As a sector, childhood in Aotearoa New Zealand continues to experience significant changes. Many of the current changes are a result of the Government's 10-year strategic plan for childhood launched in September 2002: Pathways to the Future. Nga Huarahi Arataki. The strategic plan is premised on the notion that professionally-trained childhood teachers are essential to ensuring a quality childhood sector. A major policy initiative of the strategic plan is that all childhood staff in regulated childhood teacher-led services must be registered teachers holding a 3-year diploma qualification by 2012, or at least 70 percent of regulated staff must be registered teachers and the remainder studying for a qualification approved by the New Zealand Teachers Council. There are also changes in funding systems, in the relationship between various childhood services and government agencies, and in the way that the Ministry of Education operates alongside the community to provide childhood services. These changes within the policy context mirror ongoing changes within the professional-industrial and scholarly contexts of childhood education. Within the professional-industrial context, significant developments over the last two decades have acted to promote a discourse of professionalism. These developments include: the introduction of 3-year integrated training for kindergarten and childcare staff parallel to 3-year training for primary teachers; the development of an Early Childhood Code of Ethics; the development of degree-level teaching qualifications; burgeoning research activities; and, more recently, the phasing in of pay parity for kindergarten teachers from 1 July 2002. Within the scholarly context, childhood is increasingly described as a multidisciplinary one that draws on knowledge from diverse areas (e.g., Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2001). Within this context, discussions of what it means to be an childhood professional include traditional definitions of professionalism, which focus on training and qualifications as necessary components of professional practice (e.g., Katz, 1985), as well as notions about implementing co-operative forms of centre management and co-operating with other professional agencies on a regular basis (e.g., Oberhuemer, 2000). The latter are more in line with a community-of-learning approach to professional practice. There is also consensus that the meaning of in this diverse sector cannot be taken for granted (Adams, 2005; Bruce, 2000; Cherrington & Dalli, 2001; Cooper, 1993; Dalli, 1993; Dalli, 2003a, 2003b). For example, problems of definition arise from the range of terms used within and across countries to refer to the work of practitioners, and from the fact that, in many contexts, there is still a split in the way early years services are organised around education and care as distinct paradigms. Issues of local politics and policies and the social and historical position of the childhood sector within different contexts also contribute to the complexities involved in defining this notion (e.g., Calder, 2005). In New Zealand, scholarly debates about defining professionalism have been about ways of continuing to value the contribution of adults like mothers or other home adults, who may undertake training and work alongside children from their family, or whanau in services like playcentres or in the indigenous kohanga reo. Nga kohanga reo do not see themselves as simply a service for children, but as a service for the whole whanau (extended family) and iwi (broader tribal community) that allows participation in a total immersion to reo and tikanga Ma- on environment. There are debates about defining optimal distance from a child who is related to a centre adult, and identifying appropriate forms of autonomy in a collaborative service with parents and community (Dalli, 1993). …