Full Description
Professionalism and Leadership in Early Childhood Education and Care explores the tension between what early years practitioners are expected to achieve, and the level of expertise and understanding required to underpin this. It examines the impact of recent policies on the agency of individual practitioners, and the culture and ethos of their settings, and questions the driving factors behind reforms to curriculum and practice and where this locates practitioners and their provision.
Bringing together the latest research and ideas on professionalism and leadership, the book explores how professional status is understood and acquired and what makes this problematic in ECEC. It explores the impact of different leadership approaches, what needs to be challenged and sets out how the workforce might assert its own identity and values and continue to advocate for the needs of young children.
Including case studies to illustrate the lived experiences of individual practitioners as they worked towards becoming graduate professionals, this will be valuable reading for early years professionals engaged in undergraduate and postgraduate study and those researching policy development and professional identity within ECEC.
Contents
Introduction
Glossary
Chapter 1 The English early years sector
Chapter 2 Professionalisation and the early years workforce
Chapter 3 Constructing a professional identity, claiming professional agency
Chapter 4 Leadership and professionalisation
Chapter 5 Reconceptualising professionalism in ECEC
Chapter 6 Practice standards and the shaping of professional identity: Technicians or creative researchers?
Chapter 7 Unpicking the role of reflection and a transformative pedagogy for professional education
Chapter 8 Empowerment and agency: Reflections on narratives of practice
Index
