Because of thương: Listening to the voices of Vietnamese early childhood educators

Abstract

This paper explores the self-authoring of two early childhood educators in Vietnam’s disadvantaged areas, Ha and Dong, to understand their marginalization and resilience in their daily practices. Guided by a Bakhtinian view, teachers’ self-authoring is conceptualized as an ongoing process in which the teachers articulate authoritarian discourses, and integrate them with their ideas to develop their internally persuasive discourses—their own knowledge of themselves as professionals. Data was collected via semi-structured interviews and photo elicitation; and analyzed in parallel with Bakhtin’s theoretical concept of self-authoring and the post-structuralist feminist approach. The findings represent the political, social, and gendered discourses addressing and being addressed by the preschool teachers. The study suggests that compassion and devotion to work for children contribute to the teachers’ making sense of their professional roles. This paper calls for a need to center the voices of Vietnamese early childhood teachers in policy-making, teacher training, and research practices, towards educational sustainability.