TY - JOUR
T1 - Quality early childhood education through self, workplace, or regulatory support
T2 - exploring the efficacy of professional registration for early childhood teachers in Australia
AU - Fenech, Marianne
AU - Watt, Helen
N1 - Funding Information:
The University of Sydney’s Faculty of Social Sciences’ Research Support Scheme funded this work. We thank Liam Dacosta for assisting with the administration and analysis of our teacher registration survey.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022, The Author(s).
PY - 2023
Y1 - 2023
N2 - Teacher registration is increasingly utilised as a governance mechanism to audit teachers’ work and drive professional practice. There is limited and mixed empirical evidence, however, as to whether registration drives teaching quality. Our study extends this limited empirical base by critically examining the policy trajectory in Australia to bring early childhood teachers into a uniform system of registration with primary and secondary teachers. Adopting a relatively novel methodology, the study intertwined a critical social policy framing with a national quantitative survey. Results showed that respondents perceived their professional self, followed by their workplace (colleagues and employer) as key influencers of quality practice, and neither agreed nor disagreed that teacher registration was beneficial. Findings problematise the need for, and benefits of, teacher registration. That early childhood teachers’ practice and development was most driven by intrinsic motivation and, to a lesser extent, being employed in high-quality, not-for-profit, and preschool settings where other early childhood teachers are employed, suggests that more effective and progressive policy approaches to support quality early childhood education require an addressing of the contexts and conditions in which early childhood teachers work.
AB - Teacher registration is increasingly utilised as a governance mechanism to audit teachers’ work and drive professional practice. There is limited and mixed empirical evidence, however, as to whether registration drives teaching quality. Our study extends this limited empirical base by critically examining the policy trajectory in Australia to bring early childhood teachers into a uniform system of registration with primary and secondary teachers. Adopting a relatively novel methodology, the study intertwined a critical social policy framing with a national quantitative survey. Results showed that respondents perceived their professional self, followed by their workplace (colleagues and employer) as key influencers of quality practice, and neither agreed nor disagreed that teacher registration was beneficial. Findings problematise the need for, and benefits of, teacher registration. That early childhood teachers’ practice and development was most driven by intrinsic motivation and, to a lesser extent, being employed in high-quality, not-for-profit, and preschool settings where other early childhood teachers are employed, suggests that more effective and progressive policy approaches to support quality early childhood education require an addressing of the contexts and conditions in which early childhood teachers work.
KW - Accountability
KW - Critical policy sociology
KW - Early childhood education
KW - Early childhood teachers
KW - Motivators and supports
KW - Teacher registration
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85139647050&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s13384-022-00575-8
DO - 10.1007/s13384-022-00575-8
M3 - Article
C2 - 36248017
AN - SCOPUS:85139647050
SN - 0311-6999
VL - 50
SP - 1629
EP - 1661
JO - The Australian Educational Researcher
JF - The Australian Educational Researcher
ER -