Undermined professionalism: Strategic impression management among early childhood educators

In recent decades, accountability reforms often impinged on teachers' professional discretion, in particular devaluing the status of early childhood educators (ECEs). Given this erosion, the present study explores how ECEs renegotiate their image to elevate their professional standing and prestige. In-depth interviews with 72 Israeli ECEs indicated that while enhancing their personal prestige and esoteric knowledge consumption proved ineffective, collective-oriented impression management (IM) was found to be a transformative strategy, successfully fostering status elevation. Contrary to previous research, findings uncovered educators' IM orientation and drive, which breach the symbolic/knowledge IM dichotomy to explicate ECEs’ status stagnation or elevation.