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1.
Despite the political and academic debate on the demands for more male workers in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC), no European country has reached the benchmark set for 2006 to have 20% male early childhood workers. This has predominantly been countered by challenging the idea that care for the youngest implies an activity ‘that women naturally do’ and by consequently arguing for a higher status and better working conditions for caring jobs. In this article, we analyse the recent ‘schoolification’ of ECEC, and in so doing, we argue that the traditional explanations of the feminisation of the early years workforce do not suffice. In addition, we dwell upon contemporary feminism to challenge the mind–body dualism in discourses and practices of care and explore the concepts of embodied subjectivity and corporeality to further explore pathways to a more equally gendered workforce in early childhood provision.  相似文献   

2.
In recent times, a growing consensus has emerged, among researchers and policy-makers, that a well-educated, competent and adequately supported workforce is crucial for the quality of early childhood education and care (ECEC). Despite governmental initiatives aimed to enhance the professional preparation and continuing development of early years practitioners being high on the political agenda of many EU member states, very few studies are analysing professionalisation policy developments and their implications within the national contexts of ECEC. Against this background, the article describes the key features of ECEC policies in Italy and their current trends by focussing specifically on the professionalisation of early childhood practitioners working across 0–3 and 3–6 services. Drawing on the data collected from documentary sources and interviews with key informants, this paper will critically review policy discourses as well as recurring themes and tensions arising from the academic and political debate. The findings from our analysis highlight that the increasing discontinuity characterising professionalisation initiatives across the 0–3 and 3–6 sector might lead to widening the gap among professionals working in such services. The risks that are associated with this trend are, on the one side, to devalue the educational role of 0–3 services and, on the other, to produce the schoolification of educational practices in 3–6 services. In addition, our analysis identified inconsistencies between initial and continuing professional development policies, which are progressively creating a dichotomy between initial and in-service training. The consequences of this process might produce, on the long term, the fragmentation of the ECEC system across public and private not-for-profit provision with the subsequent risk of impoverishing the local culture of childhood on which the Italian ECEC system has traditionally built its strength.  相似文献   

3.
The new Labour government that entered office in 1997 made early childhood education and care (ECEC) a policy priority, after decades of neglect. The article provides an overview of the subsequent policy developments, looking at three areas in more detail: governance and finance; the organisation and management of services; and the workforce. It then brings the story up to the present day, with policy developments since the 2010 election, during a period of severe public austerity. The article concludes by providing a critical assessment of these developments. From all the attention and activity that has surrounded ECEC in England in recent years, what actually has been achieved? Has it been a case of evolution or transformation? Overall, the article concludes that the period since 1997, despite some important gains, has overall been a story of missed opportunities, a case of more of the same rather than transformative change.  相似文献   

4.
Do early childhood education and care (ECEC) professionals make good advocates? Canadian advocates have fought for better child care policies since the mid-1940s. What has happened to this advocacy with the recent increased professionalization of the ECEC sector? How does increased professionalization limit, innovate or expand advocacy strategies? This content analysis of seven Canadian child care social movement organizations’ discursive resources in 2008 examines how different types of child care social movement organizations communicated their positions to their members and the public to manage a changing economic and political climate. Preliminary findings indicate that both ECEC workforce sector associations and grassroots organizations shared common advocacy messages, played down problems associated with a market approach to child care, and framed child care as a business case in their messaging. The authors suggest this reflects a nascent discursive move towards the professionalization of Canadian child care movement advocacy messages.  相似文献   

5.
According to the findings of a recent European study on competence requirement for the early childhood education and care workforce, competent systems that succeed in achieving high levels of professionalism are embedded in coherent public policies that build on consultation with key stakeholders, particularly at local level. In order to flourish, the professional competence of early childhood practitioners needs to be cultivated not only within the institutions they are working for, but also within a constant democratic dialogue that involves children, parents and local communities. A vision of ECEC as a public good therefore becomes an essential precondition for sustaining the development of high quality services for young children and their families. Given the wide range of interconnected socio-economic, educational and rights-based rationales that currently underpin the investment in the expansion of early childhood provision in many European countries, a further elaboration of these findings may offer interesting insights on the purposes of early childhood education and the nature of political commitment serving such purposes. In this article, these issues are discussed by drawing on the analysis of the origin and development of municipal preschool education in the Emilia Romagna region (Italy). Starting from the investigation of the historical and socio-cultural conditions that gave birth to early childhood municipal institutions, the trends characterising ECEC policy-making developments over time are analysed with reference to the experiences of grassroot politics elaborated at regional and local level. Through a careful contextualisation of social and political processes and an in-depth analysis of relevant documentary sources, the conceptual categories underpinning the construction of early childhood education as a public good are outlined and described.  相似文献   

6.
ABSTRACT

In Finland, early childhood education and care (ECEC) is traditionally publicly provided. However, private ECEC provision has increased during the past decade, largely as a result of financial support from the public sector. Drawing on qualitative interviews with municipal decision-makers, this article identifies three frames within which publicly subsidised private ECEC provision and marketisation are rationalised: the pragmatic frame, the government frame and the choice frame. The results show that even though market logics and tendencies seem to have gained a strong foothold in local policies, there is a keen interest in universalism and maintaining public control over local ECEC provision.  相似文献   

7.
The globalisation of early childhood education and care (ECEC) has resulted in increased scrutiny of ECEC services, including pedagogical approaches and how best to prepare the ECEC workforce. Child-centred practice has come to epitomise ECEC pedagogy, but questions remain as to what is child-centred and how a member of the workforce becomes child-centred. Hungary represents a particular reading of child-centred practice, based on a construct of a child-loving adult. Questionnaire data illustrates support amongst Hungarian pedagogues for the importance of love in ECEC in support of a relational approach to working with children. However, observation and interview data from students indicates that the child-loving, child-centred ideal is both a weakly classified construct and that training and assessment practices create contradictory messages as to its meaning amongst students. The study has implications for how ECEC pedagogical ideals area realised in initial training and interpretations of child-centred practice.  相似文献   

8.
Early childhood education and care (ECEC) policy reflects ideas about childhood, labour force participation, education, the economy and the role of the state. This article spans a period of political change in New Zealand from a left of centre government during the first decade of the twenty-first century to a right of centre government from 2009. It draws on policy evaluations and document analysis to critically examine the shifts in approaches to ECEC policy over this time and the consequences for participants of different policy frameworks. It argues that discourses of children as ‘priority’ have replaced a focus on citizenship, and a swing has occurred away from universal to targeted approaches aimed at encouraging ECEC participation for a few. Recent policies have removed crucial professional supports and qualification goals for teachers, bringing into question New Zealand's commitment to quality. The market continues to determine provision and unfettered expansion of for-profit provision is occurring. Yet at odds with this trend, some examples of community planning are occurring, offering a glimmer of possibilities for how ECEC might be conceptualised, organised and supported.  相似文献   

9.
This article examines how the practice of supervision has developed within a range of early childhood education and care (ECEC) provision in a county in Central England in the United Kingdom. Supervision has been recently introduced as a mandatory requirement for ECEC in England in 2012, and there is limited research looking at the impact of this. The research aimed to examine how supervision is being implemented by ECEC providers. It employed a mixed methods research design including a questionnaire (n?=?38) and three subsequent telephone interviews, and draws out key themes on who is accessing supervision, the level of frequency, the purposes, challenges and enablers of supervision. It highlights the tendency of the managerial function of supervision including safeguarding of children to dominate, and the potential for supervision as a reflective space and as support for staff including managers and leaders to be overlooked.  相似文献   

10.
This paper outlines the programme of provision of early childhood education and care (ECEC) which is currently urgently needed to support the development of children from birth to eight years in Pakistan. It begins by emphasizing the global recognition of the importance of such provision, before describing the recent history of ECEC in Pakistan, and the current situation. A case study from the pre‐primary (katchi) class in a typical government school is used to illustrate the urgent need for initiatives and action to implement both Education for All (EFA) commitments and government policy for ECEC. Impediments to the implementation of the policy, including financial, structural, organizational and cultural barriers are identified, and recommendations are made for overcoming these obstacles. From a human capital perspective, it is argued that an ECEC programme will benefit the country and its economy, as well as the individual children who will be enabled to become active and effective contributors to society.  相似文献   

11.
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 presenting 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.  相似文献   

12.
There is broad consensus amongst researchers and international organisations that the quality of early childhood education and care (ECEC), which means the wellbeing of children and families, depends on well-educated and competent staff. This remains a challenge in Europe, since part of the workforce is also represented by low-qualified ECEC assistants in many EU countries. In the CoRe study (2011), assistants are defined as ‘invisible workers’, meaning that their presence is usually not taken into account in policy documents and that they have far fewer possibilities of qualification and professional development than core practitioners. Building on the findings of the CoRe study, a recent NESET II report reviewed the profiles of ECEC assistants in 15 European countries and their professionalisation opportunities. This article describes the report's findings, with a focus on the roles of assistants and on how to create coherent pathways towards their qualification and continuous professional development (CPD) opportunities. The latter is shown through the examples of three case studies carried out in Denmark, France and Slovenia. Recommendations for policy makers are included in the conclusions. The framework of the article is the ‘competent system’: as pointed out in the CoRe study, individual competences alone are not sufficient to create quality. A ‘competent system’ is needed which includes collaboration between individuals, teams and institutions and has competent governance at policy level. This means working within a holistic ‘educare’ approach that is able to value the educative role of caring and the caring role of education.  相似文献   

13.
This paper explores the impact of gender on the employment of men in early childhood education and care (ECEC) centres through the voices of male and female early childhood teachers (ECTs) working in China. Gender imbalance in the ECEC workforce is a global phenomenon, and there has been little research about it in countries such as China. This study was based on online interviews with 16 ECTs from three major cities in China. Findings indicated that ECTs’ perceptions conformed largely with traditional gender stereotypes in Chinese culture. Western expectations that men’s participation in ECEC could challenge traditional gender stereotypes and promote gender diversity were not reflected in either Chinese academic literature reviewed or the participants’ views captured in this research. The appreciation of masculinity in Chinese culture and implied disadvantages are considered within a global context of empowering women and girls.  相似文献   

14.
In recent years, the issue of early childhood staff professionalisation has been taking an increasingly prominent position in policy-making and academic debates at the international level. Despite this growing interest, studies investigating the content and delivery of professional preparation programmes for early childhood practitioners are still quite rare in European literature. Against this background, the article will describe and critically analyse the characterising features of the university degree for the professional preparation of pre-school teachers in Italy, with a special focus on workplace-based training. In particular, the theoretical underpinnings and shared understandings related to the implementation of mentoring practices within the university course will be explored by drawing on the data collected from documentary sources and interviews with local experts. Findings highlight that the main strengths of mentoring practices within such a programme are: (a) the extended placement periods in early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings which allow prospective teachers to live the culture of practice; (b) the critically reflective component of tutoring practices, which combines theoretical and experiential learning; (c) the strong partnerships built at the local level between ECEC services and universities, which generates reciprocal influences between academic research and educational practices and thus sustains pedagogical innovation. At the same time, the fact that the mentoring role of placement tutors in ECEC institutions is not adequately supported in terms of competence development and workload allocation might potentially undermine the benefits of workplace-based training for students. In addition, the contextualisation of our analysis within the broader landscape of national policy developments in the field of ECEC staff professionalisation revealed that the increased academisation of pre-school teachers professional preparation might lead – in the long term – to a risk of ‘schoolification’ of pedagogical practices enacted within ECEC services. In regards to these issues, the article will raise questions for further consideration and debate.  相似文献   

15.
This paper reports on the findings of an in-depth genealogical study of the discourse of quality in Australian Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) policy. Quality reform has become the foremost global policy agenda for ECEC due to assumptions about the economic potentials of quality services. In Australia, the recent National Quality Framework elevated early childhood policy in Australia from the margins as the lynchpin of a broader economic reform agenda. However, quality ECEC – what it is and does – is a complex, contestable notion that could be considered problematic for the sector to execute, particularly through market models of provision. Drawing on Foucauldian notions of discourse as the ‘already said’, the truth assumptions that have underpinned policy uses of quality ECEC in Australia are identified and critiqued. It is shown that the discourse of quality has been tactically deployed in Australian ECEC policy to realign quality ECEC outcomes with educative outcomes, as a means for government to selectively grow and govern human capital. This positions quality as a high-stakes reform discourse for early childhood stakeholders, entwined with the expanded reach and intensification of selective, performance-related standards and incentives.  相似文献   

16.
This paper argues that early childhood education and care (ECEC) has a legitimate aspiration to be a ‘caring profession’ like others such as nursing or social work, defined by a moral purpose. For example, practitioners often draw on an ethic of care as evidence of their professionalism. However, the discourse of professionalism in England completely excludes the ethical vocabulary of care. Nevertheless, it necessarily depends on gendered dispositions towards emotional labour, often promoted by training programmes as ‘professional’ demeanours. Taking control of the professionalisation agenda therefore requires practitioners to demonstrate a critical understanding of their practice as ‘emotion work’. At the same time, reconceptualising practice within a political ethic of care may allow the workforce, and new trainees in particular, to champion ‘caring’ as a sustainable element of professional work, expressed not only in maternal, dyadic key‐working but in advocacy for care as a social principle.  相似文献   

17.
Against a background of increasing inequality and its impact at various levels on childhood and family life, of the growing societal significance and uptake of extra-familial childcare provision, and of social policy goals emphasising participation and education for all, the early childhood education and care (ECEC) sector in Germany is facing new and heightened challenges. This article presents and analyses current and empirically observable changes in society. It comes to the conclusion that ECEC needs to be more strongly viewed as an interdisciplinary challenge, and that ways forward need to include a comprehensive professionalisation and workforce development project: the aim must be to provide children and families with care and support services tailored both quantitatively and qualitatively to their needs, thereby offering not only support to facilitate the reconciliation of work and family obligations and an alternative place of education for children, but also programmes of specific support for disadvantaged and support-dependent children and families.  相似文献   

18.
Since 2003, the Vietnamese government has prioritised curriculum reform efforts and commitment to improving the quality of the national curriculum. The Vietnamese early childhood education renovation has encountered considerable changes and challenges, particularly in the area of pedagogical approaches. Many early childhood teachers continue to favour direct instruction over more appropriate teaching practices for early childhood. This paper reviews the implementation and renovation of the revised curriculum over the past 10 years in Vietnam, and examines the changing realities of early childhood teachers' work to explore ways to implement and sustain changes in pedagogy in Lam Dong Province, Vietnam. The paper explores how changing societal expectations and the changing educational philosophies and resultant pedagogy have impacted on the beliefs and practices of early childhood teachers. The teaching profession, as a whole, is facing ongoing change and challenge; not only are ongoing educational reforms redefining teachers' work, but increasing teacher attrition and turnover also creates problems for Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) in Lam Dong province. The paper concludes with suggestions for areas for future research in Vietnam in the field of ECEC.  相似文献   

19.
Research Findings: This study investigated the prevalence of pedagogical questions posed by 27 early childhood educators as they interacted with infants in each of two naturally-occurring contexts: book-focused interactions and educator mediated play. The pedagogical questions expressed by educators to infants were coded as confirm (yes/no), specify (what, who, where, when) or explain (why, how) on the basis that these question types present infants with different opportunities to use their developing communication skills to provide information to others. We sought to determine associations between question use, activity context and educators’ qualification levels. Explain questions were used very rarely, while confirm and specify questions were more frequent, comprising 7.60% and 8.32% respectively of the messages expressed by educators to infants. A 2 (activity context) × 2 (qualification level) mixed factorial MANOVA, supplemented with post-hoc qualitative analyses, demonstrated that, in specific activity contexts, degree qualified early childhood teachers used pedagogical questioning in ways which differed from their less-qualified counterparts. Practice or policy: The findings provide much needed data on how educator questioning is used with children under two, how questioning affords context-specific language learning opportunities for infants in ECEC centres, and how educator qualifications may be implicated in these opportunities.  相似文献   

20.
The close connection between the quality of provision for young children and professionaliation of the field has long been supported by international research. That the two are inseparable aspects of one picture is beginning to become accepted at European policy level, as evident in recent high level EU policy documents. This article explores the reciprocal relationship between quality and professionalisation, drawing on the findings of the study on ‘competence requirements in early childhood education and care’ (CoRe), jointly conducted by the University of East London and the University of Gent, and funded by the European Commission. Based on a review of literature in several European languages and data from a 15-country survey and seven in-depth case studies, CoRe has identified systemic conditions for a professionalisation of the entire early childhood system, beyond the formal qualification levels of individual practitioners. The article argues for a critical and systemic reconceptualisation of professional practice in a competent system.  相似文献   

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