Teacher Conduct: A Survey on Professional Ethics among Chinese Kindergarten Teachers
Keywords:
Kindergarten, professional ethics, ChinaAbstract
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.
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