Reconstructing professionalism in ECEC: the case for the ‘critically reflective emotional professional’

Osgood, Jayne

doi:10.1080/09575146.2010.490905

Cited by 196 publications

(186 citation statements)

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“…Other research with practitioners has identified that they describe their role in terms of a feel and an ethos (Cottle and Alexander 2012) and an ethic of care (Osgood 2006). There has been a long-standing emphasis on the importance of a caring disposition and the capacity for emotional commitment, often referred to as 'passion', when working with children (Moyles 2001;Osgood 2010). In the context of professional development for initial and continuing members of the early years workforce, there is a risk of assuming that, if people have found their way on to an early childhood course, they very likely already have certain general dispositions, inherent and enduring qualities of mind and character that mean they are well suited to the early years workforce.…”

Section: Qualifications In the Early Years Sectormentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Coming from the UK, we are well versed in debates on the early years workforce; policy developments to upskill the workforce have prompted discussions about what it means to be a professional in early years services (Urban 2008;Osgood 2010;Georgeson and Payler 2014) and more recent debates have focused on the level of qualification required by those who work in ECEC (Nutbrown 2012;Eisenstadt et al 2013). The UK is not alone in exploring the nature and qualifications of the ECEC (Oberhuemer 2000;Dalli 2006;Vandenbroeck and Peeters 2008), but a focus on qualification levels alone does little to answer questions about what having a qualification does to support the development of quality -is it attendance at lectures, writing essays or practical placements (for example), or a combination of these, that is necessary if practitioners are to contribute to the quality of ECEC?…”

Section: Qualifications In the Early Years Sectormentioning

confidence: 99%

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Attitudes and the early years workforce

Georgeson

Campbell‐Barr

2015

Early Years

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EDITORIALAttitudes and the early years workforce Introduction Our motivation in putting out a call for papers for this special issue came from working with colleagues from UK, Italy and Hungary on a small research project involving our own higher education institutions, in which we compared staff and students' perceptions of the attitudes needed to work with young children (Georgeson et al. 2015;Campbell Barr, Georgeson, and Varga, forthcoming). This project had been prompted by an interest in the role of workforce development and the European Reference Framework on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning, which defines competences as 'a combination of knowledge, skills and attitudes appropriate to the context' (European Commission 2007, 3). These three aspects of competences are also well established in the research literature on teacher education (for example Collinson, Killeavy, and Stephenson 1999;Darling-Hammond 2005). They appear under headings such as content knowledge, pedagogical skill and appropriate dispositions and attitudes, and frequently form the basis of teachers' professional standards and associated qualifications.We began to notice some fluidity in the use of the terms 'disposition' and 'attitude' to refer to individual characteristics, both in our own data and in policy and research. Often these two terms appear together as 'dispositions and attitudes' and are not distinguished from each other; instead they tend to be used as a sort of useful basket of general mental qualities that teacher/practitioners might need in their work, alongside knowledge and skills. In those cases where the two words are explicitly defined, there is a tendency to use them to represent different levels of mental orientation. Definitions of 'disposition' often refer to a broader more enduring tendency to behave in a particular way when responding in a variety of situations (for example -a nervous disposition would be associated with showing nervousness in differing contexts over time). Definitions of 'attitude' on the other hand often refer to elements of a system of beliefs about ideas, things and people in the world that have different components (emotional, motivational, intellectual and evaluative) and are differentially open to change. Lilian Katz, in the course of her work on the importance of the development of positive dispositions to learning in early childhood education, offers helpful definitions of both dispositions and attitudes that highlight the breadth and stability of dispositions and the directionality and specificity of attitudes:

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Section: Qualifications In the Early Years Sectormentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Qualifications In the Early Years Sectormentioning

confidence: 99%

Attitudes and the early years workforce

Georgeson

Campbell‐Barr

2015

Early Years

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“…This is in resistance to ongoing statutory pressures to follow a more didactic and assessment-driven pedagogical approach, as highlighted by Osgood (2006Osgood ( , 2010, Taggart (2011) and Rose and Rogers (2012). This article draws on life history interview data, collected as part of a research project funded by the Froebel Trust, and seeks to explore how Froebelian principles were understood and put into practice in the 1950s and 1960s, as narrated by a group of women who were trained at Froebel College during that time.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning to be Froebelian: student teachers’ life histories 1952–1965

Smedley¹,

Hoskins²

2015

European Early Childhood Education Research Journal

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Drawing on the life histories of nine women who were trained at Froebel College in the 1950s and 1960s, this paper examines the women's narratives as Froebelian student teachers and explores their remembered constructions of their experiences. Using an analytical framework underpinned by theories of identity and language their stories are shown to shed light on the women's engagement with and commitment to Froebelian ideas and their sense of identifying with what the college stood for. The women's stories illustrate a version of professionalism, located in time, place and culture, which incorporates contradictory elements of self-belief and self-effacement. In reflecting on their identities as Froebelians, their stories enact an understanding of politics and advocacy which demonstrates professional autonomy. Unexpectedly, their stories also show some difficulties with articulating Froebelian principles, and instead express an emotional attachment. That emotional engagement, rather than being seen as an inadequacy, is argued to be a strand in developing a hopeful, motivating and enabling professional workforce, capable of working effectively in the challenging current context of increasing statutory pressures towards performativity, regulation and control in early childhood education and care.Keywords: Froebel; early childhood professionalism; women teachers; life history IntroductionIf three hundred years after my death my method of education shall be completely established according to its idea, I shall rejoice in heaven. (Froebel, quoted in von MarenholtzBuelow 1877, 17) The life histories of the nine Froebel-trained women whose stories form the basis of this research show that Froebel's philosophy and approach had a profound and lasting effect on their professional identities. We can barely speculate about early childhood education in 2152, which would be three hundred years after Froebel's death (1852), but our analysis of these stories demonstrates how the non-prescriptive nature of his theories and the acute sense of belonging and believing that his ideas engendered in these women in the 1950s and 1960s contribute to the enduring qualities of Froebel's philosophy.We are driven by a contemporary commitment to Froebel's educational ideals (1885, 1896) and to protecting and developing them to the benefit of early years pupils and practitioners today. This is in resistance to ongoing statutory pressures to follow a more didactic and assessment-driven pedagogical approach, as highlighted by Osgood (2006Osgood ( , 2010, Taggart (2011) and Rose and Rogers (2012). This article draws on life history interview data, collected as part of a research project funded by the Froebel Trust, and seeks to explore how Froebelian principles were understood and put into practice in the 1950s and 1960s, as narrated by a group of women who were trained at Froebel College during that time. What was their educational experience at Froebel College? How did they engage with Froebelian ideas? What was the impact of that experience ...

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“…Early years professionalism can be seen as imposed 'from above' by the government and its agencies, through 'domination of forces external to the occupational group' (Evetts 2011, 407). It can also be seen to share aspects of the 'organisational professionalism' (Evetts 2005, 4) that characterises the public service or welfare professions more generally, including a shift towards managerialism and a sense that discourses of professionalism are used as mechanisms of control (Fournier 1999;Osgood 2006Osgood , 2010. The perception of control can be extended to the central role of government and agencies in specifying the content of programmes of initial professional development, induction standards and processes of continuing professional development and career progression, shaping notions of competence (Fournier 1999).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The perception of control can be extended to the central role of government and agencies in specifying the content of programmes of initial professional development, induction standards and processes of continuing professional development and career progression, shaping notions of competence (Fournier 1999). This could also entail using the appeal of the notion of professionalism to motivate and attempt control over practitioners who have suffered from a longstanding lack of recognition for their work (Burgess-Macey and Rose 1997;McGillivray 2008;Osgood 2010) The arrival of the coalition government heralded a change of direction with the abolition of the Department for Children Schools and Families, the recreation of a Department for Education, and the review of some of the agencies and bodies which had been instrumental in the implementation of the Every Child Matters reforms of the New Labour government. As part of this process a series of reviews were commissioned, including the Nutbrown Review of early education and childcare qualifications, which published its final report, Foundations for Quality in June 2012.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A productive system of early years professional development

Hordern

2013

Early Years

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Tel: 01225 384104 Jim Hordern has worked in adult and higher education, learning and development, and in local authorities in England and Wales. He has researched various aspects of education and professional development, including in children and young people's services. Word count: 5230 AbstractThis paper uses the concept of the productive system to identify some of the tensions between the stages of professional development of early years practitioners and the relationships between the various actors within the system of professional formation in England. In the context of the recommendations of the Nutbrown review a series of challenges facing early years professionalism and the design and delivery of continuous professional development are discussed. These include issues that relate to the predominance of external influence on the nature of early years professional knowledge, the significance of the early years setting in supporting practitioner learning and influences on workplace learning processes. Some strategies for strengthening practitioner influence over the productive system are briefly outlined, which relate specifically to how practitioners engage with the challenge of how CPD is organised and located as part of an early years professional identity.

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Reconstructing professionalism in ECEC: the case for the ‘critically reflective emotional professional’

Cited by 196 publications

References 33 publications

Attitudes and the early years workforce

Attitudes and the early years workforce

Learning to be Froebelian: student teachers’ life histories 1952–1965

A productive system of early years professional development

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