Early Childhood Leadership Research Articles

Building Leadership Capacity in Early Childhood Pre-Service Teachers

Building leadership capacity within the early childhood profession has emerged as a key concern as the sector responds to national reforms. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the discussion around the changes needed in tertiary training to build early childhood leadership capacity in school settings. Eight experienced early childhood teachers enrolled in a post graduate leadership unit participated in this small scale, exploratory study. Data were drawn from the participants’ research plans, reflective journals and a post unit survey. The findings indicated that the participants found it difficult to perceive themselves as leading families and community. Two key challenges emerged from the data; the importance of developing home/school partnerships and difficulties with infrastructure and support. In order to prepare teachers for the changing early childhood environment, teacher educators need to consider course renewal to acknowledge the changing landscape in early childhood school settings and make adjustments accordingly.

유아리더십이 사회적 유능감에 미치는 영향

본 연구는 유아의 사회적 유능감을 위하여 유아의 리더십이 사회적 유능감에 미치는 영향을 조사하였다. 서울, 인천, 경기 지역의 만5세 남녀유아 330명을 설문조사하여 자료처리를 t-검증, f-검증을 적용하여 person상관분석을 실시하였다. 연구결과는 첫째, 유아의 성별에 따라 의미 있는 차이를 보였고 남아보다 여아가 리더십, 사회적 유능감 점수가 더 높은 것으로 나타났다. 둘째, 유아리더십과 사회적 유능감 간의 상관관계를 분석한 결과는 통계적으로 유의미한 차이를 보이는 것으로 나타났다. 셋째, 리더십 수준이 높은 집단일수록 사회적 유능감이 높은 것으로 나타났다. 결론적으로 본 연구에서는 유아의 리더십이 유아의 사회적 유능감에 미치는 영향이 크다는 것이 입증 되었다. 따라서 본 연구에서 나타나는 결과는 유아의 리더십을 향상시키는 유아 리더십 교육프로그램을 통하여 유아의 사회적 유능감을 증진 시킬 수 있다는 교육적 시사점을 가질 수 있다. This study, infants to Toddler's sense of competent leadership of social and socially competent to investigate the impact of the sense. Seoul, Incheon, Gyeonggi area only 5 years old male and female infants are 330 people survey F-t-data processing, validation, and verification applied to person-correlated analysis study. First of all, depending on the infant's gender remains a meaningful difference and is capable of leadership, social sense than girls score higher. Second, an analysis of correlation between competent leadership and social sense of the infant, and the result is a statistically significant difference. Second, a high degree of collective leadership to be more socially competent, comfortable. In conclusion, in this study, the infant is capable of leadership and the impact of this is social in the sense of an infant Therefore, this study is the result of an infant appearing in leadership for improving early childhood leadership training programs, and promoting a sense of being able to make a skilled early childhood social and educational implications.

Exploring the Dance of Early Childhood Educational Leadership

THIS PAPER REPORTS ON the emerging findings of the first year of an inquiry-based professional development program called Educational Leadership in Early Childhood Settings (ELECS). The program was funded by the then Early Childhood Policy and Strategic Projects Division of the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (Victoria, Australia) and delivered under the auspices of the Bastow Institute of Educational Leadership. The intent of the program was to support early childhood educational leaders to mentor early childhood educators in the implementation of the Victorian Early Years Learning and Development Framework (VEYLDF). The paper interweaves some of the initial data drawn from the program evaluations through a review of the early childhood leadership literature. The paper includes examples of participant understandings of themselves as educational leaders and demonstrates how their involvement in the program informed their leadership in relation to the VEYLDF. The paper concludes with a discussion of the outcomes of the program in terms of the participants' changing perceptions of early childhood leadership.

Early childhood leadership through the lens of distributed leadership

ABSTRACTThis study aims to investigate distribution of responsibilities for leadership in early childhood education (ECE) context. It focuses on the enactments of leadership by investigating how ECE stakeholders, e.g. teachers, ECE centre directors and administrative ECE leaders in municipalities perceive the leadership responsibilities. Using focus groups, the data was collected in seven municipalities in Finland. The study was based on contextual and distributed view of leadership. Quality improvement and pedagogical leadership was seen as primary responsibilities in ECE leadership by all studied groups. The study indicated different practices of distribution of responsibilities for leadership. However, it indicated that developed forms of leadership distribution were rarely used. In developing ECE leadership, focusing on interdependencies of leadership enactments between teachers, centre directors and municipal ECE leaders and building structures for interaction between stakeholders, increase the quality of distributed leadership.

Leadership Development during Times of Reform

EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP IN EARLY childhood education and care settings has been integrated within the National Quality Framework in Australia, which came into effect on 1 January, 2012. While the appointment of educational leaders within the field is a step in the right direction, leadership development has been overlooked at governmental level until recently. The issue is being examined at this time due the regulatory reforms currently underway within the field in Australia. The paper calls for more leadership development within the field since most educators with leadership responsibilities have been appointed to their position with limited, or no, leadership training. A cultural shift is recommended in order to significantly improve the status of the profession.

‘Doing’ Social Justice in Early Childhood: The Potential of Leadership

Early childhood education has long been connected with objectives related to social justice. Australian early childhood education and care (ECEC) has its roots in philanthropic and educational reform movements prevalent at the turn of the twentieth century. More recently, with the introduction of the National Early Childhood Reform Agenda, early childhood education has once more been linked to the achievement of aims associated with redressing inequality and disadvantage. The authors argue that educational leaders have an obligation to promote equity as they articulate the needs of marginalised students who are traditionally disadvantaged while they also work towards challenging the social order that affords this circumstance of inequity to exist. Drawing on extant literature, including data from two previously reported Australian studies in which leadership emerged as having a transformational impact on service delivery, this article examines the potential of early childhood leadership to generate ‘socially just’ educational communities. With reference to critical theory, the authors argue that critically informed, intentional and strategic organisational leadership can play a pivotal role in creating changed circumstances and opportunities for children and families. Such leadership includes positional and distributed elements, articulation of values and beliefs, and collective action that is mindful and informed.

Leadership in Early Childhood Education

Leadership in early childhood education is greatly under-represented in academic literature. Derek Glover’s review of the contents of EMAL, for the 40th Anniversary Issue in September 2012 (Bush and Crawford, 2012), showed that only 15 papers have focused on primary education in the past decade, compared to 41 on secondary schools, and most of those do not address early childhood settings. This issue of the journal begins to address this inequity with two papers on this sector. It is now well established that student outcomes are strongly influenced by children’s early learning experiences and leadership is a key factor in making early childhood education successful. The first article, by Carol Aubrey, Ray Godfrey and Alma Harris, explores what leadership means for participants in 12 diverse early childhood settings in a large Midlands city. They surveyed almost 200 staff and governors, interviewed 12 early childhood leaders, conducted group interviews with other staff, and produced vignettes of leaders, based on diaries and video observations of their practice. They draw on all these data sets to show that leadership was distributed across the wide range of children, families, communities, professionals and agencies involved in early childhood education. They caution that one leadership approach cannot be appropriate for such a diverse sector and conclude that ‘flexible leadership is the way forward’. In the next article, Manjula Waniganayake, Johanna Heikka and Eeva Hujala link distributed leadership to early childhood education, drawing on the work of Alma Harris and other leading writers, in a systematic literature review. They confirm that published work on this sector is ‘sparse and difficult to locate’. They comment that, within early childhood education, research has been focused on relationships between leaders and followers. More recently, distributed leadership has been applied to the sector, as Aubrey et al.’s paper also suggests. They conclude by claiming that distributed leadership can bring about better interconnection, consistency and coherence in service delivery amongst the diverse stakeholders involved in early childhood education. Achievement for All (AfA) is a major initiative which has transformed provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) in England. Sonia Blandford has been centrally involved with AfA since the pilot in 2009 and the next article presents her assessment of its impact on school leadership. Drawing on focus group interviews with heads and local authority project leaders in ten local authorities, she identifies 54 different leadership issues arising from the implementation of AfA. Unsurprisingly, the most frequently cited ‘leadership lesson’ was to ‘communicate vision to all stakeholders’. Second was the need to distribute leadership, to achieve ‘ownership’, connecting with the points made in the first two articles in this issue. The author concludes that AfA has produced clear evidence of impact on SEND leadership practice. The next two articles both relate to countries under-represented in the educational leadership literature. Jamila Razzaq and Christine Forde examine the impact of curricular change on secondary school leaders in Pakistan. Drawing on interviews with the heads of 20 schools in Rawalpindi and Islamabad, the authors note several disadvantages of the change process; limited engagement Educational Management Administration & Leadership 41(1) 3–4 a The Author(s) 2012 Reprints and permission: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1741143212462968 emal.sagepub.com

How Do They Manage? An Investigation of Early Childhood Leadership

Early childhood (EC) leadership literature indicates few theoretically based studies identifying and testing different models and characteristics of leadership. Objectives were thus to identify, describe and analyse what leadership meant to key EC participants; to consider roles, responsibilities and characteristics; to investigate core components; to capture practice and judge how it was understood and enacted. A case-study approach used 12 sites and multiple data-gathering methods: questionnaires; interviews; and in-depth ‘day in the life’ video vignettes. Participants described their organizations as hierarchical in structure and traditional in strategic decision-making, yet collaborative in culture and operational functioning. Variation in leadership, management and administration patterns across settings indicated multiple leadership roles in diverse EC settings. Principal components analysis revealed that those with postgraduate qualifications favoured ‘leaders as guides’; those with professional heritages other than teaching leaned towards ‘leaders as strategists’; those with NVQ qualifications tended towards ‘leaders as motivators’; those with postgraduate qualifications also valued ‘leaders as business oriented’. New models of leadership are thus worthy of consideration. Leaders acknowledged difficulty in standing back and reflecting, recognizing an essential aspect of leadership was ongoing thinking and decision-making, inaccessible unless they ‘talked-aloud’ whilst engaging in professional practice. This suggests a need to increase self-understanding and alternative routes to problem-solving.

Reframing early childhood leadership

RAPID CHANGES IN AUSTRALIAN education have intensified the role of early childhood leaders and led to unprecedented challenges. The Australian Curriculum (ACARA, 2011), mandated Australian National Quality Framework (NQF) for Early Childhood Education & Care (DEEWR, 2010b) and the National Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF) (DEEWR, 2009) have heightened the need for leaders to guide and move the profession forward. Leaders need to build professional knowledge, pedagogical capacity and infrastructure in the early childhood education and care (ECEC) workforce in order to deliver reforms and achieve high-quality outcomes for children. Yet research on early childhood leadership remains sparse and inadequately theorised, while the voice of the early childhood profession remains marginalised (Woodrow & Busch, 2008). In this paper I draw on my previous research in leadership and change management which investigated principals', early childhood teachers' and teacher-aides' conceptual and behavioural positions on educational changes in work contexts. I present a model of leadership that connects to practice, builds professional capacity and capability, and recognises the importance of relationship building and quality infrastructure. The model calls for robust constructions of leadership and improved professional identity that will reposition the profession so that it keeps pace with the critical needs of early childhood professionals. Within this model, tertiary educational institutions and professional organisations will play their role in guiding the profession forward as new paradigms evolve and federal and state initiatives begin to surface.

An Examination of International Early Childhood Curriculum Documents

This review explored early childhood curriculum documents produced in 17 countries and five Canadian provinces between 1996 and 2011. The review forms the foundation for the creation of a meaningful, pedagogical tool that could inform the early childhood research community, front line educators and policy/decision–makers. By comparing the vision and guidelines of early learning curriculum documents as articulated by early childhood leaders in various jurisdictions, stakeholders can identify similarities and highlight gaps.

Pedagogical leadership from a distributed perspective within the context of early childhood education

In practice, pedagogical leadership cannot be considered on its own. If early childhood leaders attempt to practise pedagogical leadership by itself, and as a traditional leader working alone, it w...

Constructing Leadership in Child Care: Epistemological Beliefs and Transformational Leadership

EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION AND CARE (ECEC) in Australia are currently a focus of social and economic policy. However, early childhood leadership in Australia is yet to develop a clear identity that will enable the field to develop to its full potential. In this paper we investigate a unique theoretical framework for constructing leadership identity, based on transformational leadership and epistemological beliefs. Using semi-structured interviews, 15 childcare directors from a large metropolitan area in Australia were asked to describe their beliefs about knowing in the context of their leadership practices. The findings showed that leaders (n = 5) who espoused predominantly evaluativist beliefs about knowing were more likely to describe transformational leadership behaviours in the context of childcare leadership. A number of leaders held mixed beliefs (n = 9) about knowing and described their leadership practice in ways that reflected both transactional and transformational leadership styles. Finally, one leader described predominantly objectivist epistemological beliefs and transactional beliefs about leadership. These preliminary findings show that there seems to be a relationship between core epistemological beliefs and beliefs about leadership practices and offers a new way to characterise leadership in ECEC in Australia.

The Turkish adaptation of the program administration scale

This study aims at conducting the Turkish translation and reliability study of the Program Administration Scale (PAS), developed by Talan and Bloom (2004) in order to measure early childhood leadership and management. The scale is used to determine quality in preschools in terms of administrative context. In this study the original version of PAS was translated into Turkish and back translated by bilingual individuals. After obtaining the Turkish form of the scale, the reliability study was done in 26 preschools. The results show that the scale is a highly reliable tool to support quality studies in early childhood education research.

Literacy Leadership in Early Childhood: The Essential Guide, by Dorothy S. Strickland & Shannon Riley-Aers

Literacy Leadership in Early Childhood: The Essential Guide, by Dorothy S. Strickland & Shannon Riley-Aers

Early childhood leaders and literacy

Early childhood leaders and literacy

Repositioning early childhood leadership as action and activism

ABSTRACT Robust leadership is increasingly recognised as a critical element of healthy professions, yet some research suggests that early childhood practitioners do not readily identify with the concept of leadership. This article explores some dimensions of leadership in early childhood and how it is understood and practised in Australian early childhood contexts. The analysis suggests that the dominant images of leadership in the wider community and the discourses of early childhood, together with increasing control of the profession through mandated curriculum and auditing and the rise of corporate childcare and commodified children’s services, militate against the realisation of a strong leadership identity. Resources emerging from feminist work in the area of leadership, ethics and professionalism provide new opportunities to reconceptualise leadership through activism and engagement. Such a shift has implications for how we might reconstruct the professional preparation of early childhood teachers through projects of action and activism. The article concludes with an outline of a pilot project involving pre‐service teachers in a project of community engagement in which aspects of a ‘new leadership’ are practised. RÉSUMÉ: Une notion solide de la direction est de plus en plus reconnue comme une dimension professionnelle essentielle, toutefois des études indiquent que les praticiens de la petite enfance ne la saisissent pas encore vraiment. Cet article porte sur quelques aspects de cette notion dans le champ de la petite enfance et sur la façon dont elle est comprise et mise en pratique dans les services préscolaires australiens. L’analyse montre que la représentation dominante, au niveau de la communauté comme dans le discours sur la petite enfance, avec l’augmentation du contrôle de la profession par le curriculum et les audits, fait obstacle à la mise en oeuvre d’une définition forte de cette notion de direction. Les apports des travaux féministes dans ce champ et dans celui de l’éthique et du professionnalisme offrent de nouvelles occasions pour reconceptualiser cette notion à travers celles d’activisme et d’engagement. Le changement de perspectives apporté a des implications sur la façon dont nous pourrions reconstruire la formation professionnelle des praticiens de la petite enfance grâce à des projets d’action et à l’activisme. L’article conclut avec la présentation d’une étude pilote impliquant des professionnels en formation dans un projet qui engage la communauté et dans lequel des aspects d’une ‘nouvelle direction’ sont mis en pratique. ZUSAMMENFASSUNG: Belastbare Leitung wird zunehmend als wesentliches Element der Gesundheitsberufe erkannt, wenn auch Forschung darauf hindeutet, dass frühpädagogische PraktikerInnen sich nicht allzu bereitwillig mit dem Konzept von Führung identifizieren. Dies Papier untersucht einige Dimension von Führung im frühpädagogischen Bereich und wie diese in Australien auf diesem Gebiet verstanden und praktiziert werden. Die Analyse legt nahe, dass die vorherrschenden Bilder von Führung in der weiteren Gemeinschaft und im Diskurs über frühe Kindheit in Verbindung mit einer zunehmenden Kontrolle des Berufs über Anordnungen von Curriculum und Überprüfungen, mit dem Anwachsen von Unternehmenskindertagesstätten sowie kommerzialisierter Dienstleistungsangebote einer Realisierung von starker Leitungs‐ und Führungsidentität widerstreiten. Ressourcen aus feministischer Arbeit auf dem Gebiet von Führung und Leitung, Ethik und Professionalismus eröffnen neue Möglichkeiten, durch Handeln und Engagement eine Neukonzeptualisierung von Leitung und Führung zu leisten. Eine solche Veränderung hat Implikationen dafür, wie die professionelle Vorbereitung frühpädagogischer Fachkräfte über Handlungsprojekte neu konstruiert werden kann. Das Papier schließt mit der Kurzdarstellung eines Pilotprojektes mit in Ausbildung befindlichen Fachkräften im Rahmen eines Projektes zu gesellschaftlichem Engagement, in welchem Aspekte einer “neuen Leitung und Führung’ praktiziert werden. RESUMEN: Un sólido y fuerte sentido de liderazgo es reconocido cada vez mas como un elemento crítico en profesiones saludables, sin embargo algunas investigaciones sugieren que los profesionales de la temprana edad no se identifican fácilmente con el concepto de liderazgo. Este documento explora algunas de las dimensiones del liderazgo en la infancia y como es entendido y practicado en los contextos de la temprana edad Australianos. El análisis sugiere que las imágenes dominantes de liderazgo en esta amplia comunidad, y los tratados de temprana edad junto con el creciente control a través de currículos de mandato, auditorías y el incremento del cuidado infantil corporativo y servicios infantiles comercializados van en contra de la comprensión de una fuerte identidad de liderazgo. Los recursos que emergen de los trabajos feministas en el área del liderazgo, ética y profesionalismo, ofrecen nuevas oportunidades para visualizar este a través de activismo y compromiso. Semejante cambio ha dado como resultado implicaciones acerca de cómo debemos reconstruir la preparación profesional para profesores de la temprana edad a través de proyectos de acción y activismo. El documento concluye con un resumen de un proyecto piloto que involucra a profesores pre‐servicio en un proyecto de participación comunitaria en el cual los aspectos de ‘nuevo liderazgo’ son practicados.

Education reform policy and early childhood teacher education in Hong Kong before and after the transfer of sovereignty to China in 1997

Built on a sociocultural framework of policy analysis and Wertsch's concept of mediation, the present study examines how early childhood teacher education has changed as a result of interactions between reform policy and the action of teacher educators. Ten teacher educators participated in the study, along with eight early childhood leaders, 15 kindergarten principals and child care centre supervisors, and one policy‐maker. Data collected through interviews, focus‐group discussions, and reviews of government and organisational documents as well as press materials were analysed. The findings revealed that early childhood organisations were more active than teacher educators in the process of negotiation. Although early childhood teacher education has expanded since the handover in 1997, the voice and identity of the profession are still in an embryonic state. The study offers implications for redefining the roles of teacher educators and restructuring teacher education contexts to help facilitate the development of ideological consciousness and new understanding.

Warrki Jarrinjaku ‘working together everyone and listening’: growing together as leaders for Aboriginal children in remote central Australia

ABSTRACT This article outlines an early childhood leadership model that senior Anangu and Yapa (Aboriginal) women, living semi‐traditional lifestyles in the remote desert regions of central Australia, have identified as a positive and important way forward for their children, families, governments and related professionals. The initiative – Warrki Jarrinjaku Jintangkamanu Purananjaku (Warrki Jarrinjaku), Warlpiri for ‘working together everyone and listening’ – is a collaboration between senior Anangu and Yapa women from the central desert, Waltja Tjutangku Palyapayi Aboriginal Organisation (Waltja) and the Australian Government Department of Families, Housing Community Services and Indigenous Affairs (FaHCSIA). It is also known as the Aboriginal Child Rearing Strategy (ACRS). This article also discusses some of the key findings from the Warrki Jarrinjaku ACRS project and explores its emerging influence in early childhood practice within Australia and internationally. RÉSUMÉ: Cet article présente un modèle de direction de la petite enfance que des femmes Aborigènes Anangu et Yapa, vivant de façon semi‐traditionnelle dans les régions désertiques d’Australie centrale, considèrent comme positif et important pour leurs enfants, leurs familles, leurs gouvernements et leurs professionnels. L’initiative ‐ Warrki Jarrinjaku Jintangkamanu Purananjaku, (Warrki Jarrinjaku) Warlpiri pour ‘travailler ensemble et s’écouter’‐ résulte d’une collaboration entre des femmes Anangu et Yapa du désert central, l’organisation aborigène Waltja Tjutangku Palyapayi (Waltja) et le ministère des Familles, des Services à la Communauté et des Affaires Indigènes du gouvernement australien (FaHCSIA). Elle est également connue sous le nom de Stratégie Aborigène d’Accueil de l’Enfant (ACRS). ZUSAMMENFASSUNG: Die indigenen australischen Völker der Anangu und Yapa leben auf halb‐traditionelle Weise in abgelegenen Wüstengebieten Zentralaustraliens. Dieser Artikel umreißt ein kooperatives Führungsmodell in der Frühpädagogik, das von rangälteren Frauen dieser Völker als positiv und wichtig für ihre Kinder, Familien, Regierungsstellen und Fachkräfte identifiziert wurde. Warrki Jarrinjaku Jintangkamanu Purananjaku, (Warrki Jarrinjaku) Warlpiri bedeutet ‘alle arbeiten zusammen und hören zu’ und steht für eine gemeinsame Initiative zwischen rangälteren Anangu‐ und Yapa‐Frauen, der Waltja Tjutangku Palyapayi Aboriginal Organisation (Waltja) und dem Australischen Ministerium für Familien, Gemeinwesenarbeit und Indigene Angelegenheiten (FaHCSIA). Die Initiative ist auch als Indigene Erziehungs‐Strategie (Aboriginal Child Rearing Strategy, ARCS) bekannt. Der Artikel diskutiert einige der zentralen Ergebnisse des Warrki Jarrinjaku ACRS Projekts und erörtert dessen wachsenden Einfluss auf die Australische und internationale Frühpädagogische Praxis. RESUMEN: Este documento resalta un modelo de liderazgo en la temprana edad que mujeres mayores Anangu y Yapa (Aborígenes) que viven estilos de vida semi‐tradicionales en las remotas regiones del desierto de Australia Central han identificado como una positiva e importante manera de aprendizaje para sus niños, familias, gobiernos y profesionales relacionados. La iniciativa – Warrki Jarrinjaku Jintangkamanu Purananjaku, (Warrki Jarrinjaku) Warlpiri para ‘trabajar juntos y escuchar todos’ – es una colaboración entre las mujeres Anangu y Yapa del desierto central, la Organización Aborigen Waltja Tjutangku Palyapayi (Waltja) y el Departamento Gubernamental de Familias, Servicios Comunitarios y Asuntos Indígenas Australianos (FaCSIA). Es también conocido como la Estrategia de Crianza de Niños Aborígenes (ACRS). Este documento también discute algunos de los descubrimientos claves del proyecto ACRS Warrki Jarrinjaku y explora su emergente influencia en la práctica de la enseñanza en la temprana edad tanto en Australia como internacionalmente.

Book Reviews: Love's Return: Psychoanalytic Essays on Childhood, Teaching and Learning, Inclusion in the Early Years: Critical Analyses and Enabling Narratives, Leadership in Early Childhood

Book Reviews: Love's Return: Psychoanalytic Essays on Childhood, Teaching and Learning, Inclusion in the Early Years: Critical Analyses and Enabling Narratives, Leadership in Early Childhood

The need for flexibility

A research project conducted by the University of Warwick in association with a group of early childhood leaders highlighted the challenges faced by the workforce in this ever changing sector.