Abstract

Professionalism is not defined a priori, but rather within a professional community, in the immediate contexts where professionals interact. It is a situated phenomenon that cannot be accounted for without the voices of members of the professional community. In this article, I discuss professionalism through the perspectives of early childhood (EC) teacher educators during practicum placements. Placements are a microcosm that offers a forum for discussing and researching processes in situ within the professional community. The article draws on 11 in-depth interviews and 150 hours of participant observation in a Teacher Education Institute in Buenos Aires (Argentina). Results show EC teacher educators construct and (re)negotiate professionalism through discourses and practices of assertion and resistance banalisation, schoolification and fordification of early childhood education. We suggest that professionalism unfolds from collective and individual practical wisdom, a sensitivity and awareness of particular situations that is tacit and embodied in the most experienced.