Reconsidering self-efficacy in contemporary early childhood education: The aesthetic self – A portrait of Priscilla

Abstract

This article argues that centralising aesthetics can strengthen early childhood teacher self-efficacy by reframing aesthetic sensibility as a lived capacity rather than a domain-specific skill. While aesthetic approaches have long been associated with early childhood education, they are increasingly marginalised within broader educational contexts shaped by standardisation, accountability and measurable outcomes. Drawing on portraiture methodology and the written image of ‘Priscilla’, an academic – artist – teacher, this article explores how aesthetic sensibility is sustained and enacted as an embodied and multimodal disposition. In doing so, it challenges distinctions between artist and non-artist, positioning aesthetic engagement as inherent to early childhood teachers in contemporary classroom settings. Through Priscilla's account, taken-for-granted assumptions are questioned, shifting attention from what students produce to what early childhood teachers make possible within learning environments. Within this framing, early childhood teachers are positioned as learners, and the artistry of being is understood as integral to teaching. The findings highlight concepts of becoming, multiplicity and displacement as conditions that strengthen teacher self-efficacy within arts-based practice. This article challenges neoliberal framings of early childhood education and positions aesthetics as central rather than peripheral to confident and agentic ways of teaching for early childhood teachers today.