Reconceptualising and (re)forming early childhood professional identities: Ongoing transnational policy discussions

Introduction

The current COVID-19 crisis has caused us to revisit some fundamental issues of teacher identity. As we write, the ground is literally shifting under the feet of the profession in what could not have been conceived as the future for early childhood education (ECE). In this paper, we outline some of the reconceptualisations and (re)formations of early childhood education and care (ECEC) and teacher professionalism that have been exposed in relation to this crisis, and to our earlier writing. Even before COVID-19 struck, evolving issues around teacher professionalism raised some critical questions: What has become of the professional ‘self’? Have we lost touch with a profession based on a fundamental ethics of care and encounter? What has happened to worthy wage and other campaigns focused on the well-being of teachers? Specifically, in light of these past months, what does this mean for (re)claiming a collective professional agency, in the face of diverse policy constructs, both during and after a world-wide COVID-19 pandemic?

This paper builds on our earlier writing where we asked what it means to be a professional teacher in the countries in which we were then located (Arndt et al., 2018). In that paper, teacher identities situated in neoliberal contexts were outlined and examined in relation to the notion of teacher selves being constantly in construction, using Kristeva’s philosophy of the self and the foreigner as a theoretical lens (Kristeva, 1991, 1998). Since our writing of that paper the uncertainties raised appear only to have deepened, exacerbated most recently by crises far beyond, but deeply affecting, the control of early childhood teachers, educators, pedagogues and casual staff, their teaching, their selves, and the children in their various types of early childhood settings. Despite the lack of control, current issues, and specifically the international grappling with COVID-19, nevertheless deeply affect those who are at the frontline of ECEC. In what follows we focus on our current countries, to revisit the dialogues on the professional teaching self in this current crisis. In what ways is the professional status of those responsible for teaching the youngest children in Australia, the United States, Ireland and Denmark being impacted? Two years on from our previous dialogue, we reconfigure some of the ways in which new turmoils enmesh with policy shifts, pointing out that teachers (and others engaged in the teaching profession in early childhood settings) ¹ struggle in intricate ways in their engagements with and support of communities and family members dealing with the impacts of bushfires, drought, devastating border and immigration policies and most recently the deadly COVID-19 virus and its possible mutations.

Describing a professional ECEC teacher is complex and difficult. Among the uncertainties elevated in our earlier writing was the unknowability not only of the policy and curriculum surroundings in each of our localities, but of the self. An element of not knowing has arguably been exacerbated by the concerns that have evolved since our dialogues from two years ago. A deep sense of the unknown foreignness of the teacher-self permeates and is continually re-affected by the unknown foreignness of the policy climate in ECEC and beyond. That teachers remain in constant and open construction at the same time places them in various states of political limbo. Today, as we struggle against the invisible spread of a virus that has gripped and crippled the world, teachers already located within oppressive structures must rapidly re-question, re-think and re-develop ways of being to establish what it means to be a professional teacher, and what it means to teach in the possibly infected systems within which they live and work. Here we continue the dialogue through the lens of our contexts, beginning with recent developments in Australia, with a focus on the state of Victoria.

Australia: ‘A Smart Investment for a Smarter Australia’

Even throughout the pandemic, the Australian ECEC policy context continues to be framed within economic investment discourses. The funding of quality early childhood provisions has narrated the promise of better educational outcomes, workforce participation, financial independence, and reduction in criminal activity, which in turn creates less burden on the government and society more generally (Pascoe and Brennan, 2017; The Front Project, 2019). In 2019 the Federal Government through the states and territories announced the introduction of 15 hours’ universal funding of three-year old preschool. Drawing from the Front Project (2019) report the Victorian State Government’s Department of Education is promoting this programme as a benefit for not just children but the community as:

For every $1 invested in early childhood education, Australia receives $2 back over a child's life – through higher productivity and earning capacity, and reduced government spending on health, welfare and crime. (Department of Education, 2020)

The claims and arguments about the importance of the early years for future outcomes for children and society, and the necessity of highly qualified early childhood professionals to ensure quality programmes, continues to remain silent on the employment conditions of the professionals who are seen as the lynchpin for these outcomes. This raises the question about the distribution of investments in ECEC and the effects on the construction of professional identities. Placing children at the centre of economic investments that are focused on future productive citizens remaps discourses of early childhood professional motherhood. The colliding of expertise and high qualifications with early childhood professional motherhood discourses goes without critique. These contradictions play out at the site of policy, where strategic plans promote the importance of ECEC and the role of early childhood professionals, yet there is no discussion related to such issues as increased salaries and non-contact time for curriculum development and government reporting requirements (Department of Education and Training, 2019). Early childhood teachers’ professional identities continue to be tied up and tied down in understandings of women’s work. Caring and supporting young children to grow and develop continues to be predominantly undertaken by women, and calls for increased qualifications are mitigated by the naturalisation of women’s ‘work’, as the role remains understood as ‘natural’ and ‘normal’ for women. Maternal rewards become the norm, where emotional satisfaction is expected to be enough, over monetary expectations (McDonald et al., 2018). McDonald et al. (2018) report little difference in ‘educator pay rates under the Children’s Services Award 2010 and the Australian national minimum wage of $17.29 per hour before tax’ (Fair Work Ombudsman, cited in McDonald et al., 2018: 3).

The first preschools were introduced in Australia in the 1880s and philanthropic women became engaged in saving children from poverty and creating better outcomes. Today little has changed in the focus on intervention into children’s lives as a way to produce more productive citizens for the state. The expectation that early childhood professionals should be philanthropic in their employment remains dominant, as teachers predominantly work for low salaries and unpaid extra hours to complete administrative and planning tasks for compliance with state regulations and national quality standards. What is concerning is that these discourses could continue to play out for another 140 years, unless action is taken. But what are the risks for professionals, who are often already in insecure, casual and part time employment? How do educators advocate for better conditions and affordability for families? Shifts in conditions and respect for Victorian, and Australian, early childhood professionals could change with a reconsideration of early childhood funding, for example by bringing it under the same model as primary and secondary schools.

Denmark: An ambiguous new national curriculum and fight for better staff–child ratios

In Arndt et al. (2018) the historical context of the Danish kindergarten (preschool) and its professionals was briefly outlined: traditionally preschool has been seen as something different from school. Hence the word kindergarten – and not preschool – is used in Denmark ² . The institutions grew as a system of care rather than learning. Consequently, professionals working in crèche and kindergarten are not termed teachers but pedagogues and are educated at institutions separate from teacher education. It should be added that 40% of the staff in kindergartens and crèches are assistants without formal education relevant to the field. Traditionally, Danish kindergartens have been Froebelian and play oriented, but in the last decades we have seen a heightened though not unequivocal focus on learning. This move towards learning has been met with ambivalence by pedagogues as it on the one hand heightens the prestige and visibility of the profession, but on the other hand it is at odds with the Froebelian ethos and points to pedagogues’ subordinate position vis-à-vis school and its teachers.

An emphasis on learning in the national curriculum has been highly problematised by pedagogues since its introduction in 2004. With a recent thorough revision of the preschool curriculum (Børne- og Socialministeriet, 2018) the focus has seemingly shifted towards a more play-oriented curriculum, but still with a heavy emphasis on learning (Ellegaard and Kryger, 2020). Generally, this new curriculum has been well received by pedagogical professionals. It is however worth noticing, that although the new 2018 curriculum gives latitude for professional discretion, its magnitude and level of detail is larger than that in prior curricula (Ellegaard and Kryger, 2020). This may lead to a reduction of the pedagogues’ everyday decision-making – whether that is going to be the case remains to be seen.

There is, however, another issue that has recently been at the forefront of public debate and policy: a struggle for binding national minimum staff–child ratios, fuelled by programmes on national television revealing appalling conditions in specific institutions. As will be discussed at the end of this section both issues have contributed more positively than could be expected, but they also present challenges to the pedagogical profession. Historically, staff–child ratios have been determined locally. No national standard has existed, or even been hinted at. Rather, ratios have by and large been determined by local municipalities, and have until a few years ago not been monitored by Statistics Denmark. But researchers that have monitored the trend since the mid-1980s (Glavind and Pade, 2017) point to both a gradual reduction of the staff–child ratio by approximately 20%, and a concurrent reduction of the proportion of more or less the same amount of time that staff spend in direct contact with children. The cause of the reduction in the staff–child ratio is mainly due to a combination of developments in municipal financing and increased demands for documentation. Pedagogues for years have been voicing their concern about this development without much resonance. However, before the Danish national election in June 2019 a spontaneous and powerful parents’ movement sprang up. The issue was a prominent one in the public debate leading up to the election. Groups of mostly parents were active in meetings and public debates culminating in demonstrations in 57 Danish towns and cities with up to 100,000 protesters (Hvor er der en voksen?, 2019). After the election, a minimum staff–child ratio has become part of the written government platform. Although this is stated in general terms and many issues concerning the decided minimum issue remain unclear – for example, what is the exact minimum going to be and will it be a minimum for each institution or at a municipal level – the finance bill for 2020 contains additional national financing.

The minimum-ratio-movement has mostly been driven by parents of preschool children, but pedagogues have also been part of it, and it raises significant issues for them. First, it is significant that the movement all in all has led to an increase in the status of pedagogues. This is interesting as it is not self-evident: part of what has mobilised parents were the programmes on national television, which showed appalling situations in a couple of crèches and kindergartens, with professional adults not caring for or even scolding small children. That might just as well have led to a critique of pedagogues, but this has in fact hardly been the case. On the contrary, these examples have broadly been used as arguments for both a higher number of and more educated professionals. Secondly, it is interesting that the whole ratio issue by and large has been a discussion about care and wellbeing. The parents’ movement mentions ideals such as ‘calm, security; time for care, presence and comforting; play and being together’ (Hvor er der en voksen?, 2019). Hardly anyone – parents or pedagogues – have, in connection with the ratio issue, complained that children do not learn enough. This is in contrast with the massive political and administrative pressure for increased learning mentioned in the beginning of this section. It is also an indication of the continued dominance of a care-oriented and play-oriented preschool sector and professionalism (Ellegaard and Kryger, 2020). Thirdly, and more challenging: the minimum ratio issue has had a clear-cut focus on the number of adults in crèches and kindergartens. This is clearly illustrated by the name of the movement’s website that literally means ‘Where is there an adult?’ (Hvor er der en voksen?, 2019). But, as mentioned at the beginning of this article, there has hardly been any increase in the proportion of educated staff for several decades. Paradoxically, increasing the ratio or installing a minimum ratio may lead to a decrease in the proportion of educated staff, due to the fact that salaries are lower for non-educated staff. So, comparatively municipalities with better staff–child ratios tend to have a lower proportion of educated professionals.

United States: ‘Power to the Profession’ (P2P)?

ECEC in the United States continues to be a fragmented patchwork of mixed private and public systems comprising local, state and national programmes with different funding sources, goals and standards (Allenand Backes, 2018; Allen and Kelly, 2015). While an extended discussion of this fragmentation is beyond the scope of this article, it is relevant to note that the majority of child care in the United States is private, with parents directly paying 60% of what the United States spends on ECEC (Cochran, 2007). This ‘system’ further comprises: (a) a national means-tested (i.e., eligibility based upon having a low-income) child care subsidy for both centre-based and qualifying home-based care; (b) Head Start, a means-tested child development programme intended to address race-based and class-based educational disparities; (c) nationally-mandated preschool services for children with qualifying dis/abilities which are provided by local public school districts; and (d) state-funded preschools which might include a combination of any of the preceding three, depending on the individual state (Nagasawa and Swadener, 2020).

‘Power to the Profession’ is a recently launched initiative led by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) focused on a vision that, ‘Each and every child, beginning at birth, has the opportunity to benefit from high-quality early childhood education, delivered by an effective, diverse, well-prepared, and well-compensated workforce’ (National Association for the Education of Young Children, 2020). The NAEYC states that its purpose is to develop a ‘unifying framework of professional guidelines’ (National Association for the Education of Young Children, 2016: 1), that it has organised a ‘national task force’ and that it is informed by representatives from an additional thirty-five organisations with ‘systems-level influence’ on ECEC (National Association for the Education of Young Children, 2020: para. 9). The NAEYC calls this initiative a ‘profession-led dialogue’ and a ‘movement’ (Evans Allvin, 2017) consisting of eight ‘decision-cycles’ defining: (a) the profession (cycle one); (b) its ‘knowledge, skills, and competencies’ (cycle two); (c) professional preparation (cycles three–five); (d) adequate compensation (cycle six); and (e) ‘accountability structures, resources, and supports … to build and sustain the profession so that it reflects the diversity of the young children it serves and reduces the impact of structural barriers such as institutional racism, sexism, classism, elitism, and bias’ (cycles seven and eight) (National Association for the Education of Young Children, 2020: para. 7). The histories of professionalisation in two comparative fields, nursing and architecture, are used as examples of ways these fields became professions with better pay and recognition. Despite attempts by the NAEYC to engage members of the ECEC profession in the P2P initiative through a range of consultative means, questions linger: Who has been involved in this ‘movement’? In what ways? Who has not been included? Because of a paucity of detail in the P2P materials about who is participating, when, where, and how, we fear that the initiative risks making a mistake, as Freire cautions against, ‘…in their desire to obtain the support of the people for revolutionary action, revolutionary leaders often fall for the banking line of planning program content from the top down’ (Freire, 2004: 94).

During a focused conversation that Swadener held with staff of the Association for Supportive Child Care (an organisation that she has worked closely with for over 15 years) on professional development and increasing educational requirements, colleagues raised several issues. For example, one discussed the shame felt by many in ECEC about their lack of a college degree, ‘It makes you question yourself.’ But there was also defiance, ‘Where is the research evidence that a degree always makes a better teacher?’ Another argued that formal education is a necessary step to ECEC taking its place – after years of seeking recognition – among other professions, with another adding, ‘As an employer, we have to expect a degree and have the backbone to fight for quality in our field – though there are exceptions including hiring with understanding they will complete a degree within five years.’ The group discussed injustices involved in requiring college degrees in order to perform a job one already has, with one comrade adding, ‘backbone means fighting for what’s right,’ especially with the enduring issue of low pay – and few signs of that changing – in the face of increasing educational requirements being imposed on the field (Bassok, 2013). Others added the important critique about P2P and similar efforts, ‘applying centre-based research to all places or contexts [which] misses the point,’ given the substantial numbers of child care providers who provide care in their homes. The agency’s leader commented, ‘We are putting the cart before the horse in requiring degrees for many in child care – we need to be honouring the profession and respecting their experience!’ She added that, ‘It may even be irresponsible to demand a degree at current wages.…’ The discussion turned towards the need for more creative ways to approach the credentialing emphasis in current policies and quality standards, including providing more individualised, job-relevant training, versus more general, formal education. To the issue raised earlier of requiring credentialing for jobs that one is already doing, they pointed out the need for alternative approaches to weighing prior experience and non-degree credentials – particularly the specialised skills of language, culture and community membership.

The group also discussed other professions where college degrees are not required, such as firefighters and emergency medical technicians. They also raised the example of those working in technology fields in which know-how, passion for the work, and flexibility may be keys to success that are not always acquired through the process of earning a degree. Still others argued that women with degrees but less experience in the field also brought valuable knowledge to the table – and all agreed that having the commitment, temperament, and passion for the ECEC field was important, no matter one’s credentials. One staff member, who works with kith and kin providers (family child care providers who operate outside of any government oversight) brought the discussion to a powerful close, reflecting, ‘The “ought” is awesome – we ought to have more professionalism and degrees - but where’s our line in the sand with equity – including pay?’ If these kinds of lively, complex dialogues are a part of P2P, they are not apparent in the NAEYC’s materials. As Nagasawa and Swadener (2020) argue, transforming the conditions that constrain the workforce are as critical and often more urgent than transforming the work force of practitioners in early childhood. An influential report of the Board on Children, Youth, and Families, Institute of Medicine, National Research Council (2015), ‘Transforming the Workforce for Children Birth through Age 8: A Unifying Foundation,’ focused on connecting existing systems, creating new ones, and improving professional development, efforts that are largely focused on transforming individuals. For a profession long-oppressed by sexism, racism, classism, xenophobia, and ableism, however, the focus must also be on transforming systems in revolutionary ways – ways that materially benefit members of the workforce and the diverse children and families they serve.

There are hopeful examples of initiatives that are taking on all of these issues through ‘Grow Your Own’ partnerships between community-based organisations, two-year, and four-year colleges that either support working ECE professionals or recruit community members and parents into ECE to intentionally create a racially, ethnically, culturally, and linguistically diverse workforce. These partnerships include the revolutionary acts of rethinking traditional admissions criteria (e.g., grades) to include indicators of competency such as years of experience or skills such as bilingualism, providing students with mentors, blending in-person and online education, working with students’ employers to help encourage their support (Zinsser et al., 2019), and offering on-site cohort programmes for indigenous teachers. While these efforts are a start, to become even more revolutionary there is more reflective action to be taken, including remembering the field’s revolutionary past.

While professionalisation can ‘misguide’ people, Freire reminds us that professionals engaged in humanising action are a necessary part of revolutionary change (Freire, 2004: 158). Our concerns about P2P stem from its top-down structure, subtle ECEC professionals-as-empty-vessels assumptions, and the decisions made by its leaders to emulate other professions, without honouring the field’s historical strengths (Nagasawa and Swadener, 2020). While it may be that NAEYC is considering all of these issues, this is not readily apparent in the initiative’s materials, and it is not safe to assume that someday, once the profession is more established and recognised, gender, racial, social class, and other inequities will be addressed. To borrow Evans Allvin’s call to action, ‘early childhood educators must come forward to define the early childhood education profession’ (Evans Allvin, 2017).

The ECEC staff have lost jobs as centres have closed due to COVID-19 and at least half of child care providers responding to a national survey (National Association for the Education of Young Children, 2020) fear that their programmes could not afford to re-open. Some (Blank, 2020), predict a collapse of the current ‘system’. When or if programmes re-open, providers will have to absorb the hidden costs of meeting updated public health and safety guidelines, including smaller group sizes. Providing child care for ‘essential workers’ raises issues of safety – both for teachers and children – and pay equity, as child care providers are also essential. The United States Congress is considering US$150 billion of funding for the sector, but that is not assured. Joe Biden who was elected President of the United States on 7 November 2020, has put forward a plan that includes a major national investment (US$700 billion) in the sector and which calls for respect for those working in care professions and better compensation for ECEC staff.

Ireland: ECEC in crisis?

It is no exaggeration to say that the ECEC sector in Ireland is also in crisis. A system which has struggled for many years is fast reaching breaking point. On 5 February 2020 over 30,000 early childhood workers (mainly women), parents and children took to the streets. It was a unique show of strength from a sector bludgeoned and burdened with increased regulation and policy demands which have had expediential negative implications for service provision and for the workforce. In 2009, a seminal policy action saw the introduction of the free preschool year or Early Childhood Care and Education scheme (Department of Children and Youth Affairs, 2009/2016), which offers three-year olds access to funded preschool hours, and was extended to two years in 2016. While offering 15 hours free ‘childcare’ to parents per week, this welcome policy action has brought with it an increase in state regulation and increased administrative expectations against a backdrop of persistently inadequate state investment. The ECEC sector up until the early 1990s was seen as a private matter that was relatively absent from the policy agenda (Murray, 2017). With an increasing demand for women to join the workforce, supported by European Union funding (Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform, 2000), the state moved to bring together a disjointed sector, dominated by a market for-profit approach. Urban (2018) has long argued for ECEC as a public good, a position which has gained some traction with academics and ECEC advocates for change. This position remains a challenge though for both private providers and the state, albeit for differing ideological reasons. Current investment falls short of providing a public system as it represents just a quarter of a percentage of Ireland’s gross domestic product (GDP) in contrast to the internationally accepted level of 1% GDP ( European Commission, 2015; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2006).

The Department of Children and Youth Affairs and Department of Education and Skills are the lead departments for ECEC policy development. However, Walsh (2016) has identified ten government departments which the ECEC sector engages with to meet state criteria and ensure compliance in areas ranging from planning to protection. Despite the introduction of well-intentioned measures to improve funding, inspection, and training for the sector, it would appear that the policy process is diametrically opposed to its own ‘quality agenda’ for systemic improvement (Urban et al., 2011 , 2012). As the ECEC sector began to creak under the strain of ongoing demands, ancillary issues emerged which added to the strain. Early childhood services were required to re-register with the state Child and Family Agency for maintaining standards, Tusla, by a 19 December 2019 deadline. This involved major administrative work, with no additional funding from the state, and came at a time when the services were also grappling with a new National Childcare Scheme ³ (Department of Children and Youth Affairs, 2019). Then, in December 2019 the largest insurer of ECEC services pulled out of the market, leaving the sector grappling to find affordable insurance (Loughlin, 2019). Prior to this an undercover investigation by the national public broadcaster of Ireland, Raidió Teilifís Éireann found that children were being mistreated in a service and that ‘approximately one-in-four crèches across the country have been classified as 'high risk' by the Child and Family Agency Tusla’ (Hegarty, 2019). This number was disputed by Tusla; however, the stigma associated with this revelation, in addition to an already under-resourced, over stretched and stressed sector, mobilised the sector to demand change.

In Ireland, an early childhood educator earns an average hourly rate of 11.46 euro. The legal minimum wage is 10.10 euro per hour. This rate of pay is considerably below the living wage. Their conditions leave workers in very precarious working situations. This is in contrast to their counterparts within the public primary system who in general have secure, salaried and unionised conditions (Murray, 2017). An undervalued and exploited sector means that ECEC educators make legitimate choices to leave the sector, creating a staffing crisis. None of this is in the interests of children. The top down approach and lack of consultation by government was recently exemplified when it emerged that the new Whole-of-Government Strategy for Babies, Young Children and Families: First 5 ( Department of Children and Youth Affairs, 2018) had changed the name of the sector to Early Learning and Care without any consultation.

The multitude of concerns and layers of regulation indicate that the Irish system in its current form is equally failing children, families, educators and society. It needs a complete overhaul which needs to begin now. What might this mean for the sector? As it stands there are many disparate voices claiming to represent the sector, and new groups continue to emerge. While many came together under the umbrella of an ‘Early Years Alliance’ to march for change, there was little evidence of a cohesive and collective voice beyond the legitimate demands for pay increases, better work conditions, sustainability and increased government investment. Under these circumstances, it is difficult or near impossible for the sector to build a professional, individual or collective identity. There is undoubtedly a need for a coordinated plan which includes a clear vision for the future development of the sector – a road map for comprehensive change. One recent collaborative initiative undertaken by the Association of Childhood Professionals (ACP), Services Industrial Professional and Technical Union (SIPTU), and PLÉ, the Irish Association of Academics in Early Childhood Education and Care in Higher Education, is the establishment of a working group to explore the establishment of a professional body for ECEC. Their aim is to support a collective voice and the development of a shared professional identity within the ECEC sector (Early Childhood Education and Care Professional Body Working Group, 2019).

An ethics of socially distanced care and encounters

Our contexts are not necessarily representative of all countries, but they show up some similarities. In each context there is an urgent need to facilitate a collective approach and a coherent voice to ensure systemic and equitable policy development for the future sustainability of the sector. As we collate our conversations, Nagasawa and Swadener’s (2020) questions of professionalism and early childhood practitioners are of relevance: Why and how did professionalisation transform into credentialism? Who is defining these things? Who benefits from naming who is and is not an ECE professional (and who is harmed in this process)? What ideologies inform these judgements? What are taken for granted, pragmatic assumptions in the field today that narrow the aims and vision of the future of ECEC, threatening both the field and children’s right to childhoods? How does this relate to the United States socio-economic context, and further, to the wider contexts in Australia, Denmark and Ireland? In our earlier shared writing Butler’s (2005) work informed our conceptualisation of subjectivity and identity as multi-layered, critical and intersectional, and as never outside of current and historical societal (power) structures. That is, teachers’ professionalism and professional identity is always shaped ‘in relation to, and in struggle with, these structures’ (Arndt et al., 2018: 100–101).

These examinations outline just some of the struggles that shape early childhood teacher identities. They include not only with the daily realities within their pre-COVID-19 policy environments, but those incurred by ever-stricter regulations for social distancing, closures, prevention measures and recurrent waves. Already imbued with ‘increasing government involvement and influence’ (Fenech and Lotz, 2018: 19), the diverse aspects outlined illustrate that teacher professionalism is multifaceted, equally calling for systems level advocacy and action, at the same time as it plays out in local, on the ground performance and responses, such as high teacher turnover, and a ‘lack [of] professional status, … low wages and intensive working conditions’ (Fenech and Lotz, 2018: 19). They elevate the ethics of teaching, as care, within the encounter and within the conceptualisation of physical and mental wellbeing of the community, within and despite contemporary structural and policy conditions in each of our unknown ‘new normalities’.

Undoubtedly, historical positionings shaping the situations in the above country-specific insights could create opportunities, as teachers are forced to re-question, re-search, re-conceptualise and re-form their professional identities. How can we not only see but utilise as professional freedom, what is emerging in the sheer necessity for a new ethics of care and encounters, with which teachers must approach each day right now as we attempt to redetermine what will be the new pedagogical and policy contexts (Freire, 2004)? In what ways could early childhood teachers in the everyday realities, where distance interferes with traditional forms of comforting, where traditions are becoming uprooted to protect those in early childhood settings from the invisible COVID-19 virus, redefine themselves and their work in the ruptures to the existing policy dialogues (Arndt, 2017)? What is the dramatic and urgent re-search for a new ethical and moral grounding of the profession and of teacher identity?

Where to from here? Preliminary thoughts on professional identity in crisis

We started this transnational conversation as one way of trying to come to terms with the crisis of individual and collective professional identities in our field, ECEC. Coming to the conversation from different places – geographical, political, theoretical, and professional – we identified common lines of thought, concerns, and possibilities for reconceptualisation and collective action. Our analysis was grounded in the realisation that the education of young children, as a professional practice, is inevitably local and tied to the concrete situations in the here and now, as a matter of global concern that requires and provokes shared thinking across boundaries. In a separate piece, published in an edited collection on globalisation and culture in ECE (Faas et al., 2019), Urban argues that the connection between the local and the global, the individual and the collective in our field opens up new possibilities: bridging the local and the global enables us to enter into a third space of utopian thinking. The encounter between our specific locals in a shared global provokes new imaginaries: (U)topos, the desirable and necessary but not-(yet)-there can be brought about by our engagement with the multiplicity of (Eu)topoi, the many concrete ways of doing things differently that are already in existence (Urban, 2019a). Moss (2014) explores real utopias in ECE, a term pointing to the work of sociologist Erik Olin Wright (1947–2019) (Wright, 2010) which sketches a road map from the sheer desirable over the viable, to the achievable, grounded in social empowerment, democracy, and experimentation. If one thing is for certain –and not many things are –it is that ECEC as a field, a professional practice, and academic trans-discipline (Urban, 2012) is good at bringing into existence the new. Utopia is what we do – we will come back to this.

A lot has happened since we began our transnational conversation. At the time of writing this article , the entire world is affected by a global pandemic. ‘We went to sleep in one world, and woke up in another’ is the opening line of a poem by an unknown author that circulates on social media, reminding us that we humans are ‘guests, not masters’ of a planet that will be fine without us (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5QOvNNE73I). As the immediate and long-term implications of the pandemic for humanity are beginning to emerge, we (early childhood professionals and scholars) too are faced with existential questions pertaining to who we are, and will become, in the new reality in consequence of the crisis. What are these questions, as far as we can tell now, and what can our responses be – always tentative – at this stage? Two strands are beginning to emerge; each with distinct but interconnected implications for individual and collective professional identity in ECEC.

First, the pandemic has brought to the fore that ECEC is an essential public service. The closure of services in many countries (including countries represented in the transnational conversations in this paper) has exacerbated the crisis on many levels. It has left ‘key workers’ without childcare support, making it difficult if not impossible for them to fulfil their vital roles on the ‘frontline’, in hospitals, supermarkets, and other critical infrastructure. Early childhood services, it turns out, cannot easily be provided online. The effects of the sudden disappearance of crèches and preschools have been worse for children from the most marginalised and vulnerable groups as it deprives them, among others, of nutritious meals and a safe space outside the home. While countries are still coming to terms with the reality of the crisis, it is already becoming clear that the transition to a new normal once the immediate wave of infections has passed, will depend on a functioning ECEC system. But there will be stark differences between the realities that countries will emerge from after the pandemic. Countries that rely heavily on a private-for-profit childcare ‘market’ will be left with a decimated early childhood system (at best). Without state intervention on an unprecedented scale services will ‘go out of business’ for good, risking the collapse of the entire system. In terms of sustainability and the capacity to cope with existential crises, the advantage of systems that regard early childhood as common good and public responsibility has gained new visibility.

Examining government responses to the pandemic, political commentator Fintan O’Toole observes ‘In the management of a crisis, two things matter: people and systems’ (Irish Times, 28 April 2020) (O’Toole, 2020). If he is right (we believe he is) this has far reaching consequences for our self-image as early childhood educators and professionals. Facing a post-COVID-19 world, the fundamental question of professional identity shifts from the individual who am I? and the collective who are we as early childhood educators, to who are we in relation to the whole: society, the system, the world? As always, different sides to the argument will emerge, as will contesting answers to the question. State intervention (which we are beginning to see in some of our countries, such as Ireland and Australia, for example) may well open opportunities for a transition from a dysfunctional childcare ‘market’ to a public system. It might also, as an unintended consequence, undermine fledgling professional autonomy and self-determination (Urban, 2018, 2019b).

Second, beyond questions of early childhood systems and our individual and collective role in shaping them, lie questions of purpose, ethics, and fundamental values. Whatever the outcome of the current pandemic, we will not go back to where we were before. The status quo ante as a possibility, if that was ever desirable, has finally disappeared amidst the ‘complex intersolidarity of problems, crises, uncontrolled processes, and the general crisis of the planet’ that Edgar Morin (Morin, 2018; Morin and Kern, 1999) identified as ‘the number one vital problem’ (Morin and Kern, 1999: 74) of our age. Questions that arise for our individual and collective professional identities are questions of survival (as individuals and as humanity on a finite planet) rather than narrow questions of educational achievement, early learning ‘domains’ and their predetermined outcomes, or ‘readiness’ for a school system that persistently refuses to ready itself for children in a changing world. As we enter the third decade of Morin’s ‘New Millennium’ we finally (a deliberate choice of term) will have to come to terms with a world where uncertainty, unpredictability, and the likelihood of existential global crises (reaching from climate catastrophe to recurring pandemics), are the determining parameters. The debate about professional identity in our field has (if only recently) begun to reorient itself around an Ethics of Care (Noddings, 2003). It has now become a matter of survival that we extend this to care for ourselves, for each other, and for the planet in one ethical and professional framework. The underlying question we, as professional educators will have to engage with is what should we be educating for?

Conclusion – Utopia as necessity and method

Returning to the theme of utopia, on the basis of our above local/global conversations, we should embrace the inherent capacity of ECEC to work the imaginary, and to act in the here and now in order to bring about change for the future. We cannot allow ourselves to be discouraged by self-proclaimed realists who continue to present yesterday’s solutions to today’s problems. As Colum McCann reminds us in his 2006 novel Zoli, ‘the reason life is so strange is that we have simply no idea what is around the next corner, something most of us have learned to forget’ (McCann, 2006: 223). This should become our collective professional motto, our coat of arms, as we engage with children, families, communities and societies in our various roles and responsibilities. Critical pedagogy has long recognised the potential and necessity of utopian thinking in education (Giroux, 2003; Halpin, 2003). Perhaps we should now, inspired by Ruth Levitas (2013), embrace utopia as our method of choice and of the future, where working towards what is not yet there is a collective necessity and precondition for survival. To quote Paulo Freire, Utopia is neither ‘an impossibility that might, at times, work out’, nor unreachable fantasy. Rather, it is ‘a fundamental necessity for human beings’ (Freire, 2007: 25).

Postscript

As alluded to in the country-specific sections above, the world has changed since we began the conversations in this paper. The global pandemic has disrupted ECEC services in all of our countries and regions. COVID-19 has brought explicitly to the fore that ECEC is an essential public service whose sudden disappearance has made countries’ immediate crisis response more difficult: unreliable or non-existent childcare for ‘key workers’ has become a critical issue. Entering the public and political consciousness is now the realisation that the post-COVID-19 ‘re-starting’ of economies will be impeded where societies are unable to rely on a functioning early childhood system. In Denmark, paradoxically, the crisis-triggered focus on childcare needs has led to a substantial improvement in staff–child ratios. In Australia a government subsidy has enabled free ‘care’ for children of essential workers. In both Ireland and the United States, the over-reliance on private-for-profit services – chronically underfunded and with precarious working conditions for staff – carries the risk of collapse of the entire sector. While in the United States many services may be unable to re-open, in Ireland, the government has intervened to pay salaries of educators of closed-down services to ensure availability post-COVID-19. All of a sudden, the state has been reminded of its central responsibility for ECEC, either providing subsidies to the ‘market’ (Australia and the United States) or seriously contemplating transition from a private to a public system (Ireland). The questions raised here of the purpose of ECEC, of children’s and educators’ rights, and of the role of the profession have only become more relevant than ever, in the transition to a post-COVID-19 world.