Teacher Conduct: A Survey on Professional Ethics among Chinese Kindergarten Teachers
Abstract
Teacher professional ethics have recently become a much debated issue in China, which is in the wake of China’s new population policy that ends the ‘one-child’ policy after 35 years of stringent enforcement. With increasingly more children enrolled in early childhood services, the quality of the teaching force is to stand a tougher test of public scrutiny. Professional ethics is an integral and pivotal component of teacher quality. Utilizing questionnaire as the data collection method, this study examines self-reported professional conduct of 437 in-service teachers from 50 kindergartens across three provinces of China. It is found that: (1) The majority of the kindergarten teachers report themselves as compliant with the professional ethics when facilitating all the daily routine activities and when working with colleagues and parents; (2) Several ethical issues exist with some kindergarten teachers such as differentiated approach to children from different backgrounds, unawareness of the importance of parents as stakeholders, and unhealthy relationship with colleagues. Â
Â
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Boon, H. (2011). Raising the bar: Ethics education for quality teachers. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 36(7), 76-93. doi: 10.14221/ajte.2011v36n7.2
Bullough, R. V. (2011). Ethical and moral matters in teaching and teacher education. Teaching and Teacher Education, 27(1), 21-28. doi: 10.1016/j.tate.2010.09.007
Campbell, E. (2008). The ethics of teaching as a moral profession. Curriculum Inquiry, 38(4), 357-385. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-873x.2008.00414.x
Fantuzzo, J., Gadsden, V., Li, F., Sproul, F., McDermott, P., Hightower, D., & Minney, A. (2013). Multiple dimensions of family engagement in early childhood education: Evidence for a short form of the Family Involvement Questionnaire. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 28(4), 734-742. doi: 10.1016/j.ecresq.2013.07.001
Freeman, N., & Feeney, S. (2005). Ethics and the early childhood educator: Using the NAEYC Code. National Association for the Education of Young Children, 1509 16th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036.
Heikka, J., Waniganayake, M., & Hujala, E. (2013). Contextualizing distributed leadership within early childhood education: Current understandings, research evidence and future challenges. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 41(1), 30-44. doi: 10.1177/1741143212462700
Jeelani, B., & Kumar, R. K. (2015). Construction and Standardization of the teachers’ professional ethics scale (TPES). International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research and Modern Education, 1(1), 46-49.
Kumar, J. S. (2015). An Approach to Professional Ethics Education for Pre Service Teachers. Educational Quest, 6(1), 61.
Ma, L., & Tsui, A. S. (2015). Traditional Chinese philosophies and contemporary leadership. The Leadership Quarterly, 26(1), 13-24. doi: 10.1016/j.leaqua.2014.11.008
Maxwell, B., & Schwimmer, M. (2016a). Professional ethics education for future teachers: A narrative review of the scholarly writings. Journal of Moral Education, 45(3), 354-371. doi: 10.1080/03057240.2016.1204271
Maxwell, B., & Schwimmer, M. (2016b). Seeking the elusive ethical base of teacher professionalism in Canadian codes of ethics. Teaching and Teacher Education, 59, 468-480. doi: 10.1016/j.tate.2016.07.015
Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China. (2015). Kindergarten Working Regulation. Retrieved from http://www.edu.cn/xue_qian_news_197/20130329/t20130329_923792.shtml
Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China. (2016). Professional Standards for Kindergarten Teachers. Retrieved from http://old.moe.gov.cn/ewebeditor/uploadfile/2012/09/13/20120913155511581.doc
Ngang, T. K., & Chan, T. C. (2015). The importance of ethics, moral and professional skills of novice teachers. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 205, 8-12. doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.09.004
Ryan, M., & Bourke, T. (2013). The teacher as reflexive professional: Making visible the excluded discourse in teacher standards. Discourse: Studies in the cultural politics of education, 34(3), 411-423. doi: 10.1080/01596306.2012.717193
Schneider, A., & Kipp, K. H. (2015). Professional growth through collaboration between kindergarten and elementary school teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education, 52, 37-46. doi: 10.1016/j.tate.2015.08.006
Shapira-Lishchinsky, O. (2011). Teachers’ critical incidents: Ethical dilemmas in teaching practice. Teaching and Teacher Education, 27(3), 648-656. doi: 10.1016/j.tate.2010.11.003
Snook, I. (2003). The ethical teacher. Palmerston, NZ: Dunmore Press.
Strike, K.A. (1990). Teaching ethics to teachers: What the curriculum should be about. Teaching and Teacher Education, 6(1), 47-53. doi: 10.1016/0742-051x(90)90006-q
Taggart, G. (2011). Don’t we care? The ethics and emotional labour of early years professionalism. Early Years, 31(1), 85-95. doi: 10.1080/09575146.2010.536948
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
e-ISSN: 1694-2116
p-ISSN: 1694-2493