Providing quality early childhood professional development at the intersections of power,race,gender,and dis/ability

Abstract

Quality professional development for a diverse early education and care workforce has been a priority in policy reform agendas. This issue points to the need to address quality professional development for this particular workforce, across varied childcare settings, which takes into consideration the complex experiences and intersecting social positions of these individuals. This colloquium reports on a case study of part-time childcare staff’s experiences as the researcher implemented an on-site professional development program at an area childcare center. Post-structural perspectives and Black feminist thought were utilized as epistemological and analytical tools to highlight how power discourse and the intersecting subject positions (gender, race, and dis/ability) of particular participants influenced both the implementation of and access to quality professional development within the given context.

Quality professional development for a diverse early education and care workforce has been a priority in policy reform agendas in the USA and abroad. Thus, numerous countries have established professional development initiatives to meet this demand (Buysse et al., 2009; Dahlberg et al., 2007; Martinez-Beck and Zaslow, 2006; Moss, 2007; Osgood, 2012). For the purpose of this article, I have adopted the definition of “professional development” as “activities that develop an individual’s skills, knowledge, expertise and other characteristics as a teacher” (OECD, 2009: 49). The content of professional development can incorporate a study of theory and pedagogical and subject matter knowledge, and allow participants to engage with this material within a localized collaborative community and individually (DuFour, 2001, 2004; Hyson and Biggar, 2006).

In US contexts, most early childhood professional development models are state-initiated, and continue to include one-time workshops and training from outside agencies. Therefore, inconsistent conceptions and expectations for training such a diverse workforce continue to exist, particularly for those working in childcare centers serving children aged six weeks to five (Brandon and Martinez-Beck, 2006; Buysse et al., 2009). A significant percentage (28%) of childcare workers are young, inexperienced adults who have had little to no formal training in early childhood education or child development and care (Rodd, 1994; Whitebook et al., 2016). This population often assumes the position of teacher assistant in center-based childcare. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (n.d.), teacher assistants “work under a teacher’s supervision to give students additional attention and instruction.”

Further, the social identities of the childcare workforce are also diverse. Over 92% of the wider childcare workforce are women; almost 40% are from historically marginalized minority groups; and approximately 8% are men. These demographics point to the need to address quality professional development for this particular workforce across varied childcare settings that respectfully takes into consideration the complex experiences and intersecting social positions of these individuals, and how this impacts their roles in education and care situations (Maxwell et al., 2006; Sheridan et al., 2009).

In this colloquium, I discuss US childcare center teacher assistant staff’s experiences as they participated in a context-specific professional development program, and the ways that interlocking social positions impacted their daily work activities and perceived job performance.

Researcher subjectivity and theoretical framework

For seven years, I worked at the childcare center as one of the full-time preschool lead teachers. During my transition out of childcare and into academia, I was asked by the center’s administration to work in collaboration with the teacher assistants’ supervisor to develop and implement on-site professional development for these staff that would support them in their work in classrooms.

Being a Black female, former lead teacher, and researcher offered multiple lenses that I could draw on to make sense of the research. Each of these identities became important in particular situations and, at other times, posed conflicts within the same situations (Riger, 1992). I considered how my race, gender, age, experience, and so on intersected with those of the teacher assistants. I was in a place of privilege, occupying a space in which I could view both the lead teacher and teacher assistant perspectives.

For these reasons, I chose to employ post-structural and Black feminist perspectives (Collins, 2000; Crenshaw, 1991, 1997; Foucault, 1977) as epistemological and analytical tools for understanding how power, race, gender, and dis/ability created complex intersections that upheld privilege within the context, while perpetuating interlocking forms of oppression for the marginalized group(s) represented by the participants (Crenshaw, 1991).

Conducting research in and on my own context offered opportunities to explore the taken-for-granted situations of my former everyday work life (Fonow and Cook, 1991). By acknowledging my positionality within this study, I was able to make sense of my own life stories, and to understand how my personal and professional politics influenced the research process, data analysis, and findings of this study (Takacs, 2003).

Methods

Research context and participants

The local context and teacher demographics of the center are important to consider for this nine-month institutional-review-board-approved case research. The center was located in a middle-class community, situated on the campus of a major public university. The facility had eight classrooms and served approximately 130 families with children aged 18 months to 6 years. The families included university faculty, administration, staff, students, and community members. Twenty-three full-time and part-time teachers and administrative staff members held entry-level or advanced degrees in early childhood education or a related field. Approximately 44 part-time teacher assistants supported the teaching staff and administrators. These employees, who were students of the area university, were integral to delivering care to children and meeting ratio requirements. One employee with a background in counseling served as the supervisor of the teacher assistants. All of the teacher assistants were invited to participate in seven researcher-led workshops. Twenty-two employees agreed to participate in the professional development opportunities and this study.

Data collection and analysis

The data collection methods included audio and video recordings of seven professional development workshops, semi-structured interviews with four participants, documented informal conversations, classroom observations, and analysis of the center’s curriculum and faculty/staff policy documents. I purposefully selected four interview participants: one White female with two years of experience at the center as the teacher assistants’ supervisor; two Black female teacher assistants who were new to the center; and one White male teacher assistant with a hearing impairment with over two years of experience at the center. These participants adequately represented the lived experiences of these particular staff and the wider demographic of the early education and care workforce. My research sought to address the following guiding question: How do teachers’ aides within this context experience their jobs on a daily basis?

I employed a multilayered approach to analyze the study’s data that included multiple readings of the data, the construction of analytic memos, coding, thematic analysis, text analysis, and the use of connecting strategies. The data revealed that the full-time teaching staff identified seven teacher assistants as being in need of consistent surveillance of their job performance and/or disciplinary action: six females and one male. Five of these staff members were Black females, one was a White female with a physical impairment, and one was a White male with a hearing impairment. These issues were directly related to the intersections of power and power dynamics, race, gender and dis/ability, and these employees’ access to meaningful professional development.

Findings

Power and power dynamics

Power is a social construction that circulates in our actions and relationships between people. It is negotiated in our daily interactions and can be shifted and exchanged across and within groups (Foucault, 1977; Mac Naughton, 2005; Mills, 1997, 2003). The various adult groups within the center inherently produced a hierarchical power structure. This had a direct impact on the teacher assistants, who were the most vulnerable of those groups. The participants experienced increased surveillance and regulation of their work through a newly instituted disciplinary action plan and mandatory mentoring program alongside their participation in the seven workshops (Foucault, 1977). This finding suggests that the distribution of power and power dynamics produced inequities for these particular participants as it intersected with their gender, racial, and dis/ability locations.

Race

Black American women experience racism and other forms of oppression in their daily lives. This can occur in social and workplace situations (Collins, 2000). The full-time staff’s failure to recognize these experiences, while subjecting these five women to a homogenized professional development intervention as disciplinary action, perpetuated particular injustices (Crenshaw, 1997). This finding suggests that institutions can further compound inequities when they fail to recognize racial positioning and its impact on this group.

The intersection of gender and dis/ability

Current literature confirms that the highly gendered and racialized childcare workforce demographic further complicates the politics of ableism in the wider education institution (Collins, 2000; Hehir, 2005; Osgood, 2012). For two participants, their female and male gender identifications worked with their physical impairments to create an unjust view of their ability and motives to perform their jobs. Males challenge masculinity, as did the participant in this study, when they enter the early childhood workforce, particularly within childcare contexts. This finding suggests that taking a critical stance on this issue can invite a much needed disruption of sex-stereotyped and ablest views in early childhood (Sumsion, 1999, 2005).

Discussion

Skilled adult learning facilitation, collaborative relationships, and mentorship are key components of any site-based professional development model (DuFour, 2001). Mentoring as a professional development strategy can be successful if implemented from a proactive stance rather than a disciplinary action for perceived poor job performance. Job-performance-related issues among these employees included strict and authoritarian child guidance practices, a limited capacity to carry children, access to diapering, and excessive time spent with particular male children. Two of the seven employees were involved in a formal disciplinary action process, with one resulting in dismissal. Six out of the seven teacher assistants attended at least one part-time employee workshop as part of the study. These staff members did receive mentorship and detailed guidance. The concerns brought forth about these employees were related to the full-time staff’s perception of their ability to care for children. The administration and full-time teaching staff took up the deficit discourse that negatively affects under-represented children and families, and applied it to the personal and professional lives of these seven employees, who are also members of marginalized groups (Fennimore, 2008; Swadener and Lubeck, 1995).

Conclusion

The implications of this study further substantiate the need to conduct research into the lived experiences of this particular workforce sector. Studies that highlight the intersectionality of social and professional identities, the roles that early childhood practitioners play in the de/professionalization of this sector as a result of deeply embedded personal and/or professional biases, and the development, implementation, and effectiveness of culturally responsive early childhood professional development models are critical (Osgood, 2012; Sheridan et al., 2009). These issues are directly related to the discourse of quality in the care and education of young children within diverse contexts. Utilizing post-structuralism and Black feminist thought as both political epistemologies and analytical tools in early childhood research and practice can reveal how our field continues to place our largest demographic of workers on the margins in professional development policy and the daily education and care of young children (Moss, 2007).