“The Professional I Am”: California Preschool Teachers’ Agency and Meaning Making Across Policy Contexts

• In Event: Teacher Identity and Agency in Racially and Politically Contested Contexts

iPresentation URL: https://aera24-aera.ipostersessions.com/Default.aspx?s=73-A6-24-E9-1A-8A-E1-B3-FF-71-47-36-44-F8-89-3D

Abstract

This paper examines the understudied perceptions and experiences of early childhood educators in California. Life history interviews of six teachers working in differently-funded preschool programs were conducted to better understand the lived experiences of the ECE workforce. This study theorized education policy and labor as processual and situated in a racialized and gendered political economy. Despite variations in program context and teacher preparation, the teachers shared remarkably similar conceptions of their work, suggesting a professional ECE ethos shared through practice. This common purpose undergirded teachers’ descriptions of agentic meaning-making and resistance to political and organizational encroachments on their working conditions and professional autonomy – encroachments that may intensify as California works to further standardize early education in the state.

Author

• Micah Card, University of California - Santa Cruz