Early Childhood Teachers’ Perception of the Professional Self and In Relation to the Early Childhood Communities

Abstract

Early childhood teachers face many challenges as they interact with children, their parents, fellow teachers and the early childhood community. The responsibility to meet the needs of a diverse group of people is critical to the teacher's development as a professional. This paper discusses the quantitative findings of a survey that examined the perceptions of the professional self of early childhood teachers. The population sample comprised of 88 early childhood teachers in a part-time undergraduate early childhood education programme with at least 2 years of teaching experience. Factor analysis was applied to identify and explore six factors of early childhood teachers' sense of professional self. The study found that participants rated themselves significantly lower in the latent variable of Professional Self with EC Communities and that the more experienced early childhood teachers rated themselves significantly higher.

Early childhood educators’ well-being, work environments and ‘quality’: Possibilities for changing policy and practice

“…The ILO Guidelines recommend that a: ‘comprehensive recruitment, development and retention policy or strategy [be] developed at national level’ (p. 13), including ensuring that educators receive ‘remuneration and benefits similar to other occupations requiring similar qualifications’ (p. 14). In other research, lack of public recognition has been reported to impact educators’ sense of self-esteem (Chong & Lu, 2019). While the results concerning perceived respect for them as professionals record the participants’ perceptions rather than public opinion itself, it is clear that many had internalised the belief that the professionalism of their work is not publicly recognised.…”

Partnership with families in early childhood education: Exploratory study

“…We examined parents’ experience of collaborative practice, educators’ confidence in working with parents, and educator’s views about training on how to work with parents using both quantitative and qualitative methods with focus groups expanding on ways to achieve strong educator–family relationships. Although there is a rich source of qualitative (e.g., O’Connor et al, 2018) and quantitative (e.g., Chong & Lu, 2019) information in the published literature on parent–educator relationships there are fewer studies incorporating quantitative as well as qualitative enquiry.…”

“I’m a Teacher.” –Preschool Teachers’ Perception of Professional Self

“…Over the past years, attempts were made to improve the preschool teacher as childcare minders to qualified, well-prepared and equitably compensated education professionals (Chan, 2018). Internationally as well as in Singapore, the efforts included raising the professional standing of preschool teachers with requirements of recommended benchmarks such as knowledge, skills and professional development formed on sector-agreed criteria of practice for different roles and responsibilities in the sector (Chong & Lu, 2019). Despite these initiatives, preschool teachers continue to struggle with their lack of professional status.…”

“…The preschool teacher's perception of professional self is a many-sided concept that is culturally individualist and collectivist, influenced by the organization, the community as well as the individual. In the past decade, preschool education received unprecedented scrutiny at both local and international levels from which emerged competing and contradictory discourses of professionalism (Chong & Lu , 2019;Gibson, Cumming & Zollo, 2017). These discourses are also shaped by dominant political and economic directions.…”