Visions 08 sec 2.qxd - Centre for Early Childhood Development ...

Mirror, Mirror, On The Wall: Reflections Of The Early Years Professional 125Eraut (1994) identifies the training and education that typifies professions, such as aperiod of time for learning the 'trade' and enrolment on specialist training courses. Theincrease in Early Childhood Studies degree courses available at Higher EducationInstitutions reflects the wider opportunities now available for training and developmentat higher levels for the early years workforce.Some key themes emerging from literature relating to professional identity wereterminology (related to what name the workforce is known by); social policy and theeconomy and its impact on childcare and education (thus the workforce too); training,qualifications, education and continuing professional development; and issues of gender,status, power and relationships.MethodologyDocumentary analysis offered potential as a research method to explore text in thecontext of the above themes and prevailing discourses at different points in time. Fealy(2004) undertook discourse analysis relating to nurses in Ireland. He revealed how thepublic discourse was influenced by culture and socio-political influences, from his analysisof nursing periodicals from the 1920s to the 1980s. Fealy (2004: 649) sought text relatingto "what nurses were doing and saying, including evidence of professional debate." Thismethod offered a line of enquiry in the search for equivalent discourse relating to earlyyears professionals. Language used in the context of the early years workforce set in achronological context could illustrate changes in policy development."Discourse is a form of power exercised by particular social groups; discourse decides'who' speaks and what they say, for no one has the right to say anything. …Hencepower and knowledge are joined. As social practices put knowledge to work, it is thediscourses that produce truth" (Swingewood, 2000: 197).Sources that provided historical documentary evidence of discourse pertinent to the earlyyears workforce were selected, with the aim of asking the following key questions of thedocuments:1. What terms are used to identify members of the early years workforce (who are notteachers)?2. What levels of training, qualifications, type of employment, knowledge,understanding and skills and personal qualities are explicit or implicit within thedocuments?3. What discourse relates to status, gender and power?DiscourseIt became apparent that the sources located for the earlier decades had scant mention ofthe early years workforce, other than teachers. Such a paucity suggests an invisibility, and