For newly arrived educators belonging to a work community is profoundly important

The experience of belonging to a work community for early childhood educators with an immigrant background is linked to language proficiency and the quality of social relationships in the workplace, new research from Turku University has found.

 

Although the study focuses on the Finnish context, the findings are relevant to the Australian early childhood education and care (ECEC) community, given the number of educators entering the sector from countries where English is not the dominant language. 

 

Lead researcher Monika Haanpää, who holds a Masters of Education, found that the ability to speak Finnish, a strong sense of professional and personal self-confidence, social relationships in the workplace, and acceptance and recognition by the work community are directly related to how well early childhood educators with an immigrant background feel they belong in their ECEC work community.

 

Ms Haanpää’s study involved examining the views of both early childhood educators with an immigrant background and Finnish-born educators and daycare center managers on day care center operational culture, membership, and activities in relation to the diversity of early childhood educators.

 

The research also found that differences in understanding and interpreting stated work community practices, such as agreements, practices, norms, cues, and assumptions, may affect work community functioning.

 

ECEC services, Ms Haanpää continued, can be avenues to jointly implementing the principles of the early childhood education curriculum and producing various practices. She hopes her work will provide new insights into the operation of early childhood educators with an immigrant background, leadership of diverse work communities, and practice community operations in Finnish daycare centers. 

 

With the increase in immigration to Finland, this research is essential in understanding how best to support immigrant early childhood educators and how to manage diverse work communities.

 

Ms Haanpää’s doctoral dissertation, A Triangulated Study of Early Childhood Educators with an Immigrant Background in a Finnish Daycare Center, was publicly examined at the University of Turku on 10 March 2023 and will be made available for review shortly.