Professionalism and everyday practices in early childhood education and care: Singaporean pre-service teachers’ perspectives

ABSTRACT

Notions of professionalism are central to how EC teachers enact practice. We explore how a group of Singaporean early childhood education and care (ECEC) pre-service teachers (PSTs) understand the notion of professionalism in this paper, drawing on their identity text work. The analysis is grounded by de Certeau’s thinking on the practice of everyday life, examining ideas about space, strategies and tactics. Findings show that PSTs’ notions of professionalism involve creative tactical use of resources and space in ECEC settings. We argue that this reflexive identity work challenges ways of knowing, foregrounding alternative spaces for understanding professionalism.

KEYWORDS:

• early childhood education and care
• pre-service teacher
• professionalism
• de Certeau

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethics statement

Ethics approval was obtained from the University in which the research was conducted (Project ID: 12258).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anne Keary

Anne Keary’s research, teaching and engagement work enhances the provision of socially -just education in diverse cultural and linguistic settings. She is currently undertaking intergenerational qualitative longitudinal research into family practices in the early years.

Robyn Babaeff

Dr Robyn Babaeff’s research and teaching centres on early childhood policy and practice in relation to quality educational leadership for child, community and parent partnerships for pre-service teachers and early childhood teachers’ selfhood as proactive education professionals.

Kathryn Garnier

Kathryn Garnier is a Teaching and Research Associate at Monash University Faculty of Education. Her interests include the ways that policy impacts teachers' professional identity, pedagogy, and assessment development; inclusive education, and how multiculturalism affects learning and development outcomes.