Xiao Zhang is a PhD student in the department of educational research, Lancaster University. His research is focused on early childhood professionalism and feminist care ethics in early childhood education. He is also interested in understanding preschoolers’ caring agency by innovative ways and methods.

My research interests are focused on understanding professionalism in the early years workforce and the synthesis of care and education in early years settings. Building on my earlier research on early childhood professionalism, I employed grounded theory to analyse how early childhood practitioners view their professional identity, and the research findings showed that feminist care ethics have significant roles to play. More recently, I have been focusing on theories of radical education and feminist care ethics to analyse how care and education can be well synthesised in early years settings.

Sunglory Educational Research Institution, Beijing, China.

• Project title: Exploratory research on early childhood practitioners’ understandings of caring: An ethic of care. 
• Grant reference number: SEI-QXZ-2022-23

I was a guest lecturer at Coventry University, UK. (Aug-Sep, 2023)

My main duties included collaboratively designing early childhood learning and development courses with the course leader and other colleagues and taking three teaching sessions for undergraduates.

Putting politics and ethics first: exploring the linkage with early childhood education (ECE) and the values of participatory democracy and care.

Professor Jo Warin

Preschool teacher certified in Beijing, China