High-quality, stable child care and early education (CCEE) can have lasting, positive impacts on children. However, the challenges of recruiting, strengthening, and retaining the CCEE workforce are well documented. CCEE educators typically have low levels of formal education and compensation; limited opportunities for education, training, and…

Following calls to 'bewilder' (Snaza 2013) the pioneers of early education, this article positions Montessori pedagogy as a 'desire path' that acts as resistance to normative policy-driven pathways in early childhood education and care. Desire paths are alternative tracks made aside from officially established walking routes. In this paper I think…

This paper analyses the consequences of what are regarded as neoliberal developments within the Danish ECEC area. More specifically, it looks at how an increasing monitoring and regulation affects the ECEC educator's sense of professionalism. Drawing on a qualitative study of educators' interactionist accounts, a series of unintended consequences…

With an average annual salary of just over $16,000, the work of early childhood education professionals is grossly undervalued and leads to high turnover rates. And yet, the quality and consistency of the care they provide to infants and young children has a lasting impact on their brain development and social-emotional well-being. This article…

This article explores how three early childhood teachers working in grant-funded preschools within a public school context construct and negotiate their professional identities. Teachers share narratives that contribute to an understanding of how their beliefs, knowledge, and practice are marginalized by the context in which they work. The…

Problematic policy constructions of the purpose of education implicate professional identities and working conditions of professionals working with the youngest children. This paper builds on our earlier writing, to contest teacher professional identities in Australia, Ireland, Denmark and the United States of America, to illustrate the crucial…

This paper analyses recent educational reforms on teachers' work in Sweden following the 2010 Education Act, and up to the School Commission Report released in April 2017. We draw upon key policy texts and associated documents from the Ministry of Education, and the Swedish National Agency for Education ("Skolverket"). We consider the…

This colloquium argues that writings on leadership in the early years commonly assume a service ethos. The aim of nurseries and other early childhood settings is to provide a service for children and their parents, and the task of leadership is seen to be to find effective ways of defining and realizing this aim. But increasingly, and especially…

In this paper, I enter a crack to think otherwise about the concept "gossip". Drawing on previous scholarship engaging with Deleuzian concepts to inform research methodologies, this paper builds on this body of work. Following Deleuze and Guattari, the paper undertakes a mapping of gossip, subsequent to an encounter with a crack.…

Reconstructing the parallel structure of "dual" and "school-based" vocational routes reveals the close connection between the German vocational training system and the segmentation of the labour market by gender. The example of jobs in childcare and pre-primary education shows that the legacy of semi-professionalism in these…

Adults who provide early care and education are critical for the healthy development and well-being of young children. Although many people in the early childhood care and education (ECCE) workforce are skilled and dedicated, their ability to provide high quality experiences for children is hampered by a lack of shared purpose and identity,…

This article explores the practice narratives of a group of 25 caregivers who work with babies in daycare settings in England and seeks to illustrate awareness of, resistance to and compliance with powerful discourses. It is argued that multiple voices exert an influence over baby room practice, disempowering the caregivers and reducing their…

The regulatory environment in which long daycare centres are required to operate plays a key role in determining what early childhood professionals do and how they go about doing it. This paper reports findings from a state-wide survey undertaken in New South Wales, Australia, which shows how early childhood professionals position themselves on…

This study of 231 regulated family child care providers proposed a theoretical model to explore the effects on quality of: (1) provider level of general education; (2) provider degree of intentionality; (3) provider training and experience in family child care; (4) provider use of support services; and (5) provider work environment. Hierarchical…

This article presents the most recent results of a comparative review of early childhood education and care carried out by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Founded in 1961 and based in Paris, OECD is one of the world's most important sources of statistical, economic, and social data. Based on reviews in the…