‘This is the crux of what we do’: Australian early childhood education professionals’ perspectives of wellbeing literacy

Early childhood is a critical life stage for the development of child wellbeing. Early education and care experiences (ECEC) support children’s wellbeing, and curriculum documents and frameworks across the world include wellbeing outcomes and foci. However, a dominant neoliberalism discourse has resulted in a ‘push down’ of academic agendas, centring policy and practices on traditional literacy (reading and writing) over play-based and multi-literacy approaches. Instrumental early childhood pedagogues have called for a re-conceptualisation of early education. Wellbeing science proffers a new literacy, that of wellbeing literacy, that can support this reconceptualization and underpin ECEC pedagogies. Focus groups with 28 early childhood professionals (teachers, pedagogical leaders, mentors and coaches) in Australia examined wellbeing literacy and its five-component capability model to understand how it may inform, reflect, expand and/or underpin ECEC professionals’ wellbeing conceptions, practices and pedagogy. Alternate and debating views about the application of wellbeing literacy were raised. Using Template Analysis, hierarchical findings included themes of ‘a shared language and lens’, ‘a learning and planning tool’, ‘another layer – going deeper, further, expanding’ and ‘applicability and value’. Integrative themes of ‘resonance’, ‘relevance’ and ‘utility’ reflected participants’ views that wellbeing literacy is ‘the crux of what we do’ in early childhood education. Wellbeing literacy and the five-component capability model can offer an additional, vital and contemporary literacy in ECEC, and a framework for conceptualising wellbeing and focusing pedagogy on children’s wellbeing skills. This study also addresses the paucity of research and literature about wellbeing literacy in the context of ECEC, contributing to discourse in early childhood education and wellbeing science.