Teaching dilemmas and workplace relations: Discretionary influence and curriculum deliberation in child care

Across Australia each day early childhood teachers take responsibility for the quality of experiences of increasing numbers of young children enrolled at kindergartens, preschools, long day child care centres, and limited hours and occasional care centres. The qualifications held by early childhood teachers are an indication that they have the knowledge and skill that will enable them to work effectively with groups of young children, co-creating curriculum that is educational, enjoyable and relevant to each child. But many teachers now work in places where they are one segment of a large workforce, working alongside adults with other responsibilities.

This thesis focuses attention on the knowledge needs of early childhood teachers working within the employment relations of contemporary child care centres. Although there is a substantial body of literature examining the adult work environment of child care little attention has been directed to understanding exactly how teachers interpret and act within this environment and how both professional and workplace responsibilities feature in their curriculum decisions. Indeed, attempts to do so are hampered by discipline boundaries that offer few conceptual tools necessary for examining how both professional and workplace responsibilities feature in teachers' curriculum decisions.

This thesis focuses throughout on the question: How do teachers' experience connections between professional and workplace responsibilities? To address this question three sub-questions were posed: How do workplace relations enter into teachers' curriculum decisions? What strategies do teachers use to influence curriculum decisions? and, What do these strategies tell us about teachers' use of workplace resources? Concepts derived from industrial relations literature are used to bring a new lens to the study of teaching and advance our understanding of factors that early childhood teachers attend to when deciding curriculum. In particular, the concept of discretionary influence is used to highlight the impact of the social milieu of decision-making and illuminate the dynamic processes involved in reaching agreement about appropriate practice.

The research built on insights gained by researchers studying teaching from teachers' perspectives (Clandinin & Connelly, 1992; Elbaz, 1983; Halliwell, 1995a; Johnstone, 1990; Lampert, 1985). This research tradition assumes that teachers can manage uncertainty and aims to capture and portray their complex, situated knowledge about what it means to teach. In keeping with this tradition this thesis focuses on how teachers deal with the teaching dilemmas arising at the intersection of professional and workplace demands. Long-term qualitative study with four teachers working in various position at two Queensland child care centres led to the construction of theory grounded in teacher perspectives on practicing in the workplace. On the basis of analysis of the ongoing dilemmas experienced by the collaborating teachers three issues were selected for in-depth study. These were professional concerns about curriculum coherence - encompassing notions such as consistency of approach, relevance and continuity of care - and workplace relations concerns regarding the temporal organisation of work and the extent of adult interaction.

There are two core findings. The first is that workplace relations are enmeshed in teacher decisions not simply as constraints on practice, but also as resources that can be mobilised to teach effectively. Teachers draw on workplace resources to realign problematic elements of practice and achieve core purposes of early childhood education in different ways. The second finding is that discretionary influence over curriculum decisions is a key workplace resource. Deciding curriculum in child care inevitably involves teachers in intensive interaction with other adults. This includes people whose positions give them the power to make key decisions affecting curriculum philosophy and practice and those whose work in contact with children gives them influence over the realisation of centre philosophy. Teachers' ability to exercise discretionary influence over other adults is a function of the position they occupy in the centre hierarchy and is also intimately connected with their perceptions of themselves in relation to those with whom they work. Teachers find they need to be skilled negotiators to create and maintain the conditions necessary for education to take place.