‘I think a lot of it is common sense. …’ Early years students, professionalism and the development of a ‘vocational habitus’

Abstract

This paper reports on research from a small-scale project investigating the vocational training of students in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) in England. We draw on data from interviews with 42 students and five tutors in order to explore the students' understandings of professionalism in early years. In the paper, we discuss first, the then Labour Government's drive to 'professionalise' the workforce and second, critically analyse the concept of professionalism, drawing on sociological literature. We then turn to the data, and argue that students' understandings of professionalism are limited to generic understandings of 'professional' behaviour (reliability, politeness, punctuality and so on). The idea of their occupation being a repository of a particular knowledge and skills set is undercut by the students' emphasis on work with young children being largely a matter of 'common sense'. Our fourth point is to highlight the processes by which students are inducted into a respectable and responsible carer identity, as illustrated by an emphasis on clothes and appearance. We conclude that the version of professionalism offered to students training at this level is highly constrained, and discuss the implications of this.

Maternalist discourse in nursery nurse training at Wellgarth Nursery Training School from 1911 to 1939: current dilemmas of class and status in historical context

“…Wellgarth promoted vocational habitus in its students during an intense training in the practicalities of childcare and household management. In this way, it reflected contemporary discourse that workingclass girls required such training, a contrast with recent research findings which identified confidence in today's childcare trainees who articulated a view of their work as common sense and not something which, at root, required training (Vincent and Braun 2011). The school sought to build status for its students and to instill a sense of personal and professional responsibility through close control of their lives, during training and subsequently.…”

The Field of Care Work and Habitus

“…[13] Profesyonel kimlik kazanım sürecini değerlendirmede, anlamada ve açıklamada habitus kavramının oldukça kullanışlı olduğu belirtilmiştir. [6,[13][14][15]24,25] Profesyonel kimlik veya habitus ise, öncelikle başkalarının ihtiyaçları ile uğraşan özgün bir bilgi birikimine, profesyonel ve bilimsel eylemlere özümsenmiş bir bağlılık sağlar. Bu bağlamda, profesyonel habitus, profesyonel kimlik ve amaçları benimsemek kadar günlük hemşirelik uygulamalarıyla baş etmede gerekli olan yetenek ve yeterliği içermelidir.…”

The silencing of the knowledge-base in early childhood education and care professionalism

“…At times, the lack of expression is due to a presumed existence of the expertise required, presenting practical wisdom as a set of innate characteristics (McGillivray 2008;Penn 2011). Research from England has demonstrated that prior experiences of caring are often privileged over more theoretical forms of knowledge amongst those undertaking ECEC training (Colley 2006;Skeggs 1997;Vincent and Braun 2011). However, not explicitly expressing experiential knowledge, along with presenting practical wisdom as a set of innate characteristics, renders them invisible in modernist constructs of professionalism that seek knowable features.…”