Abstract
This paper critically examines the parallels of devaluation encountered by early childhood educators and sessional faculty members in Ontario as reflective praxis. The three authors’ experiences are diverse and include a tenured professor and two sessional faculty members, both ofwhom have worked in the field of Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). The narratives of the authors inform the concerning trend of precarity and devaluation embedded within two polarizing spectrums of the Ontario educational landscape: Post-Secondary Education (PSE) and ECEC. Although these aforementioned areas of education rarely intersect, the authors centre them on the frontline of the neoliberal assault on education transpiring in Ontario today. The three authors self-identify as female settlers; two have doctoral degrees; one has an MA and is an early childhood educator (ECE). One author self-identifies as a racialized and white-coded cis-gendered woman, and two selfidentify as white, cis-gendered women. All of the authors have worked in Ontario’s post-secondary landscape, one as sessional faculty member and then a tenured professor, and two as sessional faculty members. The paper will problematize the neoliberal assault on higher education and ECEC through a Feminist Political Economy (FPE) conceptual framework in order to draw on the multifaceted ways femAtlantis Journal Issue 40.1 /2019 46 inized discourses devalue the work of ECEs and perpetuate the overrepresentation of women, particularly racialized women in precarious faculty positions.
Highlights
Across Ontario, the devaluation of women’s labour has become increasingly evident among two rarely compared but interrelated fields of education: PostSecondary Education (PSE) and Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC)
This paper critically examines the parallels of devaluation encountered by early childhood educators and sessional faculty members in Ontario as reflective praxis
Social, and economic underpinnings that characterize the intersectionalities of oppression, including race, gender, social-economic status, that emerge to frame experiences of women’s participation in the labour force. While women in both sessional and tenured professoriate positions are expected to take on additional unpaid labour, including mentorship and guidance roles, women working in ECEC are discursively constructed as natural caregivers and substitute mothers (Bezanson 2017; Moss 2006; Nair 2014)
Summary
Across Ontario, the devaluation of women’s labour has become increasingly evident among two rarely compared but interrelated fields of education: PostSecondary Education (PSE) and Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). In the ECEC context, persistently low pay and chronic devaluation of ECEs (a profession dominated by women), accompanied by increasing childcare fees for families, has compounded poor working conditions. Both occupations are characterized by the feminization of poverty, low pay, poor working conditions, and limited opportunities for growth. Social, and economic underpinnings that characterize the intersectionalities of oppression, including race, gender, social-economic status, that emerge to frame experiences of women’s participation in the labour force While women in both sessional and tenured professoriate positions are expected to take on additional unpaid labour, including mentorship and guidance roles, women working in ECEC are discursively constructed as natural caregivers and substitute mothers (Bezanson 2017; Moss 2006; Nair 2014). This paper is divided into five sections: 1) this introduction, which provides the contextual factors underpinning the issues facing Ontario ECEs and sessional faculty, 2) neoliberalism in Ontario, 3) the conceptual framework of Feminist Political Economy, 4) situating ourselves through our own narratives, and 5) conclusions and discussion
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