Date of Award
2024
Degree Name
Doctor of Education
Schools and Centres
Education
First Supervisor
Professor Dee O'Connor
Second Supervisor
Associate Professor Cynthia à Beckett
Abstract
The National Quality Standards (NQS) are the key means of assessing quality in early childhood education in Australia. In Western Australia, teachers in schools are expected to implement a modified NQS from kindergarten to Year 2 (K–2) that has been specifically developed for school settings, hereafter referred to as NQSWA. Like other early years educators, K–2 teachers in Western Australia are required to demonstrate adherence to approved learning frameworks and to value young children’s ideas, interests and opinions. These educators need to demonstrate that each child is afforded agency and that they are given the opportunity to make choices and decisions that influence events in their world.
This research used hermeneutic phenomenology to explore the lived experience of early childhood educators’ pedagogical agency and how this impacts their ability to provide children with agency. Data were collected through a focus group, observations, document collection, semi-structured epistemic interviews and journalling from a cluster of schools in south-west Western Australia. Data analysis used an inductive deductive design, identifying new and emerging themes, and expanding and developing the initial conceptual framework derived from the literature. The research found that the provision of child agency is dependent on early childhood educators’ experiences of pedagogical agency, which is impacted by their conceptualisation of agency and the elements of context, culture and community that support or impede their agentic practice. While experienced practitioners in kindergarten and pre-primary enact their pedagogical agency to provide child agency, the research identified that Year 1 and 2 teachers struggle with the complexities of enacting their agency because of an array of curriculum and environmental constraints. This research makes recommendations for strengthening support for early childhood educators’ pedagogical agency at macro, meso and micro levels.
Publication Details
Omodei, C. M. (2024). Do we have Agency? Early Childhood Educators' Experience of Pedagogical Agency in Providing Child Agency [Doctor of Education]. The University of Notre Dame Australia. https://researchonline.nd.edu.au/theses/431