Professional identities and practices of Hong Kong child care workers in changing landscapes /

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Student Theses

2023

Yu, Jiashun

Thesis

Early childhood services in Hong Kong have been situated in a peripheral position of the education system. What is less understood as part of the millennial education reform is the momentous production of a new split system of early childhood services that has led to the marginalisation of the child care sector. After a long silence, the release of reports concerning child care services and the recent passage of the government’s motions of purchasing premises to increase the provision of day child care centre services has signified the government’s intention to address the underdevelopment of the child care sector. However, professional identities and practices, the core of the teaching profession, remain under-researched in child care workers in day child care centres. Adopting the post-structural perspective and a qualitative approach using interviews and document review, this study investigated child care workers’ professional identities and practices shaped by the changing landscapes of early childhood services and how teacher education helps in their constructions of professional identities and practices. Specifically, the new split system, early childhood care and education as a caring profession and neo-liberal technologies of accountability, parental choice and operation flexibility, were identified and examined as some of the changing landscapes that have much significance to child care workers’ professional identities and practices in the post-harmonisation period. The study first argued that the babysitting discourse has been reproduced constantly to marginalise, devalue and disempower child care workers and their work. Perceiving themselves as edu-carers, the study’s child care worker participants struggled to distance themselves from the babysitting image and simultaneously expressed their genuine joy under the new split system of the early childhood services. Furthermore, three discourses, i.e., “the caring child care worker”, “the performative child care worker”, and “the entrepreneurial child care worker”, were commonly found to coexist and compete across institutions to shape the professional identities and practices of child care workers. Being offered different subject positions, these child care workers actively positioned themselves to negotiate their professional identities and practices. Finally, it is argued that initial teacher education has developed from a technicist approach to an advanced technicist approach but still offers limited help to develop child care workers beyond babysitting. The study has provided the missing piece of early childhood services in Hong Kong to fill the research gaps identified from both local and international literature. This can be used to inform policymakers, early childhood researchers and teacher educators about the future development of the child care sector and possible ways to professionalise the workforce

LG51.H43 Dr 2023eb Yuj

https://educoll.lib.eduhk.hk/records/bvGJHPgE