Learning cultures for a diverse early childhood education workforce

Overview

This cross-national project seeks to understand the relationship between professional learning needs, workforce cultural diversity due to inward migration, and quality improvement policies in early childhood education in Australia, Singapore, and South Korea. As educators move between cultures (either through migration or through more localized job changes within countries), the early childhood sector faces the challenge of how best to capitalize on the opportunities offered by increasing workforce diversity. A distinctive gap in knowledge in relation to workforce capacity-building internationally is the professional learning needs of early childhood educators to support effective transition across countries and cultures, and the impact of this capacity building on delivery of high-quality programs for children and families. The project began in 2020 with policy analysis (published in Nuttall, et al., 2021) and interviews with migrant early childhood educators in the three participating countries.

Chief Investigator

Professor Joce Nuttall   

Research Partners

Professor Sue Grieshaber (Latrobe University)

Professor Yun Eunju (Sookmyung Women’s University, Seoul)

Associate Professor Sirene Lim (Singapore University of Social Sciences)