Training women to be teachers in early childhood education and the politics of participation

In this current project I set out to critically read the practices and discourses which are invested in socializing women to be teachers in Early Childhood Education. In order to better understand the complex processes of identification within a community of shared practice, I have attempted to disrupt the text in a way which interrupts dominant academic discourses and which also fattens the scope of the focus. By mirroring my own participation in teacher-training within Early Childhood Education communities against my participation as a graduate student in the Faculty of Graduate Studies, I have tried to uncover the social and institutional relations which interact in the (discursive) production of self. While acknowledging, on the one hand, that identity is multiplicitous, there are undeniable ideologies which maintain a "logic of unity" in the construction and production of self. These oppositionalities are analyzed in this document as sites of struggle; specifically in the institutionalized practices of observation and in journalling. The participation of women in the social/political arena of professionalism continues to pit gender/race/class against the traditional dominant discourses and practices of education. Working in opposition to these structures is both a performance and an interpretation of participation: how these conflicts manifest in issues of identification, affiliation, and community membership are critical issues for research and practice in education.Education, Faculty ofCurriculum and Pedagogy (EDCP), Department ofGraduat