Professionalism in early childhood teaching: A posthumanist perspective

Professionalism in early childhood teaching is shaped within contexts, relationships, and multiple discourses of professionalism, as well as historical and enduring maternalism. This article uses posthumanist ideas from Deleuze and Guattari to reframe professionalism as produced in relationships among human and other-than-human aspects of early childhood settings, including materials, theories, and regulations. This article unpacks two data excerpts from a research study into emotions in early childhood teaching. I suggest that early childhood teachers could explore creative ways to enact professionalism as complex, fluid, shifting processes negotiated within everyday happenings, rather than properties contained within human individuals.