The proposed presentation will discuss the further development of our previous projects which have focused on the relationship building between HE lecturers and students (Yale & Warren, 2023; Blanco-Bayo, 2022). The present study extends these and explores how the different perspectives of four academics working in the Early Years Education and Care (EYEC) sector intersect and impact on their professional identities and practice within Higher Education (HE). The project considers the significant impact of social media such as TikTok on the HE student populations (Lau, 2017) and how these influence their attendance, engagement and interest in EYEC. Our objective and focus are to provide more of a nuanced understanding of the need to build caring relationships with HE students to enhance and advance their own understanding and application to practise in EY settings. 

We acknowledge that educational practices from various regions and nations and across different sectors in education offer a multinational and yet, unified role in the approach to educational research (EERA, 2025).  Our varied perspectives, shaped by our professional backgrounds and cultures, are key to how we adapt to the needs of EYEC student practitioners as academics. These include those of a Spaniard Early Years Educator, a Greek SEND specialist, a British psychologist, and an English HE Senior Leader - all currently working with EYEC students in HE. To explore the high influence of social media on our Generation Z students (Lau, 2017), we name them as the ‘TikTok generation’ and hence, pose the following research question: 

How do the different perspectives of care of four EYEC academics influence: 

a. their practice in Higher Education 

b. the practice of the TikTok generation students in EYEC? 

Drawing on our previous project on the exploration of personal tutoring identities in HE (Yale & Warren, 2023) which has highlighted the role of care in navigating professional relationships, ‘care’ becomes central in our project. Thus, this collective ethos (of care), a basic concept in early years pedagogy (Melhuish et al., 2015), is explored through the lens of multicultural practitioners bringing together this process of self-realisation and the professional identities of HE staff perspectives. The latter, in combination with our experiences of delivery in EYEC allows us to reflect on our practice, explore our relationship with our EYEC students and the way this impacts them as future EYEC practitioners.  

To make sense of our practice in HE, we use data from our project on relational approaches (Blanco-Bayo, 2022) in which we have recognised the significance of such practices in shaping how we support EYEC student practitioners. Hence, our perspectives are gathered via a process which considers relational pedagogy as a theoretical framework (Su & Wood, 2023; Gibbs, 2017) aligning well with the nurturing notion of care as a relational process (Morris et al., 2021). During these relational processes staff and students build positive and meaningful relationships (Bovill, 2020) which enhance both practice and overall well-being (Cameron & Moss, 2007; Noddings, 2005). This allows to step away from more formalised approaches used in HE (Gravett, Taylor & Fairchild, 2024), explore our relational ethos of care on our practice and its impact on future EYEC professionals. 

Our research question will be answered following a case study approach (Yin, 2017) where we define as cases our perspectives of care in HE. Posing the questions of why our perspectives are shaped in that way and how this influences our practice in HE allows us for a deep exploration of the impact of such perspectives on our EYEC students. Demographics of students will support us in identifying those students that entered University the academic year 2025 as a starting point to gather perspectives from all year groups going forward. The plan is to collect data from three different undergraduate student cohorts (Year 1, 2 and 3). Only the students that belong in Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2012) will be included in the study. To achieve an in-depth exploration of our four different perspectives, we will use reflective video-diaries and focus group discussions. Through a reflexive lens-consideration of actions, relationships and associated meanings (Archer, 2012) as well as that of reflexive dialogue (Kershner, Hennessy, Wegerif & Ahmed, 2020), we will gather data on our views of care through our ‘dealings’ with relational pedagogy. In addition, by incorporating focus groups with EYEC students, we will capture their perspectives on our approach and its impact on their development as students and future EYEC professionals. Based on Hadinata & Mendrofa's (2021) interdisciplinary case study approach, we will explore how philosophical perspectives on social and political dimensions can illuminate experiences in multicultural contexts. The project is divided in three stages; Stage 1 (reflective video diaries) will explore our existing perspectives of care whilst stage 2 (academics’ focus groups) will provide both individual and collective perspectives through a process of dialogue; and finally at stage 3 (student focus groups), we aim to capture the student voices and their perspective, exploring the impact of the notion of care on their learning and development as EYEC students.

By providing our professional identities and experiences of delivery in Early Years EYEC and exploring their impact on our current student cohorts, we will investigate how the ethos of care from the various perspectives of individuals that work in HE translates into practice. The story and lens of multicultural practitioners will be told alongside the gathering of the collective EYEC student perspectives to support HE lecturers make sense of their relationships with the TikTok generation. We hope that through our “care” thread, which defines us as HE deliverers and is unconsciously integrated in our educational environment, we will explain those relationships that support the development of HE lecturers and students. We refer to a nurturing approach, characterised by an intense relational process, that enables both sides (staff and students) to connect and enhance their practice (Cameron & Moss, 2007; Noddings, 2005). The implications of such findings may well redefine what it means to have an Early Years ethos and challenge the normalised perception of care in Higher Education. Early Years education and practice cannot be disentangled from such a concept and so by considering the significant influences on the current HE generation, we aim to contextualise care in the current HE setting (Khlaif & Salha, 2021). The exploration of our practice and gathering of the differences and similarities of thoughts, reflections and experiences from our range of perspectives will shed light on a collective cohesive understanding of relationships among academics and students within the education of the EYEC sector and beyond, thus, chartering the way forward in the development of caring practices in HE.

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