Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood
ISSN 1463-9491

CONTENTS [click on author's name for abstract and full text]

SPECIAL ISSUE
Rethinking Professionalism in Early Childhood
Guest Editor: MATHIAS URBAN

Mathias Urban. Editorial. Rethinking Professionalism in Early Childhood: untested feasibilities and critical ecologies, pages 1‑7 doi:10.2304/ciec.2010.11.1.1 VIEW FULL TEXT
Peter Moss. We Cannot Continue as We Are: the educator in an education for survival, pages 8‑19
A. Bame Nsamenang. Issues in and Challenges to Professionalism in Africa’s Cultural Settings, pages 20‑28
Zahirul Islam. From ‘Marginality’ to ‘Mainstream’: a narrative of early childhood professionalism in Bangladesh, pages 29‑38
Hasina Banu Ebrahim. Conflicting Discourses of Private Nursery Entrepreneurs in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, pages 39‑48
Iris Duhn. ‘The Centre is My Business’: neo-liberal politics, privatisation and discourses of professionalism in New Zealand, pages 49‑60
Carmen Dalli. Towards the Re-emergence of a Critical Ecology of the Early Childhood Profession in New Zealand, pages 61‑74
Eva Lloyd & Elaine Hallet. Professionalising the Early Childhood Workforce in England: work in progress or missed opportunity?, pages 75‑88
Marianne Fenech, Jennifer Sumsion & Wendy Shepherd. Promoting Early Childhood Teacher Professionalism in the Australian Context: the place of resistance, pages 89‑105
Anke van Keulen. The Early Childhood Educator in a Critical Learning Community: towards sustainable change, pages 106‑112
Rachel Langford. Critiquing Child-Centred Pedagogy to Bring Children and Early Childhood Educators into the Centre of a Democratic Pedagogy, pages 113‑127

We Cannot Continue as We Are: the educator in an education for survival

PETER MOSS Thomas Coram Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of London, United Kingdom

doi:10.2304/ciec.2010.11.1.8

The article takes a broad view, locating discussion about the early years educator in a wider debate about the future of the educator at a time of great crisis, when even the future of our species is in question. The state we are in calls for fundamental review of the purposes and concept of education and, therefore, the values, qualities and practices needed of all educators. The article reflects on these subjects, proposing an education for survival, democracy and flourishing, and a concept of education in its broadest sense, implying an educator capable of working with diversity and democracy, an ethics of care and encounter, an attitude of research and experimentation, and pedagogical approaches to match. The article ends with several linked questions. We need well-educated educators, but what do we gain by the focus on ‘professionalism’? Should our focus be on education and the educator: the purpose of the former and the requirements of the latter? If we talk about ‘professionalism’, does that not risk diverting us from the real task in hand, an education and educators able to respond to the crisis facing us? Might we not end up reconceptualising the concept of professionalism so much to accommodate what is important, such as the idea of multiple knowledges and democratic practice, that we render the concept meaningless?

Issues in and Challenges to Professionalism in Africa’s Cultural Settings

A. BAME NSAMENANG Human Development Resource Centre, University of Yaoundé, Cameroon

doi:10.2304/ciec.2010.11.1.20

This article explores critical issues linked to early child development (ECD) professionalism in African childhood contexts in the light of rights-based consideration. Against the backdrop of acculturation being a reality in Africa, it accepts professionalism as a ‘good thing’ for ECD programmes in Africa. The article sketches a portrait of childhoods in African cultural settings and points to sensitive aspects of African child development that would require keen sensitivity from professionalization agendas. In particular, the article recognizes children in their changing families and hybridized cultural circumstances as social agents and ‘natural’ stakeholders of ECD professionalism. It reviews evidence that reveals African children as accredited contributors from an early age to their own developmental learning. Accordingly, African youngsters should be enlisted as partners to ECD professionalism in order to give them and their families participative spaces and a respectful voice in all ECD efforts. Given the coexistence of three ECD heritages in African families and communities today from Eastern, Western and indigenous African sources, a ‘blended approach’ is perhaps the most appropriate route to take towards ECD professionalism.

From ‘Marginality’ to ‘Mainstream’: a narrative of early childhood professionalism in Bangladesh

ZAHIRUL ISLAM Early Concern: Center for Early Childhood Research and Development, Dhaka, Bangladesh

doi:10.2304/ciec.2010.11.1.29

Early childhood as a professional field with its concern for the young child has gained a distinctive perspective in Bangladesh. The prevailing thoughts and practices of this field, derived from a modern scientific paradigm, are a continuation of the trend that was introduced through colonization. The prime concern of practitioners is that children are marginal, therefore they need to be placed in the mainstream. Then, it is claimed, children will become the holders of rights, privileged and affluent. This article argues that this approach does not reveal knowledge of young children’s situation ‘as it really is’. Rather, it provides twisted understandings of young children. Drawing on a postmodern perspective, the article proposes an alternative paradigm of efficient professionalism that is respectful of ‘little narratives’ – local voices, diversity and the child’s perspective – which is appropriate to the Bangladesh context and embraces openness. In order to make professional practices decolonized, this paradigm dismantles the colonial trend, challenges the professional approach’s claim to be a transcendent form of knowledge and initiates the trend of understanding children in terms of their own circumstances.

Conflicting Discourses of Private Nursery Entrepreneurs in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

HASINA BANU EBRAHIM School of Education Studies, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa

doi:10.2304/ciec.2010.11.1.39

The South African government has adopted a poverty-targeted approach to provisioning in early care and education. This approach prioritises public funding for vulnerable and disadvantaged children. Given the need to address past imbalances and the context of limited financial resources, the private sector has been given an increased role in financing and delivering early care and education. To date, little attention has been paid to how private providers configure their services. This article seeks to address the gap. Through the analysis of the discourses of private entrepreneurs and their staff in two early childhood centres in urban KwaZulu-Natal, it is argued that the business approach in early care and education, with the focus on parents as customers, is narrow and limiting. It marginalises access for young children from disadvantaged groups and downplays the diversity that characterises young children’s lives in South Africa.

‘The Centre is My Business’: neo-liberal politics, privatisation and discourses of professionalism in New Zealand

IRIS DUHN School of Critical Studies in Education, University of Auckland, New Zealand

doi:10.2304/ciec.2010.11.1.49

Over the past decade, professionalism has become a keyword in early childhood education in New Zealand. The emphasis on ‘professionalism’ in education often refers to increased accountability and outcome-focused approaches to teaching. The push to managerial performativity as a new hallmark of professionalism has led to arguments that warn of a ‘deprofessionalisation’ of teachers as an effect of neo-liberal education reform. This article argues that discourses of professionalism in neo-liberal times and places are multifaceted and more complex than the ‘deprofessionalism’ argument indicates. Instead of reinscribing neo-liberalism as a monolithic entity which produces one particular type of professionalism only, the article proposes to look closely at what kind of professionalism is enacted in particular places. The article focuses on two ‘professionalisms’ – one in a corporate context, the other one in a small, private centre – to highlight the coexistence of different articulations and enactments of ‘neo-liberal professionalism’ in early childhood education.

Towards the Re-emergence of a Critical Ecology of the Early Childhood Profession in New Zealand

CARMEN DALLI Institute for Early Childhood Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

doi:10.2304/ciec.2010.11.1.61

A 10-year strategic plan for early childhood education introduced by the New Zealand Ministry of Education in 2002 included policies to create a teacher-led early childhood profession by 2012. This article reviews the provisions of the strategic plan and argues that it emerged from a critical ecology of the early childhood profession with a history of advocacy and strategy. The article marks out new challenges to the implementation of the strategic plan as it draws close to its end date in a changed political context and a time of economic constraint. It is argued that the challenges call for the re-emergence of a critical ecology of the profession that responds to the current context.

Professionalising the Early Childhood Workforce in England: work in progress or missed opportunity?

EVA LLOYD Cass School of Education, University of East London, United Kingdom
ELAINE HALLET Department of Early Childhood and Primary Education, Institute of Education, University of London, United Kingdom

doi:10.2304/ciec.2010.11.1.75

This article considers policies and strategies employed to professionalise the early childhood workforce in England since the Labour government took office in 1997. The term ‘professionalisation’ is associated here with moves towards creating a graduate early years workforce, which could have implications for training, pay and employment conditions, the specific body of knowledge and the professional identity of early years practitioners. The new status of Early Years Professional is explored, which has its legal underpinning in the 2006 Childcare Act. The discussion is informed empirically by the views of a small sample of practitioners training as Early Years Professionals. It is argued that the concept of professionalism applied here does not meet the criteria employed within sociological theories of the professions. It also contrasts with that of other professions working with young children, such as qualified teachers and social workers. Finally, it conflicts with early years practitioners’ own views on their professional identity. This process could therefore be regarded as representing a missed opportunity in professionalising the role of early years practitioners in England, but instead it is viewed as a work in progress, in the light of evidence for early years practitioners’ professional attitudes and commitment.

Promoting Early Childhood Teacher Professionalism in the Australian Context: the place of resistance

MARIANNE FENECH Institute of Early Childhood, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
JENNIFER SUMSION School of Teacher Education, Charles Sturt University, Bathurst, Australia
WENDY SHEPHERD Institute of Early Childhood, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia

doi:10.2304/ciec.2010.11.1.89

The early childhood education (ECE) sector in Australia is marked by a habitus where ‘professionalism’ is confined to objective, technical practices. The authos suggest that this is a diminished view of professionalism, and one that compromises high-quality ECE. This article is concerned with how teacher professionalism can be re-imagined and practised within an ECE setting in ways that uphold children’s rights and interests and emancipate early childhood teachers from technical, deprofessionalising constraints. Through a case study of professionalism in a reputable high-quality long-day-care centre in Sydney, Australia, the article extends thinking about teacher activism and promotes resistance-based professionalism as one way of producing an alternative habitus about quality ECE and the integral role early childhood teachers play in such provision.

The Early Childhood Educator in a Critical Learning Community: towards sustainable change

ANKE van KEULEN Bureau MUTANT, Utrecht, The Netherlands

doi:10.2304/ciec.2010.11.1.106

The action research project Sustainable Change in a Critical Learning Community was conducted in the Netherlands (2007‑08) to improve quality in early childhood by enhancement of critical reflection at all levels in early childhood organisations: educators individually and collectively, pedagogical leaders and coaches, and (middle) management. The complex reality in which professionals in early childhood organisations operate demands a reflective attitude to knowledge and practice, but in order to achieve this, participants at every level in the institution have to be involved. Bureau MUTANT conducted this action research project in cooperation with four childcare-providing organisations. MUTANT is a small independent agency that supports professionals and institutions in early childhood, welfare and health care with innovative methods, training and consultation. Respect for diversity – with regard to ethnicity, social background and gender – is a key issue in all actions. With the results of this action research, MUTANT wishes to answer questions and worries in childcare organisations in the Netherlands and to fill a gap in the professionalisation of individuals and teams. The final target is to enhance the quality of educators and thus the quality of childcare organisations, a quality based on democratic principles such as furtherance of social change, social justice and democratic values.

Critiquing Child-Centred Pedagogy to Bring Children and Early Childhood Educators into the Centre of a Democratic Pedagogy

RACHEL LANGFORD School of Early Childhood Education, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada

doi:10.2304/ciec.2010.11.1.113

Child-centred pedagogy is both an enduring approach and a revered concept in Western-based teacher preparation. This article weaves together major critiques of child-centred pedagogy that draw on critical feminist, postmodernist and post-structural theories. These critiques have particular relevance for conceptualizing what it can mean to be, and what it takes to become, an early childhood professional. The construct of the female early childhood professional is particularly important with the current intensification of the teacher as a technician and the increasing numbers in the workforce from racialized groups who may face social inequities. The construction of the individualized child and its parallel denial of the influences of gender, ethnicity and class on who a child becomes are equally important. Drawing upon the work of reconceptualist scholars, some preliminary ways will be proposed in which we can theorize and reconstruct children and early childhood professionals at the centre of a pedagogy that is a democratic space for all.

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