Policy and the Lived Experiences of Pre-Kindergarten Teachers

• In Event: Early Childhood Policy Challenges

Abstract

This paper examines the lived experiences of pre-K teachers. It is an ethnographic study of how a new public pre-K policy, which was infused with particular notions of professionalism, came into contact with teachers’ daily work, experiences within their institutions, and prior conceptualizations of what it means to be an ECE professional. Drawing on critical policy frameworks, I analyze how the policy worked to “make sense of teachers” (Ball et al., 2012, p. 14) and how three focal teachers navigated this space where policy, institutional context, and professional identity intersected. I demonstrate how the experience of being “made up” by policy was different for each teacher because policy intersected with their backgrounds, prior experiences, and institutional contexts in divergent ways.

Author

• Bethany Wilinski, Michigan State University