Frank Pre
Biographic Data
| ID | 700583 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Frank Pre |
| GIVEN NAMES | Frank |
| FAMILY NAME | Pre |
| SIGNATURE | PRE F |
| AFFILIATIONS | Charles Sturt University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8980-5096 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 15 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1983 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Exploring differences between the work of degree qualified early childhood teachers and non-degree qualified educators in Australian exemplary early childhood education and care settings
This mixed-methods study examines differences in the work of degree-qualified early childhood teachers (ECTs) and other qualified educators in exemplary Australian early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings. Amid workforce shortages and mixed evidence about ECT impact, international policy continues to position ECTs as central to quality, yet research rarely distinguishes educators by qualification. Using the theory of practice architectu…
The Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Workforce in Early Childhood Education: Findings From a National Survey of Australian Centre‐Based Services
Culturally responsive early childhood education (ECE) environments can increase child and family participation, enhance service quality, and improve developmental outcomes for children. Educators from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds contribute to inclusive ECE and are crucial for addressing workforce shortages. The National Children's Education and Care Workforce Strategy (2022–2031) (ACECQA, 2021) promotes workforce dive…
All in a day’s work: Job demands and satisfaction in Australian early childhood education and care settings
Despite acknowledged demands and stresses associated with early childhood (EC) work, and high levels of attrition in the EC workforce, research often shows high ratings of job satisfaction. This article explores these discordant findings by applying Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) Model to explore educator-rated job satisfaction, stress, feeling rushed, and multiple demands using Time Use Diary (TUD) methodology in a sample of well-resourced EC cent…
Discovering the Hidden Work of Commodified Care: The Case of Early Childhood Educators
The COVID-19 pandemic has drawn attention to the care economy, including commodified early childhood education and care (ECEC). While there is some literature about the low paid, invisible, and undervalued skills among the predominantly female workforce in the ECEC sector, there is little research into what these educators do in their working day and how this contributes to quality education and care for young children. This article provides a de…
Inequality, social justice and the purpose of Early Childhood Education
Early childhood education and care (ECEC) – as with education more generally – should be a central plank of a suite of social policies designed to support more socially just societies. However, universal access to ECEC in itself, will not redress inequalities. This paper draws upon reports from the Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA), and data from three doctoral studies nested within the Australian Exemplary Early…
The hidden complexity of early childhood educators’ work: The Exemplary Early Childhood Educators at Work study
A considerable body of research suggests that knowledgeable and skilled educators are key to the quality of early childhood services. However, the skills and knowledge of educators is subject to being underestimated and contested. In response, the Exemplary Early Childhood Educators at Work Study has been designed to bring to light the distinctive nature of the work of early childhood educators and its complexity. The study draws its sample from …
High quality educators’ conceptualisation of children’s risk-taking in early childhood education: Provoking educators to think more broadly
Children’s risk-taking is increasingly acknowledged as an important part of early childhood education. Previous research has predominantly focussed on children’s engagement with, and educators’ perspectives on, children’s risk-taking in outdoor physical play. However, little attention has been paid to how educators conceptualise children’s risk-taking more broadly. Our study addresses this research gap. A three-site case study, the research gathe…
Becoming a researcher: The process of ‘stirring in’ to data collection practices in early childhood education research
The theory of practice architectures is a useful theoretical, methodological and analytical tool for educational research. The use of the theory is emerging as germane in early childhood education research. This article explores concepts from the theory as applied in an early childhood education research project. The article focuses on the concept of stirring in, a view of learning advanced by the theory of practice architectures. To describe and…
Innovative Methods for Researching Leadership Emergence
There is a growing understanding, internationally, that effective leadership has an influence on the quality of early childhood education programs. The leadership research agenda has expanded accordingly but despite this expansion there is little empirical research on the emergence and development of leadership in early childhood education. The article focuses primarily on the methodological challenge of studying the phenomena of emerging and dev…
Implicit theories and naïve beliefs: Using the theory of practice architectures to deconstruct the practices of early childhood educators
This article proposes utilising the theory of practice architectures to uncover and make explicit the beliefs and implicit theories of early childhood educators, as well as to examine the conditions out of which they have emerged. The beliefs and implicit theories of early childhood educators influence many early childhood practices and play a significant role in guiding the pedagogical experiences of children. Aimed at identifying elements of pr…
Understanding who cares: Creating the evidence to address the long-standing policy problem of staff shortages in early childhood education and care
Evidence-based policy is a means of ensuring that policy is informed by more than ideology or expedience. However, what constitutes robust evidence is highly contested. In this paper, we argue policy must draw on quantitative and qualitative data. We do this in relation to a long entrenched problem in Australian early childhood education and care (ECEC) workforce policy. A critical shortage of qualified staff threatens the attainment of broader c…
An encounter with ‘sayings’ of curriculum: Levinas and the formalisation of infants’ learning
Increased global attention to early childhood education and care in the past two decades has intensified attention on the education of infants and assessment of their learning in education policy. This interest is particularly evident in the focus upon infants in the early childhood curriculum frameworks developed in recent years in many countries. To date, there has been little examination of implications of this policy/curriculum emphasis in re…
Child-Centred, Family-Centred, Decentred: Positioning Children as Rights-Holders in Early Childhood Program Collaborations
Although the policy context in Australia is conducive to professional collaborations in early years services, understandings of collaboration are highly variable across the domains of research literature, policy and practice. Inconsistent and possibly incompatible approaches to working with children and families, as well as significant philosophical and professional differences, may be disguised by common terminology adopted under the rubric of c…
Integrated services in Australian early childhood education and care: What can we learn from our past
Recent Australian interest in the integration of early childhood services is largely informed by international research and policy developments, particularly from the United Kingdom. Service integration is widely recognised as an effective means of holistically meeting the needs of children and families and ameliorating disadvantage. What is less well known is that Australia has a history of integrated early childhood services. This paper focuses…
The (In)visibility of Children with Communication Impairment in Australian Health, Education, and Disability Legislation and Policies
Communication impairment is a prevalent childhood disability. The way nations formally recognise communication impairment effects the provision of services and long-term outcomes of these children. Children with communication impairment are specifically identified in legislation and policy in the USA and UK; however this is not the case in Australia. Current Australian legislation and policy does not adequately address the needs of children with …
Dark matter: The ‘gravitational pull’ of maternalist discourses on politicians’ decision making for early childhood policy in Australia
The article reports on a study investigating influences on Australian politicians’ decision making for early childhood education and care (ECEC) policy. The astronomical concept of dark matter is utilised as a metaphor for considering normalising, and therefore frequently difficult to detect and disrupt, influences implicated in politicians’ decision making for ECEC policy. The concept of dark matter connects with and extends Foucauldian conceptu…
(Re)Positioning the Child in the Policy/Politics of Early Childhood
How a community constructs the notion of childhood and the child is fundamentally implicated in the practices and policies of that community. This article explores the positioning of the child in historical, contemporary and emerging trends in the provision and practices of Australian early childhood education and care. It argues that if left uncontested, emerging contemporary constructions have the potential to normalise policies, practices and …
The Dilemma of the Golden Age
These are confused and troubling times for science and the scientific community. Limits on resources have made visible serious differences within our community, differences that may weaken the nation's scientific enterprise if they are not resolved without acrimony. We face the dilemma of living in both the best and worst of times. In all fields of science, the journals and professional meetings are filled with exciting and challenging reports of…
Follow-up statements onmarijuana policy and drug mythology
(Re)Positioning the Child in the Policy/Politics of Early Childhood
How a community constructs the notion of childhood and the child is fundamentally implicated in the practices and policies of that community. This article explores the positioning of the child in historical, contemporary and emerging trends in the provision and practices of Australian early childhood education and care. It argues that if left uncontested, emerging contemporary constructions have the potential to normalise policies, practices and …
An encounter with ‘sayings’ of curriculum: Levinas and the formalisation of infants’ learning
Increased global attention to early childhood education and care in the past two decades has intensified attention on the education of infants and assessment of their learning in education policy. This interest is particularly evident in the focus upon infants in the early childhood curriculum frameworks developed in recent years in many countries. To date, there has been little examination of implications of this policy/curriculum emphasis in re…
Implicit theories and naïve beliefs: Using the theory of practice architectures to deconstruct the practices of early childhood educators
This article proposes utilising the theory of practice architectures to uncover and make explicit the beliefs and implicit theories of early childhood educators, as well as to examine the conditions out of which they have emerged. The beliefs and implicit theories of early childhood educators influence many early childhood practices and play a significant role in guiding the pedagogical experiences of children. Aimed at identifying elements of pr…
Dark matter: The ‘gravitational pull’ of maternalist discourses on politicians’ decision making for early childhood policy in Australia
The article reports on a study investigating influences on Australian politicians’ decision making for early childhood education and care (ECEC) policy. The astronomical concept of dark matter is utilised as a metaphor for considering normalising, and therefore frequently difficult to detect and disrupt, influences implicated in politicians’ decision making for ECEC policy. The concept of dark matter connects with and extends Foucauldian conceptu…
Becoming a researcher: The process of ‘stirring in’ to data collection practices in early childhood education research
The theory of practice architectures is a useful theoretical, methodological and analytical tool for educational research. The use of the theory is emerging as germane in early childhood education research. This article explores concepts from the theory as applied in an early childhood education research project. The article focuses on the concept of stirring in, a view of learning advanced by the theory of practice architectures. To describe and…
Child-Centred, Family-Centred, Decentred: Positioning Children as Rights-Holders in Early Childhood Program Collaborations
Although the policy context in Australia is conducive to professional collaborations in early years services, understandings of collaboration are highly variable across the domains of research literature, policy and practice. Inconsistent and possibly incompatible approaches to working with children and families, as well as significant philosophical and professional differences, may be disguised by common terminology adopted under the rubric of c…
Follow-up statements onmarijuana policy and drug mythology
The Dilemma of the Golden Age
These are confused and troubling times for science and the scientific community. Limits on resources have made visible serious differences within our community, differences that may weaken the nation's scientific enterprise if they are not resolved without acrimony. We face the dilemma of living in both the best and worst of times. In all fields of science, the journals and professional meetings are filled with exciting and challenging reports of…
(Re)Positioning the Child in the Policy/Politics of Early Childhood
How a community constructs the notion of childhood and the child is fundamentally implicated in the practices and policies of that community. This article explores the positioning of the child in historical, contemporary and emerging trends in the provision and practices of Australian early childhood education and care. It argues that if left uncontested, emerging contemporary constructions have the potential to normalise policies, practices and …
The (In)visibility of Children with Communication Impairment in Australian Health, Education, and Disability Legislation and Policies
Communication impairment is a prevalent childhood disability. The way nations formally recognise communication impairment effects the provision of services and long-term outcomes of these children. Children with communication impairment are specifically identified in legislation and policy in the USA and UK; however this is not the case in Australia. Current Australian legislation and policy does not adequately address the needs of children with …
Dark matter: The ‘gravitational pull’ of maternalist discourses on politicians’ decision making for early childhood policy in Australia
The article reports on a study investigating influences on Australian politicians’ decision making for early childhood education and care (ECEC) policy. The astronomical concept of dark matter is utilised as a metaphor for considering normalising, and therefore frequently difficult to detect and disrupt, influences implicated in politicians’ decision making for ECEC policy. The concept of dark matter connects with and extends Foucauldian conceptu…
Child-Centred, Family-Centred, Decentred: Positioning Children as Rights-Holders in Early Childhood Program Collaborations
Although the policy context in Australia is conducive to professional collaborations in early years services, understandings of collaboration are highly variable across the domains of research literature, policy and practice. Inconsistent and possibly incompatible approaches to working with children and families, as well as significant philosophical and professional differences, may be disguised by common terminology adopted under the rubric of c…
Integrated services in Australian early childhood education and care: What can we learn from our past
Recent Australian interest in the integration of early childhood services is largely informed by international research and policy developments, particularly from the United Kingdom. Service integration is widely recognised as an effective means of holistically meeting the needs of children and families and ameliorating disadvantage. What is less well known is that Australia has a history of integrated early childhood services. This paper focuses…
An encounter with ‘sayings’ of curriculum: Levinas and the formalisation of infants’ learning
Increased global attention to early childhood education and care in the past two decades has intensified attention on the education of infants and assessment of their learning in education policy. This interest is particularly evident in the focus upon infants in the early childhood curriculum frameworks developed in recent years in many countries. To date, there has been little examination of implications of this policy/curriculum emphasis in re…
Implicit theories and naïve beliefs: Using the theory of practice architectures to deconstruct the practices of early childhood educators
This article proposes utilising the theory of practice architectures to uncover and make explicit the beliefs and implicit theories of early childhood educators, as well as to examine the conditions out of which they have emerged. The beliefs and implicit theories of early childhood educators influence many early childhood practices and play a significant role in guiding the pedagogical experiences of children. Aimed at identifying elements of pr…
Understanding who cares: Creating the evidence to address the long-standing policy problem of staff shortages in early childhood education and care
Evidence-based policy is a means of ensuring that policy is informed by more than ideology or expedience. However, what constitutes robust evidence is highly contested. In this paper, we argue policy must draw on quantitative and qualitative data. We do this in relation to a long entrenched problem in Australian early childhood education and care (ECEC) workforce policy. A critical shortage of qualified staff threatens the attainment of broader c…
The hidden complexity of early childhood educators’ work: The Exemplary Early Childhood Educators at Work study
A considerable body of research suggests that knowledgeable and skilled educators are key to the quality of early childhood services. However, the skills and knowledge of educators is subject to being underestimated and contested. In response, the Exemplary Early Childhood Educators at Work Study has been designed to bring to light the distinctive nature of the work of early childhood educators and its complexity. The study draws its sample from …
High quality educators’ conceptualisation of children’s risk-taking in early childhood education: Provoking educators to think more broadly
Children’s risk-taking is increasingly acknowledged as an important part of early childhood education. Previous research has predominantly focussed on children’s engagement with, and educators’ perspectives on, children’s risk-taking in outdoor physical play. However, little attention has been paid to how educators conceptualise children’s risk-taking more broadly. Our study addresses this research gap. A three-site case study, the research gathe…
Becoming a researcher: The process of ‘stirring in’ to data collection practices in early childhood education research
The theory of practice architectures is a useful theoretical, methodological and analytical tool for educational research. The use of the theory is emerging as germane in early childhood education research. This article explores concepts from the theory as applied in an early childhood education research project. The article focuses on the concept of stirring in, a view of learning advanced by the theory of practice architectures. To describe and…
Innovative Methods for Researching Leadership Emergence
There is a growing understanding, internationally, that effective leadership has an influence on the quality of early childhood education programs. The leadership research agenda has expanded accordingly but despite this expansion there is little empirical research on the emergence and development of leadership in early childhood education. The article focuses primarily on the methodological challenge of studying the phenomena of emerging and dev…
Inequality, social justice and the purpose of Early Childhood Education
Early childhood education and care (ECEC) – as with education more generally – should be a central plank of a suite of social policies designed to support more socially just societies. However, universal access to ECEC in itself, will not redress inequalities. This paper draws upon reports from the Australian Children’s Education and Care Quality Authority (ACECQA), and data from three doctoral studies nested within the Australian Exemplary Early…
Discovering the Hidden Work of Commodified Care: The Case of Early Childhood Educators
The COVID-19 pandemic has drawn attention to the care economy, including commodified early childhood education and care (ECEC). While there is some literature about the low paid, invisible, and undervalued skills among the predominantly female workforce in the ECEC sector, there is little research into what these educators do in their working day and how this contributes to quality education and care for young children. This article provides a de…
All in a day’s work: Job demands and satisfaction in Australian early childhood education and care settings
Despite acknowledged demands and stresses associated with early childhood (EC) work, and high levels of attrition in the EC workforce, research often shows high ratings of job satisfaction. This article explores these discordant findings by applying Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) Model to explore educator-rated job satisfaction, stress, feeling rushed, and multiple demands using Time Use Diary (TUD) methodology in a sample of well-resourced EC cent…
Exploring differences between the work of degree qualified early childhood teachers and non-degree qualified educators in Australian exemplary early childhood education and care settings
This mixed-methods study examines differences in the work of degree-qualified early childhood teachers (ECTs) and other qualified educators in exemplary Australian early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings. Amid workforce shortages and mixed evidence about ECT impact, international policy continues to position ECTs as central to quality, yet research rarely distinguishes educators by qualification. Using the theory of practice architectu…
The Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Workforce in Early Childhood Education: Findings From a National Survey of Australian Centre‐Based Services
Culturally responsive early childhood education (ECE) environments can increase child and family participation, enhance service quality, and improve developmental outcomes for children. Educators from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds contribute to inclusive ECE and are crucial for addressing workforce shortages. The National Children's Education and Care Workforce Strategy (2022–2031) (ACECQA, 2021) promotes workforce dive…
Early childhood education (15 works) · Early childhood (14 works) · Early Childhood Education and Development (13 works) · Psychology (13 works) · Pedagogy (12 works) · Developmental psychology (11 works) · Political science (11 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Law (7 works) · Children's Rights and Participation (6 works)