Globally and within Australia, there is heightened emphasis on early childhood education and care (ECEC) reform, Amanda McFadden, Chrystal Whiteford and Laurien Beane write.
Within Australia, a focus on the preparation of the early childhood workforce has received significant attention. Early childhood preservice teachers enact the policies that government and institutional discourses circulate around them, in effect positioning them as street level bureaucrats (Lipsky, 2010).
Even before graduation, significant attention is levelled at preservice teachers to contribute to complex policy agendas that require them to be both qualified and quality teachers. Research has shown that the policy and advocacy content of educational institutions has been lacking explicit teaching about advocacy to early childhood preservice teachers (Stegelin & Hartle, 2008) despite the inherent nature of advocacy in early childhood professionals’ work. Our research highlights there is a critical need for engaging preservice teachers in discussions about advocacy in initial teacher education and opens new possibilities for engaging in advocacy as they transition to the workforce.
The early childhood education and care sector comprises many services including long day care, family day care and occasional care. Around one million children aged birth to five years of age are using ECEC services each year (Australian Government, 2013). Twenty-eight percent of infants in non parental care, and 58% of two year olds in non parental care attend formal child care arrangements (Harrison et al 2009).
In 2017, there were 339,243 children aged four or five were enrolled in a preschool program (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2018), with 11,366 service providers delivering a preschool program. These programs were either in a stand-alone or part of a school (37%) or in long day care centres (63%). With increasing numbers of children attending prior to school contexts, early childhood preservice teachers are crucial in sustaining a quality ECEC workforce.
Advocacy requirements
Early childhood teachers have a history of being strong advocates and are well positioned to be advocates. Advocacy can be defined as actions that intentionally seek to influence outcomes that are in the best interests of children, families and educators, and promote children’s rights and social justice (Waniganayake et al 2017).
Advocacy and activism are an assumed and inherent part of the work of early childhood educators (Kieff, 2009). Advocacy has been associated with negating social inequities (Cheeseman, 2007) and engaging with advocacy can be done on several levels including personal, centre and community-wide strategies (Fenech, 2014).
The intent of the key policy documents guiding accreditation in ECEC initial teacher education programs are divergent, adding to the complexity of the initial teacher education landscape for early childhood teachers. There appears, within the suite of accreditation documents, to be a binary that, on one hand, pushes advocacy forward as an important part of early childhood professional practice in birth to five settings, and, on the other hand, shows apparent silences of advocacy in initial teacher education teaching programs in the early years of schooling.
Advocacy is currently positioned as the work of teachers in the lead career stage in school settings (Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership), and an element of Quality Area 7 in the National Quality Standard – Management and Leadership in prior to school settings (ACECQA, 2017). This raises questions about the place of advocacy for preservice teachers working towards graduate career stages.