'I want to educate school age children' : producing early childhood teacher professional identities

The Australian Government’s current workforce reforms in early childhood education and care (ECEC) include a major shift in qualification requirements. The new requirement is that university four-year degree-qualified teachers are employed in before-school contexts, including child care. Ironically, recent research studies show that, in Australia, the very preservice teachers who are enrolled in these degree programs have a reluctance to work in childcare. This article reports on part of a larger study which is inquiring into how early childhood teacher professional identities are discursively produced, and provides a partial mapping of the literature. One preservice teacher’s comment provides the starting point, and the paper locates some the discourses that are accessible to preservice teachers as they prepare for the early years workforce. An awareness of the discursive field provides a sound background for preparing early childhood teachers. A challenge for the field is to consider which discourses are dominant, and how they potentially work to privilege work in some ECEC contexts over others.

Producing and maintaining professional identities in early childhood

This study is an inquiry into early childhood teacher professional identities. In Australia, workforce reforms in early childhood include major shifts in qualification requirements that call for a university four-year degree-qualified teacher to be employed in child care. This marks a shift in the early years workforce, where previously there was no such requirement. At the same time as these reforms to quality measures are being implemented, and requiring a substantive up skilling of the workforce, there is a growing body of evidence through recent studies that suggests these same four-year degree-qualified early childhood teachers have an aversion to working in child care. Their preferred employment option is to work in the early years of more formal schooling, not in before-school contexts. This collision of agendas warrants investigation. This inquiry is designed to investigate the site at which advocacy for higher qualification requirements meets early childhood teachers who are reluctant to choose child care as a possible career pathway. The key research question for this study is: How are early childhood teachers’ professional identities currently produced? The work of this thesis is to problematise the early childhood teacher in child care through a particular method of discourse analysis. There are two sets of data. The first was a key early childhood political document that read as a "moment of arising" (Foucault, 1984a, p. 83). It is a political document which was selected for its current influence on the early childhood field, and in particular, workforce reforms that call for four-year degree-qualified teachers to work in before-school contexts, including child care. The second data set was generated through four focus group discussions conducted with preservice early childhood teachers. The document and transcripts of the focus groups were both analysed as text, as conceptualised by Foucault (1981). Foucault’s work spans a number of years and a range of philosophical matters. This thesis draws particularly on Foucault’s writings on discourse, power/knowledge, regimes of truth and resistance. In order to consider the production of early childhood teachers’ professional identities, the study is also informed by identity theorists, who have worked on gender, performativity and investment (Davies, 2004/2006; McNay, 1992; Osgood, 2012; Walkerdine, 1990; Weedon, 1997). The ways in which discourses intersect, compete and collide produce the subject (Foucault, 1981) and, in the case of this inquiry, there are a number of competing discourses at play, which produce the early childhood teacher. These particular theories turn particular lenses on the question of professional identities in early childhood, and such a study calls for the application of particular methodologies. Discourse analysis was used as the methodological framework, and the analysis was informed by Foucauldian concepts of discourse. While Foucault did not prescribe a form of discourse analysis as a method, his writings nonetheless provide a valuable framework for illuminating discursive practices and, in turn, how people are affected, through the shifts and distribution of power (Foucault, 1980a). The treatment used with both data sets involved redescription. For the policy document, a technique for reading document-as-text applied a genealogical approach (Foucault, 1984a). For the focus groups, the process of redescription (Rorty, 1989) involved reading talk-as-text. As a method, redescription involves describing "lots and lots of things in new ways until you have created a pattern of linguistic behaviour which will tempt the new generation to adopt it" (Rorty, 1989, p. 9). The development and application of categories (Davies, 2004/2006) built on a poststructuralist theoretical framework and the literature review informed the data analysis method of discourse analysis. Irony provided a rhetorical and playful tool (Haraway, 1991; Rorty, 1989), to look to how seemingly opposing discourses are held together. This opens a space to collapse binary thinking and consider seemingly contradictory terms in a way in which both terms are possible and both are true. Irony resists the choice of one or the other being right, and holds the opposites together in tension. The thesis concludes with proposals for new, ironic categories, which work to bring together seemingly opposing terms, located at sites in the field of early childhood where discourses compete, collide and intersect to produce and maintain early childhood teacher professional identities. The process of mapping these discourses goes some way to investigating the complexities about identities and career choices of early childhood teachers. The category of "the cost of loving" captures the collision between care/love, inherent in child care, and new discourses of investment/economics. Investment/economics has not completely replaced care/love, and these apparent opposites were not read as a binary because both are necessary and both are true (Haraway, 1991). They are held together in tension to produce early childhood teacher professional identities. The policy document under scrutiny was New Directions, released in 2007 by the then opposition ALP leader, Kevin Rudd. The claim was made strongly that the "economic prosperity" of Australia relies on investment in early childhood. The arguments to invest are compelling and the neuroscience/brain research/child development together with economic/investment discourses demand that early childhood is funding is increased. The intersection of these discourses produces professional identities of early childhood teachers as a necessary part of the country’s economy, and thus, worthy of high status. The child care sector and work in child care settings are necessary, with children and the early childhood teacher playing key roles in the economy of the nation. Through New Directions it becomes sayable (Foucault, 1972/1989) that the work the early childhood teacher performs is legitimated and valued. The children are produced as "economic units". A focus on what children are able to contribute to the future economy of the nation re-positions children and produces these "smart productive citizens", making future economic contribution. The early childhood teacher is produced through this image of a child and "the cost of loving" is emphasised. A number of these categories were produced through the readings of the document-as text and the talk-as-text. Two ironic categories were read in the analysis of the transcripts of the focus group discussions, when treated as talk-as-text data: the early childhood teacher as a "heroic victim"; and the early childhood teacher as a "glorified babysitter". This thesis raises new questions about professional identities in early childhood. These new questions might go some way to prompt re-thinking of some government policy, as well as some aspects of early childhood teacher education course design. The images of children and images of child care provide provocations to consider preservice teacher education course design. In particular, how child care, as one of the early childhood contexts, is located, conceptualised and spoken throughout the course. Consideration by course designers and teacher educators of what discourses are privileged in course content —what discourses are diminished or silenced—would go some way to reconceptualising child care within preservice teacher education and challenging dominant ways of speaking child care, and work in child care. This inquiry into early childhood teachers’ professional identities has gone some way to exploring the complexities around the early childhood teacher in child care. It is anticipated that the significance of this study will thus have immediate applicably and relevance for the Australian early childhood policy landscape. The early childhood field is in a state of rapid change, and this inquiry has examined some of the disconnects between policy and practice. Awareness of the discourses that are in play in the field will continue to allow space for conversations that challenge dominant assumptions about child care, work in child care and ways of being an early childhood teacher in child care.

Parent-teacher engagement : a coteaching and cogenerative dialoguing approach

The accumulated evidence from more than four decades of education research strongly suggests that parent involvement in schools carries significant benefits for students as well as for the success of schools (e.g., Henderson & Mapp, 2002). Governments in Australia and overseas have supported parent involvement in schools with a range of initiatives while parent groups have indicated a strong desire for expanded school roles that include participation in formal educational processes namely curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment. Research has also signalled the need for teachers to engage parents rather than adopt traditional parent-school involvement practices so that parents can participate as joint educators in their children's schooling alongside teachers (Pushor, 2001). Actually improving the quality of contact and relationships between parents and teachers to enable engagement however remains problematic. Coteaching and cogenerative dialoguing originally emerged as an innovative approach in the context of teaching secondary school science. Coteaching brings together the collective expertise of several individuals to expand learning opportunities for students while cogenerative dialogues refer to sessions in which participants talk, listen, and learn from one another about the process (Roth & Tobin, 2002a). Coteaching and cogenerative dialoguing reportedly benefits students academically and socially while rewarding educators professionally and emotionally through the support and collaboration they receive from fellow coteachers. These benefits ensue because coteaching theoretically positions teachers at one another's elbows, providing new and different understandings about teaching based on first-hand perspectives and shared goals for assisting students to learn. This thesis proposes that coteaching and cogenerative dialoguing may provide a vehicle for improving quality of contact and relationships between parents and teachers. To investigate coteaching and cogenerative dialoguing as a parent-teacher engagement mechanism, interpretive ethnographic case study research was conducted involving two parents and a secondary school teacher. Sociological ideas, namely Bourdieu's (1977) fields, habitus, and capitals, together with multiple dialectical concepts such as agency|structure (Sewell, 1992) and agency|passivity (Roth, 2007b, 2010) were assembled into a conceptual framework to examine parent-teacher relationships by describing and explaining cultural production and identity construction throughout the case study. Video and audio recordings of cogenerative dialogues and cotaught lessons comprised the chief data sources. Data were analysed using qualitative techniques such as discourse and conversation analysis to identify patterns and contradictions (Roth & Tobin, 2002a). The use of quality criteria detailed by Guba and Lincoln (2005) gives credence to the way in which ethical considerations infused the planning and conduct of this research. From the processes of data collection and analyses, three broad assertions were proffered. The findings highlight the significance of using multiple coordinated dialectical concepts for analysing the affordances and challenges of coteaching and cogenerative dialogues that include parents and teachers. Adopting the principles and purposes of coteaching and cogenerative dialoguing promoted trusting respectful relationships that generated an equitable culture. The simultaneous processes and tensions between logistics and ethics (i.e., the logistics|ethics dialectic) were proposed as a new way to conceptualise how power was redistributed among the participants. Knowledge of positive emotional energy and ongoing capital exchange conceived dialectically as the reciprocal interaction among cultural, social, and symbolic capitals (i.e., the dialectical relationship of cultural|social|symbolic capital) showed how coteaching and cogenerative dialoguing facilitated mutual understandings, joint decision-making, and group solidarity. The notion of passivity as the dialectical partner of agency explained how traditional roles and responsibilities were reconfigured and individual and collective agency expanded. Complexities that surfaced when implementing the coteaching and cogenerative dialoguing approach were outweighed by the multiple benefits that accrued for all involved. These benefits included the development of community-relevant and culturally-significant curricula that increased student agency and learning outcomes, heightened parent self-efficacy for participating in and contributing to formal educational processes, and enhanced teacher professionalism. This case study contributes to existing theory, knowledge and practice, and methodology in the research areas of parent-teacher relationships, specifically in secondary schools, and coteaching and cogenerative dialoguing. The study is particularly relevant given the challenges schools and teachers increasingly face to meaningfully connect with parents to better meet the needs of educational stakeholders in times of continual, complex, and rapid societal change.

Ten basic factors to identify suitable subcontractors for construction projects

With unpredictable workloads and a need for a multitude of specialized skills, many main contractors rely heavily on subcontracting to reduce their risks (Bresnen et al., 1985; Beardsworth et al., 1988). This is especially the case In Hong Kong, where the average direct labour content accounts for only around 1% of the total contract sum (Lai, 1987). Extensive usage of subcontracting is also reported in many other countries, including the UK (Gray and Flanagan, 1989) and Japan (Bennett et al., 1987). In addition, and depending upon the scale and complexity of works, it is not uncommon for subcontractors to further sublet their works to lower tier(s) subcontractors. Richter and Mitchell (1982) argued that main contractors can obtain a higher profit margin by reducing their performance costs by subcontracting work to those who have the necessary resources to perform the work more efficiently and economically. Subcontracting is also used strategically to allow firms to employ a minimum work force under fluctuating demand (Usdiken and Sözen, 1985). Through subcontracting, the risks of main contractors are also reduced, as errors in estimating or additional costs caused by delays or extra labour requirements can be absorbed by the subcontractors involved (Woon and Ofori, 2000). Despite these benefits, the quality of work can suffer when incapable or inexperienced subcontractors are employed. Additional problems also exist in the form of bid shopping, unclear accountability, and high fragmentation (Palaneeswaran et al., 2002). A recent CIB TG 23 International Conference, October 2003, Hong Kong report produced by the Hong Kong Construction Industry Review Committee (CIRC) points to development of a framework to help distinguish between capable and incapable subcontractors (Tang, 2001). This paper describes research aims at identifying and prioritising criteria for use in such a framework.

What is plan B? Using Foucault’s archaeology to enhance policy analysis

Many governments in western democracies conduct the work of leading their societies forward through policy generation and implementation. Despite government attempts at extensive negotiation, collaboration and debate, the general populace in these same countries frequently express feelings of disempowerment and undue pressure to be compliant, often leading to disengagement. Here we outline Plan B: a process for examining how policies that emerge from good intentions are frequently interpreted as burdensome or irrelevant by those on whom they have an impact. Using a case study of professional standards for teachers in Australia, we describe how we distilled Foucault’s notions of archaeology into a research approach centring on the creation of ‘polyhedrons of intelligibility’ as an alternative approach by which both policy makers and those affected by their policies may understand how their respective causes are supported and adversely affected.

Embedded creatives in Australian healthcare: An update

The contribution of creative occupations to Australian healthcare was examined using a mix of statistics and case studies. Creative occupations were found to be making widespread contributions in healthcare, in particular, to the development and delivery of healthcare goods and services, the initial training and ongoing professionalism of doctors and nurses and the effective functioning of healthcare buildings. Within most facets of healthcare, increasing employment over the period examined indicated that these contributions were growing. Key functions that creative activities addressed were information management and analysis and making complex information comprehensible, assisting communication and reducing psycho-social and distance-mediated barriers, and improving the efficiency and effectiveness of services.

Curriculum, Syllabus Design and Equity : A Primer and Model

Curriculum scholars and teachers working for social justice and equity have been caught up in acrimonious and polarizing debates over content, ideology and disciplinary knowledge. At the forefront in cutting through these debates and addressing the practical questions involved, this book is distinctive in looking to the technical form of the curriculum rather than its content for solutions. The editors and contributors, all leading international scholars, advance a unified, principled approach to the design of syllabus documents that aims for high quality/high equity educational outcomes and enhances teacher professionalism.

Performance Measurement in Perspective: An exploratory study of Australian foundations’ approaches to performance measurement

Performance measurement in Australian philanthropic foundations is a hot topic. Foundation staff and board members are concerned with striking the right balance between their need for information with which to assess the effectiveness of their grant-making programs, and the costs in both time and money for grantees. Influenced by normative pressures, the increasing size and professionalism of the Australian philanthropic sector, and trends from the U.S.A and the U.K, foundations are talking amongst themselves, seeking expert advice and training, consulting with grantees and trying different approaches. Many resources examine methods of data collection, measurement or analysis. Our study instead treads into less charted but important territory: the motivations and values that are shaping the debate about performance measurement. In a series of 40 interviews with foundations from Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, we asked whether they felt under pressure to measure performance and if so, why. We queried whether everyone in the foundation shared the same views on the purposes of performance measurement; and the ways in which the act of performance measurement changed their grant-making, their attitude to risk, their relationship with grantees and their collaborations with other funders. Unsurprisingly, a very diverse set of approaches to performance measurement were revealed.

Whole-of-Curriculum Design in Law

In this book teaching professionalism is characterised by the scholarly underpinning of each contribution; and every contribution provides a rich resource for enhancing teaching practice. The critical concerns for legal education have been identified and discussed: curriculum design that includes graduate attributes; embedding specific attributes across the curriculum; empowering students to learn; academic teamwork to manage large student cohorts; first year and final year transition strategies; tracking students' personal development through the use of ePortfolio; assessment strategies; improving student well-being and promoting resilience; teaching practice to achieve deep learning; flexibility in delivery; the use of Web 2.0 technology; and understanding the 21st century student.

Integrating ‘role play’ in assessment to strengthen professional conduct and accountability of students : a pilot study

BACKGROUND In a process engineering setting, graduates are frequently allocated reviews of existing operations or required to scope new production processes by their supervisors with a view to improving or expanding on operations and overall productivity. These tasks may be carried out in teams and in consultation with the process engineer’s immediate line manager or a more experienced engineer, such as the Production or Maintenance Manager; ultimately reporting to senior management, which is frequently a non-engineer. Although professional skills development is part of engineering curricula, ‘professional conduct’ and ‘accountability’ required for dealing with peers and superiors in industry is not very well addressed at university. Consequently, upon graduation, many students are, in terms of knowledge and experience in this area, underprepared to work effectively in industry settings. PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to develop and implement a role-play scenario within a core 2nd year process engineering unit, so that students could gain knowledge, skills and experience in different aspects (and nuances) of professional conduct and accountability. DESIGN/METHOD In the role-play scenario, students worked in ‘engineering production teams’ to design a process for an iconic Queensland fruitcake and to present their solution and recommendations (culminating in a poster presentation) to an assessment panel consisting of staff, role-playing as, ‘production and plant managers’. Students were assessed on several areas, including professionalism using a criteria referenced assessment guide by a 3-member cross-disciplinary staff panel consisting of a Business Faculty lecturer, an engineer from industry and the lecturer of the Process Engineering unit. Professional conduct and accountability was gauged through direct questioning by the panel. Feedback was also sought from students on various aspects through a survey questionnaire after the role play activity at the end of semester. RESULTS Overall, the role play was very well performed with students achieving an average score of 79.3/100 (distinction grade). Professional conduct as assessed by panel was on average better than scores given for professional accountability (4.0 compared with 3.6 out of 5). Feedback from students indicated that the learning activities had contributed to their overall understanding of the content and the role of process engineers. Industry involvement was rated very highly as contributing to their learning at 4.8 (on Likert scale from 1 – 5) and the poster presentation was rated at 3.6. CONCLUSIONS This pilot study was successful in implementing a new assessment task for modelling professional conduct and accountability within a 2nd year core unit. This task incorporated a role-play activity and there was evidence to suggest that this and associated learning tasks were successful in broadening students’ understanding and skills in this area required for engineering practice. Following feedback given by students and staff, improvements will be made to the nature of the problem, how it is defined, its assessment, and the approach taken in the role-play scenario when the unit is offered in 2014.

Critical reflection

Critical reflection is a necessary component of professionalism in early childhood education. Evidence of critical reflection within a service draws attention to the intellectual work of early childhood educators and highlights professional capacities beyond the care of young children.

Regulating audit quality : restoring trust and legitimacy

The global financial crsis, corporate failures and scandals in amny countries raise significant questions audit quality. In the UK, the FRC took the unprecedented step of codifying audit quality in its ‘Audit Quality Framework’. We analyze the extent to which audit firms, professional bodies, and investors considered the FRC proposals sufficient for addressing concerns about audit quality. Using impression management and legitimacy as a framework to analyze stakeholder responses we go beyond audit quality drivers identified by the FRC. In contrast to the drivers identified by the FRC, our focus on transparency, expertise, professionalism and commercialization of the audit shows that FRC, audit firms and professional bodies have mainly focused on issues which possibly do not pose a threat to the commercial interest of audit firms. Overall, our analysis shows that regulatory and professional bodies engaged in image management and the promotion of audit quality in an attempt to remedy tarnished image and augment their legitimacy and standing. In attempting to restore trust and legitimacy regulatory bodies, such as the FRC, have to reconcile complex often contradictory stakeholder demands.

Reflection on the SIA Ltd professional project and the body of knowledge

In the last five years the Safety Institute of Australia Limited (SIA) has developed and implemented a number of strategies to gain professional recognition for the ‘generalist occupational health and safety (OHS) professional’ in Australia and internationally. Despite a considerable amount of work by the SIA aimed at gaining professional status, there does not appear to have been any published debate or reflection about how the drive for professionalism (the ‘professional project’) will contribute to the prevention of occupational disease and injury. Professionalisation has been promoted as a sign of maturity for the SIA and as an unquestionably good outcome, as it has been assumed that professionalisation will provide unmitigated benefits for workplace health and safety. The aim of this paper is to critically reflect on the processes of professionalisation (the professional project) and discuss the ways in which this project may shape the field of occupational health and safety.

EFL teachers' professional dilemmas with moral curriculum reform in Indonesia

This project explored how EFL teachers working in different sectors in Indonesia experienced moral education reform. Teachers working in either state schools or Islamic private schools were interviewed and their classes were observed. The thesis indicated that systemic investment in teachers' professionalism contributed to teachers' emerging dilemmas and their resolutions. Teachers in the better resourced state sector reported more dilemmas related to the implementation of the reform and resolved these dilemmas by using professional judgement, while teachers in the less resourced sector reported dilemmas related to their context and failed to implement the curriculum.