Becoming-with inclusivity in early childhood education professionalism through multimodal visualization of classrooms

Abstract

Professionalism in early childhood education is increasingly understood as a dynamic, relational, and affective process that is responsive to diversity and inclusivity. However, how pre-service teachers conceptualize and materialize inclusivity, particularly through creative and material practices, remains underexplored. This posthumanist qualitative study investigates how 15 pre-service teachers in an undergraduate early childhood education program envision inclusive professionalism through multimodal practices, including classroom mappings, reflective journals, and interviews. The findings reveal that inclusivity is not simply adopted as a policy objective but is intra-actively reauthored through material, affective, and spatial engagements. The participants designed classrooms emphasizing sensory diversity, emotional responsiveness, and cultural representation, revealing professionalism as an embodied practice of care, creative resistance, and relational attunement. Rather than a fixed set of competencies, professionalism emerged as an ongoing negotiation between structure and imagination. These insights invite a rethinking of professional identity in early childhood education as an evolving, materially entangled, and ethically responsive becoming-with.