Preschool Teachers’ Lives and Work

Robert V. Bullough Jr. is Professor of Teacher Education at Brigham Young University. He has received the Karl G. Maeser Research and Creative Arts Award for Excellence in Education from BYU and the Michael Huberman Award for Excellence in Research from AERA among other honors.Kendra M. Hall-Kenyon is Professor of Teacher Education at Brigham Young University. She has a Ph.D. in Human Development and Cognitive Studies from Teachers College, Columbia University.

"Preschool Teachers’ Lives and Work raises the curtains on a decade of Head Start reforms for the educators charged with their daily implementation. Drawing on a rich trove of interlocking observations, interviews and surveys, Bullough and Hall-Kenyon illuminate preschool teachers’ assessment of current policies and the impact on their practice and well-being. The authors use multiple theoretical perspectives drawn from psychology, organizational development, and social theory to challenge readers to examine their assumptions about issues such as the motivations of Head Start teachers and the team nature of preschool teaching in the context of these reforms. This is a provocative and essential read for all committed to improving early childhood policy and practice."—Marcy Whitebook, Director of the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, University of California, Berkeley, USA

• 1. Setting the Stage: ECE, the Teacher Workforce, and Head Start 2. Life History, Life Course, and the Problem of Family/Work Balance 3. The Intensification of Teaching: What is good teaching? 4. Teaming and Teacher Identity 5. Chronic Homelessness and Teaching at Hawthorne House 6. Building Family-School Partnerships: Challenges and Opportunities 7. A Woman’s World: Gender and ECE Teaching 8. Contested Professionalism: The Ethics of Care 9. Conclusion, Now What?