• Korean Journal of Childcare and Education
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.21-38
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• 2019

Objective: The goal of this study was to investigate the effects of early childhood teachers' current working conditions such as welfare and wages, working hours, ECEC center's environmental characteristics, and parental involvement and community engagement on the professionalism of teachers. Method: A total of 988 respondents participated in the nationwide online survey. The data were analyzed by correlation analysis and structual equation modeling. Results: First, there were no statistically significant direct effects of ECEC teachers' working conditions on teacher professionalism. Second, there were significant direct effects of teacher efficacy and well-being on teacher professionalism. Third, there were significant indirect effects of teachers' working conditions on their professionalism, via efficacy and well-being, linking the impact of working conditions and the professionalism of teachers. Conclusion/Implication: The results of this structural model imply that policy input for teacher welfare, wage increases, and the enhancement of teachers' well-being and efficacy are valid and significant for the professional development of ECEC teachers. These results provide the data-driven evidence for the importance of welfare and socio-cognitive approaches for teachers.

• Korean Journal of Child Education & Care
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.27-43
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• 2019

Objective: The purpose of this study is to investigate how the child care teachers experience about professional vision development through participating in video clubs with their peers while watching videos about their interactions with children in the classroom. Methods: We selected three child care teachers in a day care center in Seoul area and conducted the qualitative case study. Video clubs were designed to support the quality of teacher-child interaction by developing child-care teachers' professional vision. And the video clubs used the self-reflection process and cooperative self-reflection process as an important educational method. Results: Teachers were able to experience the change of attention in watching their interaction scene through the 4-time video club participation and to have opportunity for educational (knowledge based) reasoning. Particularly, through participation in the video club, the teacher could pay attention to teachers' intention, teachers' decision making process, and child's intention. In addition, through video club participation, the teachers experienced educational interpretation based on children's thinking and interest; and reasoning through reflective thinking about the results of teaching behavior. This change of professional vision was possible through mutual scaffolding through cooperative reflection among participating teachers. Conclusion/Implications: Based on the results of this study we discussed the importance of the professional vision development of the child care teachers and the effectiveness of the video club for supporting their professional vision development.

• Korean Journal of Human Ecology
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.531-546
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• 2005

This study is to examine current child care support policies and their limitations and to make some suggestions by means of statistics and previous literature. Major findings are as follows: First, As the women have younger children, the effect is more negative. Second, a maternity leave of Korea is 90 days, which is below ILO standard. Moreover, it is not well supported by the companies they work for. Third, the increasing number of men has spent a paternity leave since the pertinent law was enforced in 2001. The rate of spending the leave, however, is not as high as expected, because it has not yet been decided whether the leave would be paid or not. Lastly, the number of the employer-supporting child care center is rather few due to the legal standard of the facility and the expense that a company should cover. Only 46.5% of the companies that has been appointed to obligatorily establish the center now operate the facility. Therefore, child care support policies should be reformed or improved to help reduce married women's child care burden obviously hindering women from being employed, and this will consequently promote their economic activities. It is also urgently required to expand the application of the parental leave in terms of both object and scope. It is important that employers and employees get ready to compromise each other on the wage issue during the leave. In addition, the flexibility in period and form of the parental leave and the connection of working places with local community for better child care service must be taken into consideration.