Pascale Camus

Men in childcare services: From enrolment in training programs to job retention

This article presents a study conducted in Federation Wallonia-Brussels (FWB) to identify factors that motivate men to enrol in training programmes and work in a field where women are the majority, in a context in which few proactive measures are taken to overcome gender stereotypes. Comprehensive interviews conducted with male childcare ‘informants’ who had been working with children under the age of three for at least a year in subsidised childcare centres helped us to identify factors which seemed to influence their decision to enrol in and continue an initial training programme with a curriculum that is not gender-neutral, and then work in a profession that is almost exclusively female.

Professional Development in a Competent System: An Emergent Culture of Professionalization

Workforce quality and professionalization in the field of early childhood education are widely considered to be a powerful lever in improving the quality of childcare services. This emphasis demonstrates the necessity of increasing the level of practitioner qualification across the sector and to revise both professional profiles and training curriculum in response to the complex demands of professional activity. Nowadays workspace is recognized as a potential learning space where individual, institutional, inter-institutional and political actions interact. This approach to professionalization is grounded in a theoretical and systemic view that recognizes different levels of responsibility in the development of professional and quality services. This paper presents different educational cultures observed today in the variety of training and professional actions in the Western World. It shows that changes in early childhood education could be understood as a signifier of the emergence of a new culture of professionalization where actions, actors, and environment undergo change simultaneously.