Translating early childhood policy: How teams of educators negotiate quality for children
Background: Early childhood education and care (ECEC) operates within a complex policy landscape that shapes workforce decision-making and notions of quality. In Australia, the National Quality Framework (NQF), Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF), and modern awards articulate competing expectations. While the NQF and EYLF promote teamwork and shared decision-making, modern awards embed hierarchies that influence practice. Understanding how educators interpret and translate these policies directly influences children’s ECEC experiences.
Aim: The study aims to locate discourses about teamwork in ECEC and identify the ways educators are enabled and constrained by policy as they make decisions for children.
Method/approach: This qualitative study adopts a Foucauldian lens using concepts of discourse and power to analyse how policy is translated into day-to-day decision-making. Alongside policy documents, data comprised centre documents from four long day care centres and transcripts from four focus groups, one at each centre – including three to eight participants with diverse roles and responsibilities in each focus group. The research received Queensland University of Technology ethical approval (4890). Data captured educators’ experiences of translating policy into practice in pursuit of quality outcomes for children.
Results/findings: Three provocations were: Rethinking staffing structures to align collaborative intentions with remuneration realities; Positioning the degree-qualified teacher(s) within teams to harness their professional knowledge; Intentionally appointing Educational Leaders as critical policy brokers.
Conclusion: This research demonstrates that policy is not a fixed directive but is actively interpreted and negotiated by teams within the constraints of workforce conditions. Misalignments between policy intent and industrial conditions shape whose knowledge is valued, how decisions are made, and how quality is enacted for children. This matters because enhancing children’s experiences requires greater policy coherence that supports collaboration, pedagogical leadership, and professional recognition.
Implications for children and families: When educators are better supported to interpret well-aligned policy, you experience quality ECEC where your voices are heard, relationships are responsive, and learning and well-being are prioritised.
Implications for practitioners: Analysing how educators bridge policy disconnect in practice offers you actionable pathways forward to strategically realign, consume, and enact policy.
Keywords: early childhood education and care, quality, policy, decision-making, teamwork, discourse analysis, educational leadership, workforce
This presentation relates to the following United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: