Creating staff capacity through professional learning communities appears to facilitate sustainable improvement. Stoll et al. (2006) argue that, in order to find ways to constantly enhance children’s learning and ensure the challenging continuation of change when implementing a new practice, the school communities have to cooperate and learn together. Professional learning communities intend to constantly seek and share learning and continuously improve ongoing practice in accordance with the new knowledge. The result of this collective effort in educational settings is assumed to be more effective professionals developing positive learning environments for children’s wellbeing, learning and growth.

Building teachers’ individual and collective capacity for promoting children’s learning proves critical (Stoll et al., 2006). Capacity is understood as a mixture of skill, positive learning, motivation, organizational culture and conditions, and the infrastructure of support. Capacity building is expected to give individuals, groups and whole school communities or school systems the power to implement and sustain learning over time. The interest in capacity and capacity-building efforts in ECEC institutions is increasing in Norway, partly as a result of the Royal Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research’s commitment to early intervention and social inclusion for every child (St.Meld. 16, 2006-2007; Meld.St. 18, 2010-2011). To be able to identify and prevent difficulties in children’s early development presupposes highly qualified ECEC staff. Nevertheless, the OECD points out that Norwegian ECEC institutions offer a lower proportion of professionally educated ECEC teachers than is the case in the rest of the Scandinavian countries. Consequently, more research should be done regarding the quality of Norwegian ECEC institutions in the future (St.Meld. 16, 2006-2007).

The purpose of this study was to investigate the capacity-building process in selected Norwegian Early Childhood Educational and Care (ECEC) institutions implementing an authoritative adult style (Baumrind, 1991; Walker, 2008). An authoritative adult balances between building up high quality interactions with children, while at the same time having a predictable structure with clear norms and social expectations in the learning environment. This paper considers the innovation process in seven Norwegian ECEC institutions implementing the Being Together (BT) program, an early intervention approach to promoting social and emotional development in preschoolers. The capacity building presupposes close cooperation in the staff group, highly involved leaders, high quality supervision and courses on the core issues, and a support system including educational material for the staff. Staff members strive to achieve a common understanding of their professional mission by identifying the key knowledge, skills, motivation, values and attitudes needed in their work with the children in the institution. Raising self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997) among all staff members, irrespective of the diversity in formal educational backgrounds, through professional learning communities is highlighted in BT to ensure the children's learning and development. BT received financial support from the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research to fund the intervention, which was directed from the Office of the County Governor of Vest-Agder, Norway in cooperation with the University of Stavanger. Until recently, BT involved more than 1000 Norwegian ECEC institutions and around 3000 supervisors from 50 municipalities, which makes it an extraordinary, national capacity-building initiative in ECEC institutions in Norway. The intervention has the potential for spreading internationally as it is based on international recognized theory. 

The University of Agder was responsible for the external evaluation and follow-up research. The main objective of this study was to investigate which conditions in the ECEC institutions helped to successfully implement the principles of the intervention and build staff capacity through professional learning communities, and to identify the challenges.  

Bandura, A. (1997). Self-efficacy: the exercise of control. New York: Freeman. Baumrind, D. (1991). Parenting styles and adolescent development. In J. Brooks-Gunn, Lerner, R. M. & Petersen, A. C. (Eds.), The Encyclopedia of adolescence. (pp. 746-758.). New York: Garland. Fullan, M. (2001). The new meaning of educational change. (3rd ed.). New York: Teachers College Press. Kvale, S., & Brinkmann, S. (2009). Interviews: learning the craft of qualitative research interviewing. (2nd ed.). Los Angeles, California: Sage. Lauvås, P., & Handal, G. (2014). Veiledning og praktisk yrkesteori (3rd ed.). Oslo: Cappelen Damm akademisk. (Guidance and practical vocational theory). Meld.St. 18. (2010-2011). Læring og fellesskap: Tidlig innsats og gode læringsmiljøer for barn, unge og voksne med særlige behov.: Kunnskapsdepartementet. (Learning and community: Early intervention and positive learning environments for children, youth and adults with special needs). Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative research & evaluation methods. (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications. Richards, L. (2002). Using NVivo in Qualitative Research. Melbourne: QSR International. Senge, P. M. (2006). The fifth discipline: the art and practice of the learning organization. New York: Currency/Doubleday. St.Meld. 16. (2006-2007). ...Og ingen stod igjen. Tidlig innsats for livslang læring.: Kunnskapsdepartementet. (… And no one was left behind: Early intervention for life-long learning). Stoll, L., Bolam, R., McMahon, A., Wallace, M., & Thomas, S. (2006). Professional Learning Communities: A Review of the Literature. Journal of Educational Change, 7(4), 221-258. doi: 10.1007/s10833-006-0001-8 Walker, J. M. T. (2008). Looking at Teacher Practices through the Lens of Parenting Style. Journal of Experimental Education, 76(2), 218-240. doi: 10.3200/JEXE.76.2.218-240