The Complexity of Early Childhood Teachers' Work: Temporal, Emotional, and Relational Demands

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session 5
  In Roundtable Session: Teaching Across Contexts: Meaning Making Across Complex Landscapes

Abstract

Scholars have paid much attention to elementary and secondary teachers’ work and time spent at their workplaces. Yet early childhood teachers’ work remains relatively invisible. Based on an in-depth, qualitative study of Head Start teachers’ work in the United States, this paper elucidates the distinctive nature and complexity of early childhood teachers’ work and their experience of changes in teacher roles and working conditions. This paper highlights pervasive emotional and temporal themes when teachers account for the relational demands currently made of them in performing caring work in the field of early childhood education and within the specific Head Start context. This paper contributes to the emergent literature on teachers’ work and time by specifying some promising lines of inquiry.

Authors

• Koeun Kim, New Mexico State University

• Ba-Ul Paul Chung, Seoul National University of Education