Foregrounding teacher experiences in professional learning: addressing challenges in early childhood education

Understanding the challenges teachers face when participating in professional learning and development is critical to supporting their participation in, and implementation of, new learning. However, studies about challenges affecting early childhood teachers’ professional learning experiences in Asian countries when multiple educational initiatives are often expected are scarce. We report from a post-intentional phenomenological study that explored Chinese early childhood teachers’ experiences of professional learning and development. By analyzing semi-structured interviews with teachers, policy documents, observations of teachers’ learning and teaching, and the lead author’s research journal, we found teachers’ professional learning and development were challenged by three issues. First, educational values underpinning professional learning initiatives sometimes lacked consistency, leaving teachers confused about which initiatives to implement. Second, the expectation that teachers would integrate multiple educational initiatives simultaneously into existing practices made implementation difficult. Third, hierarchical relationships existing between leaders, professional learning providers, and teachers hindered teachers’ proactive participation in professional learning and implementation. We argue that inconsistent educational values, concurrent implementation of multiple professional learning initiatives, and power-over relationships in Chinese early childhood education make teachers’ professional learning complex and challenging. Foregrounding teachers’ experiences in professional learning through understanding these complexities can help them respond to these challenges.