YOU BETTER WERK: Disrupting and Queering Professionalism in Early Childhood Education and Care

[Introduction}: " 

“I am a professional,” and “I came to werq.” (Shangela, 2012). This message from Shangela’s 2012 song “Werqin’ Girl” signifies the importance of hard work to attain “professional” status as a drag performer. It also relates to the mainstream success that drag culture has enjoyed in recent years, which can be credited to the global success of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Werq or “werk” is a term that describes the passionate labour that goes into marketing a drag persona and making a career out of it. Historically, it aims to call out heteronormativity and challenge dominant cultural norms (Lovelock, 2019). In a sense, the hard werk of drag queens and kings disturbs the cultural and societal norm of what constitutes “professional behaviour” or “professionalism.” This normalcy in what constitutes “professionalism” also exists in the field of early childhood education. For example, the Code of Ethics and Standard of Practice, a document that guides professionalism for early childhood educators in Ontario, indicates that an educator that exhibits professionalism is “knowledgeable” in practice that is “caring and responsive on children’s development, learning, self-regulation, identity and well-being” (College of Early Childhood Educators, 2017, p. 8)."