Developing early childhood educators with diverse qualifications: the need for differentiated approaches

Many countries have a diverse early childhood education and care (ECEC) workforce, comprising educators with a range of qualifications and backgrounds. This diversity creates challenges for professional development, as educators with different qualifications (including university degrees and vocational qualifications) may have different strengths and challenges in developing their professionalism and practice. Using descriptive data from three large-scale Australian surveys, this study examines how educators with different qualifications also differ in other ways. It groups the differences between educators according to the three dimensions of learning and development in Australia’s ECEC curriculum framework – being (who they are), belonging (how they feel), and becoming (their learning and development trajectories over time) – which are important components of educators’ learning and development, just as they are for children’s. The results show that groups of educators with different qualifications differ in many aspects of their being, belonging, and becoming; including socio-economic status; previous experiences of learning; commitment to the ECEC sector, and enjoyment of their work. Each group, therefore, faces specific challenges and opportunities in their professional development. The study calls attention to the need for responsiveness to the diversity of early childhood educators in professional development and ECEC policy, in Australia and elsewhere.