Focusing on the critical role of early childhood educators as advocates for vulnerable
children and families, this study investigated perceptions of early childhood preservice
teachers(ECPTs) on advocacy and advocacy training. A survey collected from 363
ECPTs was used to examine their interests in political and social issues, their
perceptions of advocacy-related training experiences, and the adequacy and necessity
of the advocacy training. The Social Issues Advocacy Scale(SIAS) developed by
Nilsson et al.(2011) was translated into Korean to measure the level of social justice
advocacy of the ECPTs. The results are as follows: First, most respondents were
more interested in political and social issues related to early childhood education than
in general issues. In terms of self-efficacy for advocacy, the ECPTs reported higher
scores in their advocacy for teachers than for children and their family. 74.1% of
respondents reported that they were exposed to advocacy in their teacher training
courses. Second, the ECPTs with advocacy-related training reported higher scores in
relation to self-efficacy for advocacy, on the adequacy of the advocacy training they
received, and on the necessity of advocacy training than those of the ECPTs who had
no experience in advocacy training. Third, the level of social justice advocacy of the
ECPTs was positively related to their perceptions of advocacy training. The results
indicate the importance of advocacy training in teacher preparation programs and the
need to revisit teacher preparation curriculum to build advocacy competence of ECPTs.
