Early childhood teachers are known for prioritising issues of equity, belonging, and inclusion in relation to the children and whānau they work with, but these issues can also affect teachers themselves. A recent research study uncovered stories of inequity and exclusion among early childhood teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand, often along racial, cultural, and linguistic lines. In her webinar, Dr Kiri Gould of the University of Auckland explored the implications of issues of equity, belonging, and inclusion for teacher identity and practice in early childhood education and offered some positive strategies for supporting positive, equitable, and culturally responsive relationships between teachers.
The key insights shared were:
When teachers feel valued and supported in their own diverse identities, they are more likely to be successful in creating inclusive and affirming environments for children and families, and everyone in the early childhood community can benefit from the wide range of life experiences and community and cultural knowledge that diverse teachers bring to their work. On a political level, having a strong sense of identity helps teachers to identify and resist deficit discourses and promote social justice for themselves and others.
Early childhood teachers experience a range of equity and inclusion issues, as early childhood education is systematically undervalued compared to other sectors, and teachers face pressure to prove the importance of their work. Because services hold different histories, different philosophies, and different emphases, there can be a perceived hierarchy within early childhood which leads some teachers to position themselves as more or less superior to other teachers. Kiri’s research found that early childhood teachers discriminated among themselves based on unrecognised or unidentified assumptions about what constitutes an ideal early childhood teacher, in terms of preferred qualifications, teacher backgrounds, experiences, and cultural backgrounds. This was evident in comments about accents, preferred pedagogies, or relationships with families.
Marketisation policies have intensified competition between services, and diminished opportunities for collective forums and dialogue across the sector, eroding a sense of community amongst early childhood teachers and any sense of a shared kaupapa. The competitive environment of early childhood services as they battle for ‘clientele’ has also had a negative impact on work conditions and teacher wellbeing in early childhood, increasing the stresses that early childhood teachers experience. Issues with teacher wellbeing, bullying, and managerialism are increasingly reported. These pressures can lead to the emergence of biases as teachers try to reconcile their own professional status in a complex and problematic landscape. Other macro level influences are apparent: for example, there is evidence of the subtle influence of wider societal narratives, such as those about immigration, in the accounts of early childhood teachers and leaders. These narratives reflect complex and sometimes contradictory ideas shaped by economic concerns, cultural misunderstandings, and contested ideas about identity and belonging. At times, such narratives were leveraged to question the legitimacy and belonging of some groups of teachers in the sector. These narratives require surfacing, critical examination, and challenge if equity and inclusion are to be meaningfully advanced.
Colonial legacies and the dominance of particular pedagogical discourses play a part in complicating inclusion and belonging for teachers. Dominant pedagogies in the early childhood sector often come from Western philosophical traditions, and were sometimes found to be used in a dogmatic way to determine the ‘right’ way to teach. Some teachers reported an insistent and unyielding adherence to the practices of a philosophy or approach in their settings, alongside an unwillingness to discuss other ways of being and teaching. In this case, teachers who come from different backgrounds with different experiences and worldviews can feel less welcomed and even excluded because they don’t use these ideal pedagogies or fit the image of the ideal teacher. However, when teachers hold tightly to dominant pedagogical practices without examining where they come from and who they serve, they close down spaces to know, be, and do things differently. Some teachers in the research expressed a belief that they had a sense of belonging, but at the cost of having to give up or silence some aspects of their identity.
Exclusionary practices were not often explicit, but subtle and often unintentional. These were sometimes framed as ongoing microaggressions towards teachers, such as in the constant correction of pronunciation, disregard for their ideas, or seemingly innocent questions about a teacher’s background and qualifications which communicated beliefs that some forms of preparation for being an early childhood teacher are less than ideal. Sometimes teachers with diverse cultural identities were strongly positioned within their cultural identity as a bridge between the centre and families of the same or similar culture, which created an impression that all they had to offer was their cultural understanding, and no other depth or richness of contribution to the centre.
Time and space (and perhaps skilled support) for coming together to explore these issues is important. The focus groups with teachers that formed the data source for this research were found to provide a forum for teachers to actually listen to each other’s experiences. For some teachers, this was an opportunity to articulate (maybe for the first time) what they were feeling and why, while other teachers had the opportunity to think about privilege and bias and how they might have benefited, or not, from the practices and ways of being in the early childhood sector. This finding suggests that more opportunities for teachers to come together outside of their immediate working environment, in which curiosity, empathy and willingness to engage in critical dialogue can be fostered, is crucial. As well as promoting understanding and relationships, such forums might also connect teachers in their political advocacy role regarding the structural arrangements of their work.
While relational pedagogies are commonly enacted for children and families, there is a need to extend those practices to relationships with colleagues and early childhood teachers across the sector, being curious about each other, asking genuine questions (without suggesting deficit), looking for moments of connection and agreement, while at the same time making space to retain differences. It is important to recognise that it isn’t always necessary to be able to understand, or to agree, and spaces for uncertainty can be valued as more important than the silencing of deeper differences that can’t (and don’t need to) be reconciled.
Narrative and storytelling can be a powerful strategy for building understanding and relationships between teachers. Sharing stories about one’s childhood, upbringing, family rituals and routines, cultural stories such as creation stories, and place-based connections was found to be an enjoyable way in which teachers listened to each other. It wasn’t focused on confrontation or on overcoming a problem, and enabled teachers to explore and understand their own and each other’s teaching philosophies, priorities, and pedagogies. This foundational relationship work helped teachers to understand themselves, and their position and relationships with others too.
Teachers should aim to move towards problematising the notions of the ideal early childhood teacher that they hold, not seeking to agree on any one version as ideal, but instead to create multiple versions of how early childhood teachers can be. This is important professional learning that has spin-offs for improving practice with children and families, and should be viewed as a necessity rather than a luxury. Without creating an ‘anything goes’ environment, it is important to create space for more openness, curiosity, and dialogue to find out how someone else feels and thinks, and what might be possible, loosening any unwavering commitment to particular concepts and beliefs, in order to better support teachers to hold positive pedagogical and cultural identities.
Further reading
Gould, K. (2023). The ideal early childhood teacher?Discursive constructions of professionalism in ECEC policy in Aotearoa. New Zealand Annual Review of Education, 29. https://ojs.victoria.ac.nz/nzaroe/article/view/9455/8367 [open access]
Gould, K., Boyd, J., & Tesar, M. (2023). Equity, inclusion and belonging for teachers in early childhood education in Aotearoa New Zealand. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 24(2) 176–188. https://doi.org/10.1177/14639491231152617 [open access]
