Early Career Scheme Award
Recipient for Prestigious Award
Professional Agency of Hong Kong Kindergarten Teachers Working with Socioeconomically Disadvantaged Children: A Phenomenographic Study
Funding Scheme
Early Career Scheme (RGC)
Funding Amount
HK$600,000
Awarded Year
2021
How kindergarten teachers can work better with disadvantaged children
There is increasing recognition of the complexity of teacher work in early childhood settings. Teachers have to make ethical decisions in their professional practices to meet the diverse needs of children, including those from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds or those who live in adverse conditions. This study adopts a phenomenographic approach to examining kindergarten teachers’ perceptions and experiences of their professional agency in their daily work. The data, collected through interviews with teachers from Hong Kong districts with high poverty ratios, presents alternative ways for those working with socioeconomically disadvantaged children to understand and optimize their professional agency.
Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. The research team contributes towards the following SDG(s):
The study argues that professional agency, grounded in caring ethics and social justice, is crucial to developing teachers’ capacity for ethical decision-making, not only to enable them to better support vulnerable children but also to more effectively negotiate changes in the influence of neoliberal policy on work environment. While this has been studied and discussed previously, the ways in which kindergarten teachers perceive, exercise and negotiate their professional agency in the face of a highly complex work environment remains largely unexplored.
This examination of professional agency in different socio-cultural and institutional contexts increases our understanding of teacher professionalism. it offers practical strategies that enable kindergarten teachers to overcome challenges and find new opportunities. It recommends ways to help policymakers and academics, especially those focusing on work with socioeconomically disadvantaged children, to improve early childhood teacher education and professional development.
Building on phenomenographic data, the study provides a unique account of professional agency from the perspectives of Hong Kong kindergarten teachers, increasing our understanding of what it means to teachers working with socioeconomically disadvantaged children and how they experience professional agency within different socio-cultural and institutional contexts. The study’s findings extend current research to investigate how kindergarten teachers negotiate professional agency in light of the increasing complexity of their own work and provide an alternative perspective from which to reframe teacher professionalism.
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