Enactments of Care in Early Childhood Education: Towards Inclusion and Transformation

There is a dearth of knowledge that considers how early childhood teachers working with young children interpret and enact an early childhood framework that does not explicitly make care practices visible. Following phenomenological interpretations of care, we argue that an understanding of care requires a focus on interactions and posit that an interaction becomes an instance where care relations are actualised and enacted. These care relations are situated within a framework of transformative pedagogy as they create conditions that support teachers and children develop their capacity as beings in relation with one another. This qualitative study formed part of a larger national project on transformative pedagogy in the early years. Using data derived from semi-structured interviews, early childhood teachers provided accounts of how they interpreted and enacted care practices through being and doing in ethical encounters with children. Data reveals that teachers are shaped by their own lived experiences of care as well as their own understanding of children and learning. Importantly, the contextual realities of their daily work produced teachers’ complex understandings of the agentic nature of the child. Findings have the potential to shift focus of care as embedded exclusively in pastoral care to an understanding of care practices as a relational activity that includes a combination of academic and care practices. This understanding offers a viable alternative to providing children with opportunities to meet their contextual needs. Equally, it locates the ontology of care as ethical acts that take place in interactions between teachers and children in early childhood settings.