Promoting culturally sensitive teacher agency in Chinese kindergarten teachers: an integrated learning approach

Gao, Jie; Xu, Yuwei; Kitto, Eleanor; Bradford, Helen; Brooks, Clare

Abstract

As increasingly more Chinese kindergarten teachers attend continuing professional development (CPD) based on pedagogies of international early childhood education and care (ECEC), it is imperative to explore how to address the well-documented rhetoric/practice dissonance that teachers fail to enact what they learn from CPD to enhance their everyday practice. We used a CPD workshop based on English play-based pedagogy as an opportunity to collect first-hand data from Chinese kindergarten teachers through pre- and post-workshop questionnaires and semi-structured interviews at six-month follow-up, in order to shed light on characteristics of effective CPD provision. The findings suggest that CPD based on international ECEC pedagogies should endeavour to promote Chinese kindergarten teachers’ agency at both collective and individual levels by providing integrated learning that aims at enhancing capability and reflexivity in cultural integration, that is, to integrate international pedagogies with culturally acceptable practices under the regimes of cultural and sociopolitical norms in Chinese ECEC system. Characteristics of integrated learning are proposed. To promote culturally sensitive teacher agency in CPD for Chinese kindergarten teachers has profound implications on building a quality workforce in Chinese ECEC.

Citation

Gao, J., Xu, Y., Kitto, E., Bradford, H., & Brooks, C. (2022). Promoting culturally sensitive teacher agency in Chinese kindergarten teachers: an integrated learning approach. Early Years, 42(1), 55-70. https://doi.org/10.1080/09575146.2021.1901661

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 8, 2021
• Online Publication Date: Apr 16, 2021
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2022
• Deposit Date: Sep 28, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 29, 2021
• Journal: Early Years
• Print ISSN: 0957-5146
• Electronic ISSN: 1472-4421
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 42
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 55-70
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09575146.2021.1901661
• Keywords: Teacher agency; integrated learning; continuing professional development; international early childhood care and education; culturally sensitive
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/6345832
• Publisher URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09575146.2021.1901661