Tracing the interconnectedness of early childhood educators’ professional capital
Journal of Professional Capital and Community
ISSN: 2056-9548
Article publication date: 31 July 2023
Issue publication date: 29 August 2023
Abstract
Purpose
Since the early 2000s there has been increased attention on the professionalisation of the Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) workforce in many OECD countries. This study focuses on what Australian early childhood educators holding the lowest level of qualification – Certificate III are experiencing in relation to their professional capital in a sector that is experiencing wide-spread and ongoing reform. The study identifies the human capital, social capital and decisional capital of these educators, then explores the interconnections.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper was funded by the Australian Research Council. The qualitative data consider the capabilities of certificate-qualified educators and how these are enabled or constrained within the workplace. The corpus of data for this study consists of 14 interviews with Certificate III-qualified educators from three locations across Victoria, Australia. Hargreaves and Fullan’s (2012) forms of professional capital (human, social and decisional) act as organisers for the themes identified through a thematic analysis.
Findings
Themes identified in the data speak to inequity in access to professional learning, the valuing of life experiences, clear divisions of labour that impact what knowledge is valued, and differences in educator agency in the decision-making process. Many certificate-qualified educators experience a workplace culture that lacks trust in an individual’s professional competence and does not appreciate collegial knowledge and skill building as a collective enterprise.
Originality/value
The conceptual framing of this study provides a unique way to explore the experiences of certificate-trained educators. The study introduces the idea of using exploratory categories and the identification of levels of human, social and decisional capital. This type of study involving this cohort of educators is unique.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The author acknowledges the Australian Research Council for its financial support for the project Early childhood educators as agents in improving intergenerational educational outcomes (DP150104534) from which data in this paper is drawn. I also thank the educators who committed to the project and gave generously of their time. The research team included Stephen Lamb and Andrea Nolan (Chief Investigators), Lisa Milne and Quentin Marie (Research Fellows), Caroline Scott and Carolina Cabezas (Research Assistants), and Jennifer Jackson (PhD candidate).
Citation
Nolan, A. (2023), "Tracing the interconnectedness of early childhood educators’ professional capital", Journal of Professional Capital and Community, Vol. 8 No. 3, pp. 219-233. https://doi.org/10.1108/JPCC-06-2022-0030
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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