Despite the fact that high-quality preschool education is empirically acknowledged to facilitate short- and long-term personal, social, cognitive, and economic benefits, the professionals who teach preschool experience overwhelmingly poor working conditions that have historically been present as the role of childcare worker persisted throughout time. A contributor to these poor working conditions has been the gendering of the workforce--a reality that has often been justified with the perspective that women 'naturally' have caring instincts. However, those claims have been consistently contradicted and revealed that this feminization was historically centered on the commodification of breast milk--a concern that has since been mitigated by technological advancements. To address this issue in the field, this dissertation begins to provide contextualized descriptions of preschool teaching that are informed by the lived experiences of preschool teachers working in a high-quality preschool. Findings revealed that the work environment of the Lead Teachers "is" the immediate context that children are developing in and that in that context their role is to facilitate and engage the children in informed, intentional, and appropriate reciprocal interactions. This runs counter to the notion that high-quality preschool teaching and caregiving requires essentialized feminine qualities, instead highlighting how central social-emotional development is to early childhood education and care as well as how definitions and perceptions of quality need to be holistic and specific to the community context being served. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2222/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]