“Professional Boundaries. The Case of Childcare Workers in Norway”.

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine professionalism among staff at Norwegian preschools. This is done by examining whether attitudes among preschool staff express professional boundaries, and whether the division of responsibilities among the staff can be described on the basis of an understanding of professional boundaries. Professional boundaries mean differences in what is an appropriate assignment for staff groups based on qualifications and gender. The dissertation comprises four articles that focus on specific aspects regarding work at preschools and preschool staff. The first article examines attitudes among preschool staff as to what age children should start preschool and the number of hours children spend at preschool. The second article examines how assignments are divided between preschool teachers and assistant teachers (professionals and non-professionals), and what attitudes these two groups have to the allocation of assignments. Article three examines emotional exhaustion among preschool staff. Emotional exhaustion means the feeling of loneliness and burnout, and the study assumes that this could occur following long periods of work-related stress. Article four examines whether and how gender is important in preschool work by asking whether preschool staff are gender traditionalists.

Generally, the dissertation shows that the staff find that professional boundaries exist in the Norwegian preschool sector. Non-professionals do not have the same status as professional teachers. This means that participants in the study express attitudes that professional boundaries exist in the work with children, as professionals are recognised as qualified preschool teachers with associated tasks and responsibilities, whereas non-professionals are not considered as teachers and do not have the same tasks and responsibility. The division of responsibilities among preschool staff emphasises the professional boundaries between the staff groups, as the group of preschool teachers have special responsibilities, some of which are emotionally stressful.

The first article of this study examines attitudes among preschool staff as to what age children should start preschool and how many hours children should attend preschool. The results show that professionals are more likely than non-professionals to accept that children start preschool at a younger age and have longer hours at preschool. Furthermore, younger employees are more accepting than older employees towards children's early start and longer hours at preschool.

The second article examines the division of tasks between professionals and non-professionals and the staff's attitudes about this division. Moreover, the article examines differences on the basis of variables such as seniority, age and subjective experience with, for example, competences. These studies show that the different groups agree on the general trend in attitudes that no tasks are deemed most appropriate for non-professionals. Furthermore, there is a difference between the attitudes expressed among staff and their self-reported actual participation in tasks. Despite the difference between what the professionals and non-professionals answer in the questionnaire and what they actually do, the professionals do not use this to distance themselves from the non-professionals.

Article three examines emotional exhaustion among preschool staff. The results of this article show that a preschool teacher position has a significant correlation with emotional exhaustion, as preschool teachers have a higher level of emotional exhaustion. Special types of assignment, i.e. assignments aimed at parents and learning, have a significant correlation with a higher level of emotional exhaustion. This correlation disappears when the staff know what is expected from them, when they feel a certain level of confidence in their job, and if they feel that they can rely on support from their colleagues. This means that clear expectations, more confidence and a higher level of support from colleagues are significantly correlated with less emotional exhaustion. These results indicate that certain tasks are emotionally exhausting for the preschool staff, and that professionals have different emotional experience than non-professionals because they have other areas of responsibility with different requirements and expectations.

The fourth and final article in the study examines whether and how gender is important in working with children. The author investigates whether preschool staff are gender traditionalists on the basis of staff attitudes and participation in tasks. The result shows that gender does not seem to be a key boundary in working with children.

The dissertation includes four articles that analyse questionnaire data from an extensive survey among Norwegian preschool managers, professionals and non-professionals. The individual analyses were gathered under one analytical umbrella consisting of the theoretical concepts of professional boundaries and jurisdiction, e.g. tasks and responsibilities specific for different staff groups. Moreover, the dissertation examines gender as being a potential, professional boundary-setting variable. The data material consists of three questionnaire surveys from 2009 conducted in Norway among preschool staff in 1,000 randomly selected preschools. A total of 588 preschools answered the questionnaire, including 588 managers, 1,357 non-professionals and 1,192 professionals. The data material was analysed using linear regression models.

Løvgren, M. (2014): “Professional Boundaries. The Case of Childcare Workers in Norway”. PhD thesis. Oslo: Høgskolen i Oslo og Akershus (HiOA).