Social Leadership in Early Childhood Education and Care

Abstract

Across the world, organisations in early childhood education (ECE) face major operational challenges, including staff recruitment, retention and wellbeing. These issues impact negatively on the experience of children, carers and the wider community. Social leadership is a new model of leadership that can be implemented to combat these issues and challenges. It prioritises warm, non-hierarchical and inclusive modes of leadership, which enables all staff across an organisation to make change by acting from a strong sense of community and purpose. Using qualitative and quantitative data, this book provides an introduction to social leadership in the context of ECE, and shows how it can be developed and implemented by organisations, training bodies and educational institutions. The book draws on an international research project called Social Leadership in Early Childhood Education (SLECE), which tracked the impact of social leadership initiatives in Australia, Romania, the UK and the USA. Each chapter includes a list of aims, boxed summaries of key concepts, reflective and discussion questions, a further reading list and a bulleted chapter summary.