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This paper examines workforce reform in early childhood education in England, specifically the policy trajectory that led to implementation of the Early Years Teacher Status (EYTS) qualification in 2014. Taking a critical perspective on policy analysis, the paper uses rhetorical analysis to make sense of the how EYTS is understood within workforce reform. From an assemblage of salient policy documents, we report our critical analysis of two key texts: Foundations for Quality and More Great Childcare. Both documents identify policy levers and drivers for reform, but from markedly different perspectives and with contrasting recommendations. By using rhetorical analysis to examine how these policy texts construct not only problems but also preferred solutions, we illustrate the paradoxical nature of early childhood policy in England as it relates to aspirations to raise the status of the sector and improve quality through the implementation of EYTS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper attempts to move beyond a critique of historically dominant ways of thinking about teaching and learning relationships to offer a conceptualization of relational pedagogy from a theological perspective. It offers commentary on the potential of relational pedagogy for Christian faith-based schools informed by the scholarship of German theologian Karl Rahner and the dialectical child psychotherapy of D. W. (Donald) Winnicott. An argument for a theological-relational pedagogy is outlined, followed by discussion of three features linking Rahner, Winnicott, and relational pedagogy: realizing our human-ness through relationships with others; the role of a dialectical unity between self and other; and the mystery of human subjectivity. The paper concludes by signalling some of the implications for faith-based curriculum and pedagogy arising from our argument, centred on the emergence of a new theology of childhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural–historical perspectives on human activity argue that changes in cultural practices, such as teaching in early childhood education, can be fostered by introducing new conceptual resources, a process known as re-mediation. We report from an ongoing study that aims to change early childhood teachers' curricular practices in response to children's everyday experiences of the convergence between popular culture and digital play. To date, convergence has only marginally influenced contemporary early childhood curriculum. Seventeen teachers were interviewed after implementing a new cultural tool called 'web-mapping' that mobilises the concept of convergence to foster digital and popular culture play in preschools. This paper theorises the re-mediation of teachers' curriculum decision-making by examining the dynamic relationship between cultural tools and the object motives identified in interviews with the teachers. It concludes by reflecting on the implications for future professional development initiatives that aim to change curricular practices in early childhood education through the introduction of new cultural tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article critiques the usefulness of double stimulation, a key concept in Vygotskian analyses of human development, with leaders in early childhood services in Australia. A series of formative interventions was conducted to identify and address systemic tensions that were confounding leaders’ attempts to realise a central object of activity in their work: the development of their staff in order to enhance children’s learning. An example of double stimulation is drawn from workshop comments and interviews with one of the participating leaders. The article elaborates on a tension identified between explicit cultural expectations of professionalism and an implicit division of labour that position leaders as having the primary responsibility for solving problems of practice. The article concludes by reflecting on the usefulness of double stimulation in fostering sustainable leadership practices in early childhood education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reports on the persistence and significance of notions of time and temporality in interviews with early childhood educators in Victoria and Queensland, Australia, in two studies designed to explore the concept of ‘pedagogical leadership’. Interpretive analysis of the interview transcripts of the 19 participants identified three basic categories related to the concept of time: ‘time use’, ‘time scales’ and ‘perceived time’. Drawing on contemporary philosophical discussions on the nature of time and temporality, and the sociological literature about the relationship between time and work, we argue that time and temporality merit further empirical and theoretical exploration in early childhood. We suggest that approaches that understand time and temporality from the perspective of the (gendered) body may provide a way forward. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Family day care or childminding involves a particularly transient workforce. This paper introduces Eco(logical)-Cultural Theory (ECT) to examine the cultural organisation of childminding and presents an ECT analysis of pilot survey results: asking minders about their daily routines and their career paths. Reasons for becoming a minder and aspirations for the future varied and were associated with the organisation of daily routines. Among minders who wished to continue childminding, daily routines were related to cultural models. Those aspiring to work in centres rather than homes tended to organise daily activities high in structure (i.e. similarity from day to day). Most reported dissatisfaction with home-based facilities, suggesting dissonance between models of care and local ecology. The childminding workforce is diverse and an ECT approach focused on asking childminders about their daily lives may yield valuable empirical data to inform professional development efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

One characteristic of long day childcare settings in New Zealand is the opportunity for teachers to continuously observe each other at work. Ngaire's story is an account of one teacher's problematic negotiation of her subjectivity (self-as-teacher) in the context of a wider institutional story drawn from Ngaire's colleagues' observations of her teaching. Through an examination of Ngaire's narrative about her past, present and future self, informed by symbolic interactionist methodological and theoretical concepts, the author challenges Jalongo and Isenberg's claim that sharing teacher narratives provide a ‘natural’ way for teachers to generate new meanings about practice. Some stories may be too risky to tell and Ngaire's story does not have a happy ending. It is possible to speculate, however, on some of the ways in which teams of teachers might confront such risks, through examining the collective stories they tell about themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]