome by the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority (SCAA, 1997). The article begins with a rationale for the inclusion of ‘creativity’ in the curriculum of young children in a post‐modern world at the turn of the century. It then goes on to look at the way in which ‘creative development’ is characterized by SCAA as a desirable learning outcome, and to unpick some of the messages which its inclusion in the curriculum may signify. There are several challenges posed by this part of the early years curriculum, which are then explored. Finally it proposes a framework for interpreting and translating it into practice.     

幼儿教师专业发展的途径与方法研究

对幼儿教师专业发展现状进行调查和分析,以期为幼儿教师教育发展提供最基本的理论依据,更好地促进幼儿教师的专业发展。在幼儿教师专业发展中存在很多问题：师资队伍建设没有规划,专业配置不合理;学历达标率较高但专业程度不够扎实;教育教学教研问题突出;家园合作还停留于表浅水平;园长管理水平不够成熟。笔者提出幼儿教师专业发展的对策：制定师资队伍建设规划,建立和完善幼儿教师任用制度;改革师范院校幼师教育,确保幼师生源质量;加强教师自主专业发展,提高教育教学教研能力;加大宣传力度,推进家园合作;发挥终身学习方式,翻新自身专业素养;提升幼儿园园长的管理理念,为教师创造支持性发展平台;加强与其它教师培训机构的联系,开展多渠道的培训。     

The ups and downs of child care: Variations in child care quality and exposure across the early years

There is considerable policy interest in understanding the role of child care in children’s development. Yet little research has examined whether individual children experience changes in child care quality across their early years, and less has included children’s varying levels of exposure to care in analyses of child care trajectories. Using data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care, this study seeks to fill these gaps by studying the non-maternal care experiences of children whose mothers work at some point during their early years. We find that few of these children experience continuously high-quality care or continuously low-quality care. Instead, many children experience changes in child care quality. Children from low socioeconomic status families are more likely to experience low-quality care than children who are never poor, but children who are never poor are more likely to have child care histories that include both low- and high-quality care arrangements. We discuss the implications of our findings for studies of selection into low-quality child care arrangements and the effects of child care quality on children’s development.     

Sustaining professional learning communities: Case studies

The purpose is to document the ongoing development of two schools in becoming professional learning communities and the effects of meaningful collaboration on teacher learning. The question that guides this research is: How does a school become a sustainable professional learning community? The theoretical framework is based on the work of Senge, Hord, Fullan, Hargreaves and Fink, and Stoll, McMahon and Thomas and includes the areas of professional learning community, change and sustainability. Finally, the study addresses the relationship between professional learning community and school culture. The methodology involves a qualitative case study approach designed to gain information regarding two emerging schools in their journeys toward developing learning community cultures. Findings reveal the stories of each school as they evolved as PLCs and the similarities and differences that emerged. Knowing that sustaining the culture of a PLC is complex, and not to be achieved without determination and growth, we look ahead at challenges to be addressed and further research to be conducted. Finally, we offer some concluding statements and attempt to relate findings to the literature on PLCs. The intent is to identify some of the intricacies in building cultures of learning for adults and students. As we have learned through these two stories, many things happen simultaneously, to greater or lesser degrees, at varying points in time over a period of years that seem to influence the development of a PLC. Such development seems so complex that to be able to describe discrete steps or stages is unlikely. Still we are beginning to see that some categories of activities and issues must be developed before others can emerge.     

Personal action potency: early years practitioners participating in interprofessional practice in early years settings

This paper reports on case study research in the UK analysing the participation of early years staff in interprofessional practice to provide effective care and education for children, primarily those with special educational needs. Even though case study staff in different ‘outstanding’ settings had equivalent qualifications and similar years of experience, the ease with which they were able to marshal and deliver effective provision for children requiring input from other services varied depending on a complex set of factors. Social Practice Theory (Holland and Lave 2009) and the concepts of personal action potency in trajectories of participation (Dreier 2002, 2008) shed light on how and why this was the case. The findings indicate that structural arrangements, interpersonal relationships, history and contentions influenced the practitioners' participation in interprofessional practice, but were not entirely deterministic. Contributing to theoretical development, the paper argues that the potential for interprofessional practice is a shared rather than individual capacity in settings. There is scope for enhancing this capacity through attention to the features identified in the analysis.     

Competing priorities in professional development: an Australian study of teacher professional development policy and practice

This paper argues that neoliberal and managerial pressures external to the teaching profession, as well as more progressive and democratic approaches internal to the profession, have simultaneously influenced professional development policy and practice in Australia. In making this case, the paper reviews the nature of the teacher professional development that is supported in federal Australian policies associated with the recently defeated Liberal/National Coalition government (1996–2007) and research into how professional development has been enacted in practice in Australia, during this government's tenure. While acknowledging the significant impact of more neoliberal and managerial approaches and how such policy emphases contribute to the continuation of traditional, systemic/employer provided workshops, the paper also provides evidence of competing, more teacher‐centred approaches.     

A comparative study of teaching efficacy in pre-service and in-service teachers in Korean early childhood education and care (ECEC)

The main purpose of this study was to investigate the differences between pre-service and in-service teachers in terms of their levels of teaching efficacy and teaching professionalism. In addition, the patterns in predictors of teachers’ teaching efficacy were compared between the two subgroups of this study. Five hundred and seventy-three teachers completed self-administered questionnaires. The in-service teachers were found to have higher efficacy than their counterparts in only one of the six subscales of teaching efficacy, the subscale “Teaching Strategies”. Additionally, the college major specialisation and some domains of professionalism were found to be predictive to both groups. Along with the main results of this study, implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Addressing the complexities of literacy and urban teaching in the USA: strategic professional development as intervention

This study was undertaken in order to get some sense of the role of life experiences in preservice and inservice teachers' conceptions of the purpose(s) and practices of education. Content analysis of narratives written by graduate students in education at one college was utilized to ascertain how they view the field and their (current or prospective) role as teachers. We found that the majority of students saw teaching as an opportunity to make a difference, and as reflective of who they were rather than as "just a job". This finding provided the opportunity to address the strengths and vulnerabilities of such an idealistic conception of teaching, and the corresponding possibilities vis-à-vis teacher educators' roles. We conclude by noting the study's limitations and making several recommendations for future action and research based on our findings.     

Teacher evaluation,curricular autonomy and professional development: trends and tensions in the Portuguese educational policy

A programme of City Academies was announced by the Secretary of State for Education for England in 2000. These schools would be independent of local government control, have voluntary and private sector sponsors, and would break the cycle of failing inner‐city schools. The first three Academies opened in 2002, and this paper considers how they have fared so far in terms of changes to their student intake and improvements in examination outcomes. Using figures from 1997 to 2003–2004 from the annual school census and from the DfES Standards site, the paper shows that there is no evidence that these schools are, in general, performing any better for equivalent students than the schools they replaced. Although the programme is at a very early stage, this finding is important because it contradicts the claims of the DfES and of the Academies themselves and the determination of the government (at time of writing) to expand the programme to 200 schools.     

Training and the early years professional: understanding visual impairment

Despite a significant increase in the incidence of visual impairment (VI) in early years children, research has afforded the subject scant attention. Perhaps as a result of underfunding, research into VI typically adopts a single case study approach, with the training needs of early years professionals largely ignored. This paper seeks to inform the debate by presenting empirical evidence from a questionnaire designed to gather data on the incidence of VI in early years settings and the nature and extent of awareness training available. Data from the questionnaire survey and the qualitative dimensions of the study indicate an increase in the incidence of VI and, despite high levels of interest, a paucity of training on issues related to VI. Concern was expressed with delays in diagnosis, the lack of screening available and the extent to which the differing terms used militate against interagency collaboration.