Table Of ContentSPRINGER BRIEFS IN EDUCATION
Wendy Boyd
Australian Early
Childhood Teaching
Programs
Perspectives and
Comparisons
to Finland, Norway
and Sweden
123
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Wendy Boyd
Australian Early Childhood
Teaching Programs
Perspectives and Comparisons to Finland,
Norway and Sweden
123
WendyBoyd
SouthernCrossUniversity
Lismore, NSW,Australia
ISSN 2211-1921 ISSN 2211-193X (electronic)
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Preface
This book presents a study into the structure, content and practices of early
childhood teacher preparation programs in universities across Australia, with
comparisons from three Nordicuniversities: Finland, Norway and Sweden. Within
Australia, investment has been made to develop a national early childhood work-
force strategy that focuses on the knowledge, skills and attributes of good quality
early childhood educators. Significant investment has been made to train the early
childhood educators, with attraction and retention of early childhood
university-trained teachers being a cornerstone to this goal. Yet, little is known
about the required structure, content and professional experiences within early
childhood teacher programs that best prepare early childhood graduates.
The book presents findings from a study that investigated academics’ perspec-
tivesoftheECTprogramsattheirrespectiveinstitutionstoidentifymodelsforECT
programs.Twenty-sevenAustralianacademics’perspectivesoftheearlychildhood
teacherprogramsarepresentedandcomparedtoacademics’perspectivesfromthree
Nordic universities. Recommendations arising from this investigation of early
childhood teacher programs are presented in the final chapter.
The target audience of this book are early childhood education academics;
decision-makers of early childhood teacher policy; researchers interested in
improving the quality and status of early childhood education; and assessors of
early childhood teacher (ECT) programs. The study considers theimpact ofpolicy
upon the academics’ decisions for the structure and design of the ECT programs,
and how policy influences the quality of the early childhood teacher program. The
book makes a key contribution to identifying the structures, content, professional
experience and recommendations for building the early childhood teacher work-
force within Australia.
Lismore, Australia Wendy Boyd
v
Acknowledgements
Theauthoracknowledgesthecontributionsmadebyacademicsfrom27Australian
universities and 3 Nordic universities who generously donated their time to be
interviewed for this study. Your wisdom, professional insights and time that have
been shared are greatly appreciated.
The author would like to thank colleagues and friends who have offered advice
and ideas on the way to proceed with the writing of this book.
vii
Contents
1 The Importance of Early Childhood Teacher Programs. . . . . . . . . . 1
Structure of the Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Aim of This Research. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
The Importance of Quality Early Childhood Teacher Programs . . . . . . . 2
Early Childhood Education in Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
History of Early Childhood Teacher Programs in Australia . . . . . . . . 4
The Quality of Early Childhood Education in Australia. . . . . . . . . . . 6
What Should Early Childhood Teachers Learn at University? . . . . . . 7
Attracting and Retaining Early Childhood Teachers:
The Status of Early Childhood Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Overview of Early Childhood Teacher Programs in Australia. . . . . . . 9
Early Childhood Education in the Three Nordic Countries . . . . . . . . . . 11
Conceptualising a Quality Early Childhood Teacher Program . . . . . . . . 13
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2 Research of Early Childhood Teacher Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Description of ECT Programs in Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Structure, Design and Delivery of ECT Programs in Australia . . . . . . 20
Structure of Professional Experience in Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
The Design and Delivery of Early Childhood Teacher
Programs in Nordic Countries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
The Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Research Aim . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Methodological Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Interview Procedure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Analysis of Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Ethical Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
ix
x Contents
Limitations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
3 The Quality of Early Childhood Teacher Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Early Childhood Teacher Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Data Collection and Analysis for This Chapter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
The Quality of the Early Childhood Teacher Programs. . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
The Structure of the Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Entry into the Early Childhood Teacher Programs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Entry via the Diploma of ECEC. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
English Language Standards for Entry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
The Quality of Teachers: Entry Changes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Professional Experience and Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Student and Community Approval . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Innovation and Social Justice of the Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
The Expertise of Fellow Academics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Delivery of the Course . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
University Fiscal Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Assessment and Accreditation of the Early Childhood Teacher
Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
The Status of the Early Childhood Profession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
4 Optimal Models for Early Childhood Teacher Programs . . . . . . . . . 59
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Data Collection and Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
The Optimal Model for Early Childhood Teacher Programs . . . . . . . . . 60
Structure of ECT Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Student Outcomes and the ‘Less Than’ Optimal Model of ECT
Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Nordic Academics’ Perspectives of the Optimal Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
Essential and Desirable in an ECT Program. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Australian Early Childhood Teacher Knowledge, Skills and
Dispositions in an Early Childhood Teacher Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
5 Professional Experience in Early Childhood Teacher Programs. . . . 79
Professional Experience in Australia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Data Collection and Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Requirements for Professional Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Structure and Duration of Professional Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Timing and Placement of Professional Experience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Contents xi
Quality of Placement on Professional Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Supervision Models of Professional Experience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Requirements of Professional Experience in the Nordic Countries . . . . . 89
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
6 Enablers and Barriers for Optimal Early Childhood Teacher
Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Enablers and Barriers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Support Within the University . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Financial Imperatives and Quality of the ECT Program . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Attitudes to Early Childhood Education and Care . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Program Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Teaching Online and Students’ Lives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
7 Quality Programs, Quality Early Childhood Teachers:
Conclusions and Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Overview of the Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
The Quality of Early Childhood Teacher Programs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
The Structure of Early Childhood Teacher Programs. . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Professional Experience. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Status of Early Childhood Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Delivery and Evaluation of the ECT Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
The Way Forward: Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Limitations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
