What does being a professional early childhood educator entail? This paper aims to address this question. Starting from the early 2000s, there has been increased attention to workforce professionalization in the early childhood education and care sector across OECD nations. Against the backdrop of recent early childhood workforce…

Framing professional learning as a social practice underscores the interplay between subjective meaning systems and objective conditions of the social space where learning occurs. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's theory of social practice, and methodologically guided by critical realism, the paper identifies what constitutes effective teacher…

The issue of continuing professional learning for educators in the early childhood education and care sector is in the spotlight in Australia due to the government's reform agenda, which seeks to professionalize the workforce. In an effort to ensure quality programmes are on offer for all children, educators are expected to upskill. The assumption…

This paper presents preliminary data from a mentoring program, initiated in response to widespread Government reform policy that targeted early childhood teachers who were new or professionally isolated. It was implemented over a period of two years (2011-2012) in the state of Victoria, Australia. The paper focuses on the voices of these future…

This paper reports on the findings of a study conducted with a group of early childhood education undergraduate students. The study trialled a number of guided reflection techniques that acted to stimulate and provide a structure for reflection. These techniques were further supplemented by focus group discussions based on reflective principles,…