Education matters in the nurturing of the beliefs of preschool caregivers and teachers.

Publication: Early Childhood Research & Practice

Publication Date: 22-SEP-02

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COPYRIGHT 2002 ERIC Clearinghouse on Elementary and Early Childhood Education

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between educational background and the philosophical orientation of early childhood educators who worked as caregivers and teachers of preschoolers, ages 3 to 6 years, in one midwestern state (Indiana) in the United States. Specifically, the highest level of education attained by the early childhood professionals and their educational background (whether specific to working with young children or not) were compared to their self-reported beliefs about best practice with young children, using developmentally appropriate practices (DAP) as the philosophy for comparison. A comparison of factor analyses from this study and from studies conducted by Charlesworth and colleagues in 1991 and 1993 indicate clear similarities. A significant, positive correlation was found between level of education and self-reported DAP beliefs scores, and results from 2 x 3 ANOVAs of the three factors that emerged from these data indicate that professionals with a bachelor's degree or higher more strongly adopted DAP as a philosophy overall than colleagues with less education, whereas coursework specific to working with young children was found to be significant only in the case of beliefs related to child-initiated learning. Thus, in general, participants with 4 years of college or more, even if in an unrelated field, held stronger DAP beliefs than those with less education, even if that education was directly related to working with young children. The article suggests that more research needs to be done to examine whether a 4-year degree may be most desirable in terms of ensuring better-qualified preschool teachers. The article also discusses the implications of this finding for policy and advocacy in the field of early childhood education.

Introduction

Early childhood education professionals in the United States possess diverse qualifications--a diversity that is considered a distinctive, if not celebrated, feature of the profession (Hyson, 2001; Saluja, Early, & Clifford, 2001; Wise & Leibbrand, 1993). Does this diversity in the background and preparedness of early childhood caregivers and teachers matter? Current research confirms findings from the past two decades that teacher qualifications significantly affect the quality of care and education provided to young children (Bowman, Donovan, & Burns, 2001; Lazar, Darlington, Murray, Royce, & Snipper, 1982; Oden, Schweinhart, & Weikart, 2000; Phillips, Mekos, Scarr, McCartney, & Abbott-Shim, 2000; Schweinhart & Weikart, 1999; Whitebook, Sakai, Gerber, & Howes, 2001) and that higher qualifications in preschool children's caregivers and teachers contribute to more positive short- and long-term outcomes for these children (Kontos & Wilcox-Herzog, 1997, 2001; Whitebook, Howes, & Phillips, 1989).

Despite all of this evidence from research about the importance of the qualifications of the professionals who work with young children, currently, at any given preschool or child care program at any given location in the United States, we are still likely to find the following extremes in the caregivers and teachers:

* Some have earned college or graduate degrees, while others possess a high school diploma or its equivalent.

* Some have studied early childhood education or child development, while others have not.

* Some have a great deal of experience working with young children, while others do not.

Another aspect of this reality is that preschool caregivers and teachers with or without education beyond high school, with or without specialized coursework or training for working with young children, and with or without experience in the field tend to be compensated similarly and to be recognized as equals among early childhood professionals (see, e.g., Krajec, Bloom, Talan, & Clark, 2001). The diversity of qualifications among early childhood professionals may negatively affect the quality of care and education received by children, the working conditions of professional staff, and the way that early childhood professionals are perceived in our culture.

At the same time that we tolerate such variation in the qualifications of our professional workforce, there is much agreement among early childhood scholars and practitioners about what content knowledge in preservice and inservice training and education is "best" for our caregivers and teachers, at least philosophically. There is general acceptance that preschool curricula and environments built solidly upon the principles of developmentally appropriate practices (DAP) ensure high quality for young children, and thus, currently, the values related to DAP as a philosophy (Bredekamp, 1987; Bredekamp & Copple, 1997) permeate most 2- and 4-year undergraduate early childhood education and child development professional preparation programs in the United States (Dunn & Kontos, 1997). In fact, DAP philosophy is the very foundation upon which the Child Development Associate's (CDA) credentialing courses are built.

Developmentally appropriate practice is not without its critics, however. Whereas some of the profession's leaders such as Charlesworth (1998) assert that, "DAP is for everyone," others argue persuasively that, despite its emphasis on cultural appropriateness, DAP is not "appropriate" for all children in the United States (see, e.g., Cannella, 1997; Swadener & Kessler, 1991; Mallory & New, 1994; O'Brien, 2000). Some of the critics assert, for instance, that multicultural education that relies simply upon the cultural appropriateness described in the 1997 DAP philosophy statement, or even as expanded in so-called DCAP (developmentally and culturally appropriate practices), reinforces stereotyping, does not acknowledge the unique capabilities of individual children, and, ultimately, fails to promote healthy self-identity in children. In particular, the harshest critics of DAP point out that it is a philosophy developed by predominately White, middle- to upper-middle-class people of Western European descent, and that, as such, it favors children from parents within the already privileged classes, thus maintaining their positions of power within U.S. culture.

However, there are no definitive answers and too little evidence to date from the research about how much and what kind of education most fully prepares early childhood educators to work in this field. There have been, however, several notable and theoretically sound efforts to suggest the nature of, and the direction in which we should head, in the restructuring and design of our preservice and inservice professional development programs (see, e.g., Horm-Wingerd & Hyson, 2000).

Thus, admittedly, we still have much to learn and much more to discuss as a field about what teaching beliefs and practices (DAP versus other innovative practices versus more traditional methods, etc.) lead to optimal outcomes for young children, information that would have huge implications for recommended preservice and inservice education of caregivers and teachers. There is, however, another fundamental unknown for teacher educators and all those who prepare or train preservice and inservice teachers: we do not clearly understand the mechanism involved in the adoption of and then the transmission of beliefs about practices into actual classroom behaviors. This process is very complicated and as yet not fully understood (see McMullen, 1997, 1998). We cannot claim with confidence, for instance, that specialized professional development, in which preservice and inservice professionals have been steeped in DAP, ensures that caregivers and teachers will internalize these beliefs, and that their beliefs then become principles upon which they build their practice, design their learning environments, implement curricula, and assess student learning and development.

We have, however, made progress in identifying many factors that have been found to influence the philosophical beliefs adopted by caregivers and teachers (Buchanan, Burts, Bidner, White, & Charlesworth, 1998; Hao, 2000; McMullen, 1999). Educational background is one such mediator of beliefs in early childhood that has been identified in the research and should be studied more closely because it can influence policy, teacher education reform, and advocacy initiatives. Educational background, in this context, refers to both the level of overall education and the type of coursework or content covered during that education. Some studies in the literature conclude that the overall level of education attained is the most significant educational background factor in the adoption of a DAP philosophy (Kontos...

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