“Love Is All You Need”…Discursive Constructions of Professional Identities in Early Childhood Education and Care

• In Event: Theoretical and Discursive Rethinkings in Early Childhood Education

Abstract

Australian university-qualified early childhood teachers can include child care as a career option. Many of these pre-service teachers are reluctant to consider child care as a career pathway. One pre-service teacher described work in child care as: “You have to really love what you’re doing to put up with the conditions”. This paper is a partial account of a larger research undertaking which investigated the productions of early childhood teacher identities. The research considered two key questions. First, how is child care spoken into existence? Then, how is work in child care spoken into existence? Using a Foucauldian discourse analysis, the research identified a number of competing, colliding and ironic categories that provide new readings into early childhood teacher identities.

Author

• Megan Gibson, Queensland University of Technolgy