Introduction

Global efforts to strengthen access to higher quality early childhood education and care (ECEC) in the first five years of life have led to a surge of interest in the professional context and nature of educators’ work in these settings. International research and policy reviews (e.g., OECD, 2018) identify educators’ responsive relationships and positive and meaningful interactions with children as the most potent influence to predict children’s ongoing learning, development, and wellbeing (Ulferts et al., 2019). With many countries seeking to enhance the effectiveness of ECEC services (The Front Project, 2019), development of the ECEC workforce has emerged as a policy priority. The link between these policy interests is clear; the success of contemporary ECEC reforms in many countries, including Australia, is dependent on a qualified and skilled workforce whose practice is informed by a professional body of knowledge (OECD, 2019; Thorpe et al., 2020).

While ECEC is gaining recognition internationally as an important mechanism for ensuring strong educational, social, and economic outcomes, particularly amongst OECD countries, there is limited recognition of the ECEC workforce with ongoing difficulties associated with lower wages and contested professional status (Phillips et al., 2016; Thorpe et al., 2020). The Australian ECEC context provides an example of contemporary workforce challenges, reflective of those experienced by many Western nations, including Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom (OECD, 2019; Pascoe & Brennan, 2017). Despite movement towards a more integrated ECEC system, there continues to be differences in wages, conditions, and professional recognition based on work context and the legacy of historical divisions between childcare and early learning (Harwood et al., 2013; Ortlipp et al., 2011).

Current interest in the professional context and nature of educators’ work can be linked to managerial and democratic perspectives on professionalism (Sachs, 2016); reflected in top-down and bottom-up policy implementation approaches (Cerna, 2013). As typified by top-down policy approaches, the focus on professionalization of the ECEC workforce has been led primarily by central policy actors (i.e., governments), resulting in strengthened emphasis on regulations and quality standards to define, monitor and assess professional practice. Underpinning this approach to policy implementation is a future orientation generally based on a deficit view of the workforce (Grant et al., 2018). In contrast, bottom-up approaches place emphasis on the importance of engaging with local policy actors (i.e., those impacted by policy) to inform decision-making ensuring context is considered. This shifts the focus back to the professional work of educators and how professionalism is defined and enacted within the profession (Osgood, 2012). Reflecting on both approaches, Cerna (2013) identifies a third “combined approach”, observing that “policy implementation often takes place because a wide range of stakeholders interact between different levels – thus both central policy-makers and local actors on the ground are important…”(p. 19). The distinction between professionalization and professionalism here is reflective of Evetts’s (2013, 2018) two discourses of organizational and occupational professionalism. Organizational professionalism is broadly based on external control of professional work while occupational professionalism is based on the construction of professional practice within the profession, including collegial relations and collaborative work practices (Evetts, 2018; Sachs, 2016).

Professionalization of the ECEC Workforce

Professionalization of the ECEC workforce has emerged internationally as a key strategy for promoting quality (Hordern, 2016), and realizing shared educational, social, and economic benefits (Pascoe & Brennan, 2017; Ulferts et al., 2019). Led by central policy actors (Cerna, 2013), the need to professionalize educators and their work has been the dominant discourse in ECEC internationally for more than a decade (Hordern, 2016). The idea of “professionalizing” deserves attention here. According to the Macquarie Dictionary (2020), the verb “professionalize” means “to give professional status or character to; to become professional”. The process of professionalization may be driven by members of a profession for altruistic reasons and self-interest or by an agency that is external to the profession (Evetts, 2018). In many professions, including education, there is increased emphasis on the role and actions of external agencies, for example, a central regulatory body, in effecting improvements in professional practice, status, and accountability. Evetts (2013) refers to this as a form of organizational professionalism, where professionalism is constructed and imposed “from above” (p. 5). An example in ECEC is the use of regulations (e.g., qualification requirements) and quality assurance frameworks (e.g., curriculum and pedagogy requirements) to define professional practice.

There are different perspectives on the opportunities and challenges that stem from a top-down approach to building a professional ECEC workforce. The expectation is that strengthened quality standards and the introduction of national early years curriculum frameworks can facilitate improved practice (OECD, 2018, 2019; Ortlipp et al., 2011). The concept of professionalization also has appeal to practitioners, promising enhanced professional identities (Evetts, 2018). However, there is also concern that professionalization may promote a universal and isomorphic view of professionalism in ECEC, through prescriptive standards that favor particular knowledge, theories, and ways of working (Moss, 2006).

Professionalism: A Grassroots Perspective on the Professional Work of Educators

In contrast to the often top-down policy perspectives on professionalization of the workforce, a growing body of mostly qualitative research studies is providing insights into educators’ diverse perspectives on and understandings of professionalism. The Macquarie Dictionary (2020) defines professionalism as “the standing practice of methods of a professional as distinguished from an amateur”. Reflective of bottom-up policy approaches (Cerna, 2013), our research interest is educators’ grassroots perspectives on their professional status and role in ECEC, that is, how professionalism is constructed and demonstrated by those working within the profession. This is akin to Evetts’s (2013) ideal of occupational professionalism, that is professionalism as an occupational value. A code of practice developed by those within the profession, for example, Early Childhood Australia’s Code of Ethics (ECA, 2016) is an example of occupational professionalism.

Applying this lens, Osgood (2012) explored English nursery workers’ constructions of professionalism (n = 24) against the backdrop of top-down policy constructions that presented educators as lacking in professionalism. Using a broadly ethnographic design, and post-structural feminist/Foucauldian approach, Osgood asked educators to define professionalism in their work. The study revealed an alternative construction of professionalism, where educators emphasized the “emotionality and necessarily affective nature of their work” (p.120). Osgood challenges narrow hegemonic policy discourses of professionalism arguing these are highly gendered and fail to capture the complexities of being a professional in ECEC.

In a transnational study involving early childhood educators from Canada (Ontario), Nigeria, and South Africa (n = 25), Harwood et al. (2013) examined participants’ understandings of their roles and responsibilities, and their ideas about professionalism. Educators conceived their professional role to be complex and multi-faceted, inclusive of mothering, creating learning environments, foundation building, and being an extended member of the child’s family and community. As in Osgood’s (2012) study, educators talked about their passion for their work and acknowledged the necessary emotional component of their role. So too, the study findings highlight diversity in educators’ lived experience of professionalism, challenging prescriptive and narrow approaches to its definition.

More recently, Monk and Phillipson (2017) investigated perceptions of professionalism among a cohort of Asian educators (n = 78). The study invited perceptions of what it meant to be an early childhood professional through the creation of visual and textual metaphors. Professionalism was related to: (a) managing multiple work and life roles; (b) cultural understandings and interpersonal relationships with children, families, and colleagues, and (c) hope for the rising professionalization and status of early childhood in Asia. Applying a phenomenological lens, Hakim and Dalli (2018) sought to elicit the essence of Indonesian early childhood teachers’ understandings of professionalism in their practice (n = 21). Contrary to some contemporary policy perspectives, being a professional was seen to be a great deal more than attaining a qualification. Rather, it was viewed as “a continuous state of striving towards improvement” (p. 253).

Understandings of ECEC professional work can also be related to the different views or images of educators held by the broader community. Moss (2006) presents a continuum of images of ECEC workers as substitute mothers, technicists, and researchers. The ECEC worker as a substitute mother reflects the gendered construction of educators’ work as maternal and instinctive in nature with less need for qualification. Such conceptualizations are also evident in some of the educators’ views examined above. Next, Moss’s image of the worker as technician articulates a procedural role in which educators simply work with established processes and technologies to create outcomes that can be measured. Examples include the use of pre-defined curriculum, and development-based observations of children that reflect an epistemology of objectivism and transmission of knowledge through teacher-focused traditional approaches. Finally, the worker as researcher involves the view that educators are learners and researchers. Learning is based on what Moss refers to as co-constructivism in which knowledge is viewed as “perspectival, partial and provisional” (p. 36). This means their role is one of a pedagogue and their practices are informed by the evaluation of multiple perspectives, with an understanding that knowledge is not absolute but is evolving. Moss (2006) refers to a pedagogue as a “profession[al] working with the theory and practice of pedagogy” (p. 32), exercising agency and autonomy, and taking a holistic view of the child. Such an image stands in contrast to the view of the worker as a technician, in which knowledge is viewed as an absolute unchanging entity that can be transmitted to others in the process of ECEC teaching. The image of worker as researcher advocates for educators to actively reflect upon and enact approaches to teaching that are underpinned by an evaluativist view of knowledge (Lunn et al. 2021). Moss’s (2006) descriptions of the various types of ECEC educators’ work provide a way in which to explore the professionalization of, and professionalism in, the work of ECEC educators.

ECEC as a Profession

The promotion of professionalization and professionalism in ECEC, whether in relation to current or future practice, hinges on whether ECEC can be defined as a profession. Historically, a profession has been viewed as an occupation with special characteristics defined from within the membership as distinct from general occupations. Reflective of Evetts’s (2013, 2018) ideal of occupational professionalism, this includes: (a) members who have a specialized body of knowledge derived from research, education, and training; (b) a strong sense of purpose and understanding of the importance of their work; (c) collegial relations; and (d) authority and professional discretion in practice. These characteristics coalesce to create a shared professional identity. There are associated systemic features too, for example, the existence of a professional association, registration authority, or both, that controls entry to the profession, and promotes and monitors professional and ethical practice (Evetts, 2013; Hordern, 2016); these features ensure a protected professional identity (i.e., who can join the profession).

Adopting a broader stance, Solbrekke and Englund (2011) suggest, to qualify as a profession, the service offered should constitute a public good (i.e., contributes to the wellbeing of society). Related to this conceptualization, they argue that professionals maintain a collective social responsibility to act in the best interest of their clients, profession, and broader society. Evetts (2018) expands on the idea of relational trust, observing the community expectation that professionals exercise “discretion and good judgement, often in highly complex situations and circumstances” (p. 47).

Internationally, there is both strong evidence and growing political and public acceptance that ECEC is indeed a public good (The Front Project, 2019), however there is ongoing debate as to whether it can be considered a profession. A decade ago, Musgrave (2010) drew attention to the absence of controlled entry and a protected professional identity for educators in the United Kingdom. Countering the professionalization discourse at this time, she maintained that ECEC could not be considered a profession until there was a requirement for educators to be qualified and maintain registration to work in ECEC settings. Taking a similar stance, and promoting occupational professionalism, Goffin (2013) reinforced the importance of a qualified workforce in ECEC in the United States, “given responsibility for developing its own knowledge base and exercising authority over its use in practice” (p. 27). However, she also conceded that few professions exercised complete control over their practice, and advocated debate about the role states may play in promoting and supporting the profession through certification and licensure.

In Australia, there remain several challenges to broader acceptance of the professional status of educators, inside and outside of the profession (Pascoe & Brennan, 2017; Thorpe et al., 2020). Current qualification requirements include vocational qualifications, designed to “qualify individuals… to undertake advanced skilled or paraprofessional work” (AQF Council, 2013, p. 39) as well as higher education degrees more often associated with professional status. Table 1 provides an overview of qualification requirements to work in key roles in ECEC in Australia. This continuum of qualifications is not uncommon in education, with schools engaging degree qualified teachers and vocationally qualified teacher aides. However, while there is growth in qualified educators, the majority of educators working in ECEC (excluding standalone preschools) currently hold a vocational qualification, with just under 12% being qualified early childhood teachers (Social Research Centre, 2022).

Table 1 Qualification requirements for educators in center-based ECEC in Australia
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Another significant point of contest relates to Australian educators’ professional autonomy in ECEC, a defining characteristic of any member of a profession. While the Australian National Quality Framework (NQF; Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority [ACECQA], 2020) marked a shift away from prescriptive to performance-based standards that promote the need for professional judgment (Irvine & Price, 2014) this is predicated on educators having the professional knowledge, autonomy, and support to interpret and enact policy expectations in their local context. Finally, while not strictly a characteristic of professionalism, belonging to a profession often confers recognition beyond the workplace through professional remuneration and status within the broader community (Evetts, 2018), unmet needs for many Australian educators working in ECEC (ACECQA, 2021).

In summary, the construction of professionalism in ECEC may involve external agencies (e.g., government regulatory authorities), however, there is general expectation that professional practice is defined and led by those within the profession (Evetts, 2013; Sachs, 2016). It is from this standpoint that we set out to explore Australian educators’ understandings of their professional status and work in ECEC.

Method

In this article, we report findings from a national study of the Australian ECEC workforce which investigated the personal, professional and workplace factors that influence the recruitment, retention, and engagement of educators in center-based ECEC services [Australian Research Council, LP140100652] (Thorpe et al., 2020). The study applied a mixed-method design and included three stages: (i) a national online survey of educators (n = 1200); (ii) in-depth semi-structured interviews with 98 educators working in 13 ECEC centers selected to be representative of diverse populations; and (iii) a full-day interactive ECEC Policy Workshop with 76 invited delegates to interrogate the initial findings and their implications for policy and practice. For full details of the research design see Irvine et al. (2016).

The current study draws on Stage 2 of the study and explored how professionalism was constructed by 98 educators working in center-based ECEC services (Thorpe et al., 2020). Our analysis of interview data addressed the following research questions:

  • RQ1: How do educators describe their professional status?

  • RQ2: What personal and professional characteristics are associated with understandings of professional status?

  • RQ3: How do educators understand their work in ECEC?

  • RQ4: What personal and professional characteristics of the sample are associated with educators’ understanding of their roles in ECEC?

Research questions 1 and 2 explore educators’ understandings of professionalization of the ECEC workforce in Australia, while their construction of professionalism in practice is explored through research questions 3 and 4.

Participants

Participants were Australian early childhood educators (n = 98) working in kindergartenFootnote 1 and long day care servicesFootnote 2 (N = 13). To capture the diversity of Australian workforce demands and service contexts, the services were sampled from three geographically distinct types (remote, regional, and urban) using a stratified selection procedure that used two public data sets to index developmental vulnerability of the children in the service intake population (see Australian Early Development Census; Australian Government, 2015) and service assessment and rating to capture the current quality of provision (see Guide to the National Quality Framework; ACECQA, 2020). All staff in the sampled centers were invited to participate. The uptake of participation was 99% (98/99 possible participants). Details of demographics for the sample, including age, education and training, experience, and current role in the center are provided in Table 2.

Table 2 Demographics, training, and employment role for the sample (n = 98)
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Procedure

Semi-structured interviews were conducted by the project researchers, following specific training by the lead Chief Investigator. Ninety-seven interviews were conducted within each center with an average duration of 45 min (range 25–80 min). Relief staff were funded to facilitate the withdrawal of educators during the time of interview, a $10 gift voucher was provided to each participant and participating centers received a $100 gift certificate for educational resources. Interviewers asked the educators about their work experience and career pathway, education and training, and future career intentions. Educators were asked how they understood the nature of their professional status: Are you a professional? They were also asked to provide accounts of how they perceived their work as early childhood educators. All interviews were transcribed verbatim to enable both deep deductive and inductive qualitative analyses. Additionally, to enable an overview of the variations in perspectives by demographic and occupational variation we coded and quantified the responses. The current study focuses on this quantification and statistical description.

Data Analysis

RQ 1: Understandings About Professional Status

The purpose of this first analysis was to identify how educators understood their professional status and factors shaping their views, offering a grassroots perspective on professionalization of the ECEC workforce. Educator accounts in response to the question “Are you a professional?” were inductively coded. Following Braun and Clark (2006), we examined educators’ responses in situ, guided by the research question, resulting in individual codes. These codes were then interrogated in a second round of analysis, using an iterative process that involved discussion amongst research team members to achieve consensus, generating three major themes.

RQ 2: Variation in Understandings of Professional Status

Emergent codes (from analysis of RQ1) were quantified as categorical data. The analysis of variation in understanding of professional status explored whether the categories of professional understandings varied systematically across personal and professional characteristics of educators. Where personal and professional data were categorical, a Chi-Square test was applied to assess significance in distribution of the cross-tabulated results. Where the variables were continuous (e.g., age of educator), Mann-Whitney U-tests were undertaken to examine differences in frequency of professional understanding. Non-parametric Mann-Whitney U-tests were applied as distributions were non-normal. In examining demographics we were unable to examine interactions (e.g. age x qualification) as the sample size and nature of the data would limit reliability.

RQ 3: Understandings of the Role of an Educator

The purpose of this analysis was to understand the enactment of professional behavior (professionalism) in the roles educators described. Following Braun and Clark (2006), full transcripts of interviews were analyzed using an adaption of Moss’s (2006) categories of educators’ roles. In this analysis, the categories were deductively and inductively derived to create the following: (a) nurturer/laborer reflective of the worker as substitute mother; (b) technician where the educators’ role is to apply a defined set of technologies; and (c) pedagogue based on the idea of the worker as researcher (Moss, 2006). The educator as a pedagogue in our study refers to descriptions of educators’ active roles in children’s learning. The codes were applied by reading the whole transcript to identify each educator’s emergent account of his or her role.

RQ4: Variation in Understandings of Professional role

To assess whether the individual’s understanding of the role of an educator varied systematically across personal and professional characteristics, analyses, as described for Research Question 2, were undertaken.

Results

The study results are presented in order of the two phases of analysis (i.e., inductive and deductive). We report firstly on these educators’ understandings of their professional status, providing grassroots perspectives on professionalization of the Australian ECEC workforce. We then turn to examine these educators’ understandings of their professional roles, and how professionalism is constructed by those working within the profession. In both analyses, we examine the influence of personal and professional characteristics on differences in understandings.

Understandings About Professional Status (RQ1)

Three emergent categories of explanation for professional status were identified: (a) Purpose (educating children), the value of working with children; (b) Qualification, the attainment of a qualification or being “educated”; and (c) Public opinions. These explanations are summarized and exemplified in Table 3. The application of categories was not mutually exclusive so that any one or all could be invoked as an explanation for definition of the role of educator being professional or not. Twenty-two of the 98 interviewees did not provide a response to, or justification for, their understandings of professional status and were therefore not included in this analysis. Thus, the data pool comprised 76 interviews. Across these interviews, the following number of participants described each of the categories: Purpose (n = 46), Qualification (n = 33), and Public opinions (n = 26). Inter-rater reliability for the analysis of understandings of status was undertaken by two of the authors independently using the data coding table created for the first round of inductive analysis to analyze 11 (15%) of the transcripts of the 76 participants. An inter-rater reliability of 100% agreement was achieved.

Table 3 Categories of professional status, descriptions and exemplars
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Variation in Understandings of Professional Status (RQ2)

Table 4 provides a summary of the variation in understanding of professional status across personal and professional characteristics of the participants. The findings are described below regarding three main demographic characteristics: educator age and years in center, qualification level, and role in center.

Table 4 Summary of patterns of statistical group differences in understandings of professional status (N = 76)
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First, statistical analyses show that the age (U = 445.0, p = 0.016) and years in ECEC (experience of the educators) (U = 463.5, p = 0.049) were both significantly associated with likelihood of defining professionalism in terms of holding a qualification. Mean values indicate that younger and less experienced educators were more likely to equate being a professional with having attained a qualification, regardless of the level of qualification.

Second, the qualification level of staff was statistically associated with the explanation of professional status in terms of Public opinions (χ2 = 8.61, df = 3, p = 0.035). Degree qualified staff were the least likely to refer to opinion. In fact, none spoke of professionalism in these terms. A higher proportion of diploma qualified staff referred to professionalism in this way when compared with those with certificate or degree qualifications.

Third, educator role was significantly associated with explanation of professional status in terms of Public opinions (χ2 = 7.73, df = 3, p = 0.05). Degree qualified early childhood teachers were the least likely to use this explanation while lead educators were most likely to do so. Educator role in a service was also significantly associated with explanation of professionalism based on the importance of working with young children (χ2 = 7.82, df = 3, P = 0.05). Early childhood teachers were the most likely to explain professionalism in terms of the purpose (educating children), and assistant educators were least likely to do so.

Understanding of Roles: Pedagogue, Technician, or Nurturer? (RQ3)

Next, we returned to the interview transcripts to investigate how educators characterized their professional roles throughout the interview. As described earlier, we analyzed the full transcripts using the categories of pedagogue, technician, and nurturer/laborer which are described and exemplified in Table 5. Less than half the sample (45%) described their role as pedagogical work. The majority described their work as technical (68%) and as nurturing/laboring (85%) work, though it should be noted that educators often reported their work as crossing these roles. These categorizations enabled us to explore further educator’s understandings of their professional roles and professionalism in practice. Two researchers independently analyzed a random sample of 15 transcripts (16% of interviews), with an inter-rater reliability of 87% agreement.

Table 5 Educators’ understanding of their professional roles
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Variation in Understandings of Professional Role (RQ4)

Statistical analyses to assess whether there were differences by characteristics of the educators found no statistical association with age, experience, or role in center. The only statistically significant association was with qualification. Those holding an entry-level qualification (Certificate III) were most likely to describe their role as nurturing/laboring while those participants with diploma or higher qualifications were less likely to do so.

Discussion

Against a background of top-down policy to professionalize the ECEC workforce, we sought to understand how educators conceptualized their professional status and work, offering grassroots perspectives on professionalization of the ECEC workforce and professionalism as an occupational value (Evetts, 2018). Our findings provide point-in-time insights from a group of Australian educators working in center-based ECEC across a diversity of roles. Further, we assessed statistical association of educator’s personal and professional characteristics with coding of their accounts. A key strength of the study is the representative sample, by region (remote, regional and urban) and socio-economic status of the community served. The sample of educators is also representative of the broader Australian ECEC workforce, noting greater representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander educators (6% in study, 2.9% of Australian workforce), slightly fewer male educators (3% in study; 3.9% Australian workforce) (Social Research Centre, 2022) and fewer educators from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds (14% in study; estimated 20.5% in workforce) (Gide et al., 2022). The work is limited to the context of Australia, and the policy influences within. However, it has considerable commonality with policy directions in other OECD countries across the last two decades (OECD, 2018). In discussing the findings, we reflect on current alignment between educator and policy perspectives on professional status and professional practice within this policy context.

Professionalization: Are ECEC Educators Professionals?

The participants in this study overwhelmingly believed they belonged to a profession and named their work as professional. When asked why they thought they were professionals, educators offered three broad categories of reasoning. Their sense of professional status was based on: (a) Purpose – the value of educating young children; (b) Qualification – holding a qualification regardless of level; and (c) Public opinions – external views of their role.

First and foremost, with respect to Purpose and constructing ECEC as a social good (Solbrekke & Englund, 2011), educators in this study attributed their professional status to the inherent value of working with young children and, specifically, the purpose of educating young children. While the valuing of early education is not new, the focus on all center-based ECEC services as education providers is notable. Subscription to professional status based on education purpose by educators with diverse qualifications aligns with the strengthened education discourse in Australian ECEC policy (Ortlipp et al., 2011) and globally (OECD, 2018, 2019). In the current study, degree qualified early childhood teachers were more likely to describe being a professional in terms of the purpose of educating children than assistant educators.

Second, some educators reasoned they were professionals because they held a Qualification. This explanation aligns with community understandings of profession-related requirements. That is, professionals complete a program of preservice education to develop the specialized knowledge and skills they need to work in the profession (Evetts, 2013). Interestingly, younger and less experienced educators were more likely to equate holding a qualification as bestowing professional status. However, less evident was appreciation of differences between prescribed qualifications (e.g., diploma and degree), related differences in professional expectations, and the contribution of higher-level qualifications to the professional knowledge and skills of individuals and teams. The limited distinction between qualification levels identifies a potential direction for policy strategy. Recruiting and retaining early childhood teachers in ECEC requires increased visibility of their pedagogical expertise and leadership within ECEC teams. At the same time, there is a need to build appreciation that professionalism extends beyond holding a qualification (Hordern, 2016), and is focused on the educator’s application of knowledge and skills in daily practice and their commitment to continued professional learning.

Finally, some educators identified Public opinions, whether positive or negative, as determinants of their professional status. Lack of professional recognition within the public domain continues to be a problem in ECEC, acknowledged internationally as a barrier to the attraction and retention of qualified and experienced educators at all levels (Ortlipp et al., 2011; Thorpe et al., 2020). In this study, educators reported strengthened parent awareness and appreciation of the professional nature of their work yet perceived low professional standing within the broader public domain. Here the influence of qualification and role was clear, with diploma qualified educators most likely to invoke this explanation and degree qualified early childhood teachers least likely to do so. While bearing high responsibility, leading the education program for a group of children and the team of educators within that room, diploma qualified educators were less secure in their professional identity and more reliant on external affirmation of their professional status. Interestingly, another recent Australian study found that diploma qualified educators who upgraded to work as early childhood teachers in long day care services continued to struggle with their identity as a “professional teacher” (McKinlay et al., 2018, p. 38). These findings are concerning and suggest the need for targeted strategies to support and strengthen educators’ internal sense of professionalization as well as public professional standing.

Professionalism: Are Educator’s Accounts of Their Work Underpinned by Pedagogical Practices?

In contrast to our finding that educators leveraged the discourse of teaching and learning to claim professional status, their expanded accounts of their work featured a strong discourse of care with respect to professionalism. Reflective of other studies investigating educators’ views (Harwood et al., 2013; Osgood, 2012), most educators foregrounded their caring role as a central aspect of their work. While the literature on a pedagogy of care focuses on secure, responsive and reciprocal relationships and ethical behaviour to support early learning and wellbeing (Rockel, 2009; Thorpe et al., 2020), the caring role of educators was more often articulated in terms of Moss’s (2006, p. 34) conceptualization of educators as nurturers and laborers. The accounts identified work in ECEC as “emotional” and “physical”, with a focus on protective, instinctive, and gendered roles that do not require knowledge (Moss, 2006; Osgood, 2012). While most educators, including early childhood teachers, referenced their role as nurturer/laborer, the least qualified educators in our study were most likely to highlight this role in their accounts characterized by a focus on managing care routines and the physical environment across the day. Accounts that were reflective of a pedagogy of care (Rockel, 2009), conversely, were fewer in number and more likely to be provided by more qualified staff. Such accounts were underpinned by a conceptualization of teacher as pedagogue and the holistic and integrated nature of care and education.

Alongside a discourse of nurturing there was also a discourse of early education, reflected in responses related to the role of pedagogue. Educator accounts included concepts and terminology commonly associated with teaching regardless of qualification. Australia’s Early Years Learning Framework seems to be an underpinning influence (McDonald et al., 2018). Notably, a key objective of this policy initiative was to provide a shared professional language for educators (Department of Education and Training, 2009), underpinned by the belief that a profession requires a shared knowledge base that can be articulated by all members (Hordern, 2016). Our findings indicate movement towards a shared professional language, but also highlight differences in how this was used by educators to describe their work. These differences are distinguished within the technicist and pedagogue categories. Accounts categorized as technicist drew heavily on policy language and broadly referenced teaching and implementing the curriculum. The focus was on what educators were doing to meet policy expectations and arguably more compliance based (Moss, 2006). In contrast, educators’ accounts classified as pedagogue moved beyond the standards and curriculum to describe how they worked with children, families, and colleagues to achieve the aims specified in policy documentation. These accounts highlighted an active role in teaching and learning and offered insight into pedagogical decision making. Our findings point to the need for targeted professional learning programs to build all educators’ ability to critically reflect on their work, and to articulate their professional practice and reasons for working in particular ways.

Some Misalignments: Policies to Acknowledge and Support Professional Practices

Set against top-down policy discourses of professionalization, this study offers important insights into Australian educators’ understandings of the profession of ECEC both in terms of professional status and their work in ECEC. While our primary aim was to elevate the lived experiences of those within the profession (Hakim & Dalli, 2018; Osgood, 2012), we were interested in the alignment between educator and policy perspectives on ECEC as a profession because both perspectives contribute to the construction of the ECEC profession (Beddoe, 2013).

We draw attention to three areas of misalignment between current policy and practice that require further attention to acknowledge and support professionalism as an occupational value (Evetts, 2018) in Australian ECEC. Firstly, there is a misalignment between the study’s two sets of findings, which is educators’ perspectives on professionalization and their extended accounts of professionalism in practice. While united in their sense of belonging to a profession, and claiming professional status based on being qualified and educating children, less than half of the educators in this study accounted for their professional work in pedagogical terms. Secondly, although the discourse of care was prevalent in educators’ extended descriptions of their professional work, it was absent in their rationale for professional status. While likely influenced by current policy discourse and preconceptions within the broader public domain, educators often simplified and underplayed this aspect of their professional work. Notably too, educators were more likely to address care and education separately in their accounts, with fewer, and generally more qualified teachers and educators, making the connection between these aspects of their work explicit. Thirdly, many accounts remained compliance-oriented, without reference to the educator’s considered and active role in supporting children’s care and learning. Despite the shift away from prescriptive standards to a framework that seeks to promote professional judgment, critical reflection and locally responsive practices, these aspects of professional work were not visible in many educators’ accounts.