What do pedagogues in daycare do? Empirical analyses of the occupational activities of pedagogues in children’s daycare centres in Germany

ABSTRACT

In contrast to the importance of the occupational activities of pedagogues discussed in pertinent theoretical studies, there is a lack of empirical findings concerning the texture of the occupational activities of pedagogues working in early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings. The present study addresses these issues by examining 127 academically and non-academically qualified pedagogues in children’s daycare centres in Germany who were asked about their occupational activities. Principal component analysis (PCA) revealed that care, education and management represented the main occupational activities in daycare centres. Care was positively related to a non-academic qualification but negatively related to occupational self-efficacy. Education was positively related to a non-academic qualification and social-oriented occupational goals. Management was positively related to career-oriented goals, whereas a school qualification for university entrance and an ecclesiastical sponsorship corresponded to a lower amount of management-related activities. The findings are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Daycare centres
• occupational activities of pedagogues
• professionalisation
• academisation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. In this article, the term daycare centre refers to institutional Early Childhood Education and Care settings for children from 0 to approximately 6 years of age.

2. Central criteria that must be met in PCA refer to an adequate sample size >50, a substantial number of correlations between the items >.30, the determinant score of the correlation matrix >0.00001; Bartlett’s test of sphericity (p < .001), Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin Measure >.50, Anti-Correlation Matrix >.50, and factor loadings >.50 (Yong and Pierce 2013; De Winter, Dodou, and Wieringa 2009).