ABSTRACT The primary purpose of this paper is to illustrate how a critical realist approach can add to our understanding of professional recognition of educators in a pre-school setting. Recognition is a function of personal achievement and social arrangement, and is understood through examining those subjective conditions and objective structures as observed in the field of practice or as articulated by the actors involved. Through in-depth interviews, we provoked early childhood educators to deliberate on their lived experiences of professional recognition vis-à-vis policy expectations and institutional practices. In doing so, we identified interactive forces that influence professional recognition in a pre-school context. We argue that a stratified view of reality and epistemic relativism espoused by critical realists offers valuable theoretical insights for exploring teacher professional recognition. Finally, drawing on our empirical data and latest literature, we outline four points of reflection regarding the analytical advantages of critical realism.

中文翻译：

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在学前环境中研究专业认可度：一种批判的现实主义方法

摘要本文的主要目的是说明批判性的现实主义方法可以如何加深我们对学前教育环境中教育工作者专业认可的理解。承认是个人成就和社会安排的功能，通过检查在实践领域中观察到的或所涉及的行为者表达的那些主观条件和客观结构来理解。通过深入的访谈，我们促使幼儿教育者考虑他们对政策期望和机构实践的专业认可的生活经验。在这样做的过程中，我们确定了影响学龄前专业认可度的互动力量。我们认为，批判现实主义者拥护的对现实和认知相对论的分层观点为探索教师的专业认可提供了宝贵的理论见解。最后，利用我们的经验数据和最新文献，我们概述了关于批判现实主义的分析优势的四个反思点。