Professional curiosity in early childhood initial teacher education in england: unmasking pedagogical activism

My professional curiosity during my doctoral study led me to explore the pedagogical narratives of early childhood initial teacher educators (ECITEs) in England, from an insider perspective.

Teacher educators need to be able to draw attention to their teaching pedagogies whilst in the act of teaching (Murray and Male, 2005; Cochran-Smith, 2005; Lunenberg et al., 2017). This is challenging but necessary work (UCET, 2019). However, there are a lack of studies conducted by academics in initial teacher education in England (Wyse et al., 2018) and universally (Czerniawski, Guberman and MacPhail, 2017) because articulating pedagogical approaches is challenging to do (Loughran and Menter, 2019).

This research study is based on Bakhtin’s (1981) notion of language as a struggle between competing forces. ‘Carnivalesque’ (Bakhtin, 1984) was used as a playful device to disrupt the narratives of practice and explore pedagogical thinking.

In this narrative, interpretivist, social constructivist research, four ECITEs had three conversations each, to iteratively explore, re-evaluate and clarify meanings. These were audio recorded and transcribed for analysis where emerging pedagogical themes were identified.

An information sheet and consent form assured the participants that pseudonyms would be used and that they were free to withdraw at any time.

‘Pedactivism’ describes the pedagogical activism infused throughout the ECITEs narratives of teaching.

The findings suggest that a broader consideration of pedagogical approaches that embrace conceptualisations of teaching in early childhood initial teacher education are required.