Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/early-childhood-education-as-an-emerging-profession-ongoing-conversations/5014338/
Through our work on professional ethics in early childhood education we have had many conversations about ethics with each other, countless numbers of early childhood educators, and interested philosophers. These discussions have sometimes raised more questions than they have answered. They have, inevitably, been interesting, thought-provoking, and have helped us better understand the nature of professionalism. We will try to capture the spirit of some of these discussions as we explore what it means to be an emerging profession of women whose work involves nurturing children.Stephanie first became involved in ethics within early childhood education in the early l980s because she knew that ethics was an important part of a profession and she wanted to help the field to become more professional. Nancy has come to the study of ethics more recently. She began by studying with Stephanie, and, since the mid-1990s, they have worked together to lead efforts to make professional ethics part of early childhood educators' repertoire.
What is a Profession?
It has been almost 20 years since Stephanie began her work in ethics. That is when she met Kenneth Kipnis, a colleague at the University of Hawaii. Ken is a philosophy professor specializing in professional ethics. He and ...