Early Childhood Teacher Identities and the Complex Business of Early Childhood Education and Care in Aotearoa

Abstract

This research critically examines the ways in which early childhood teachers understand and construct their teaching identities. Specifically, it examines how they understand their work, commitments, and priorities in a diverse, highly regulated, and privatised sector. The research uses a range of methods: a discourse analysis of six key national ECEC (early childhood education and care) policy texts, focus groups with ECEC teachers, interviews with centre leaders (head teachers, managers, and owners), and interviews with teacher educators. The theoretical framing of the research emphasises the construction of teachers’ identities through discourse. CDA provides the methodological approach through which the research reveals and problematises the constitutive role of discourse in the construction of teacher identities. CDA is overtly political and has an emancipatory agenda. The findings of the research invite consideration of other possible ways of being a teacher and understanding teacher identities. The findings reveal how ECEC teachers form their identities in complex ways in an uneven and competitive sector shaped by overlapping discourses and discursive practices. The policy analysis assembles seven intersecting discourses that position teachers in various and sometimes contradictory ways. The policy analysis highlights and critically examines two prevalent identities: The Professional and The Kaiako. Participants’ narratives reveal inconsistent and contradictory engagements with notions of care, the ongoing bifurcation of care and education, and political and contextual nuances of how care is used to position teachers unequally. While ECEC teachers feel pressure to conform and perform to increasing regulatory expectations, they also participate in these processes as normative frameworks to judge their own and others’ professionalism. Teachers are largely uncritical of the ways in which these externally imposed processes orientate values and practices and impinge on professional autonomy, illustrating a strong governing of teacher identities and practices. The historical discourses of kindergarten and childcare and the private sector’s diverse and competitive nature provide influential contexts for ongoing identity negotiations. Participant experiences in different ECEC contexts give rise to three identities: The Kindergarten Teacher, The Compliant Employee, and The Entrepreneur. The research critically examines each, pointing to the constraints and opportunities present for teachers. A key concern from these findings relates to the divisions and inequities among ECEC teachers in different contexts, resulting in the exclusion of particular teachers, a lack of collective agency, and loss of advocacy in the sector.