Session Information
26 SES 13 A, Reframing Leadership and Leading in Education: Diverse Responses from Scholars Across the Field (Part 2)
Symposium continued from 26 SES 12 A
Contribution
Effective leadership makes a critical contribution to the quality of an ECE programme. In turn, high-quality ECE programmes influence children's developmental trajectories, potentially impacting society's economic, social and civil outcomes (Heckman, 2011). Developing effective 'leading' and leadership within ECE sites is, therefore, an important yet underdeveloped focus within research and practice (Douglass, 2019). The sites of early childhood education and care are, however, complex. They are people-intensive, requiring high numbers of staff to ensure children's safety, well-being and healthy development (Alchin et al., 2019; Waniganayake et al., 2016). Because the children attending are very young, the duty of care of staff and the organisation is very high. The leaders of such sites must be aware of and ensure that all staff comply with many standards, but more than compliance is needed to achieve a high-quality ECE programme. Furthermore, effective leadership benefits twofold: a positive impact on children's developmental and social outcomes (Douglass, 2019) and upon the cultivation of leading, ensuring a pipeline of leaders for the future of ECE (Coleman et al., 2016; Siraj-Blatchford & Manni, 2007). This qualitative Australian study of three high-quality, diversely governed ECE services explored the emergence, cultivation, and enactment of leadership as a practice. We illustrate the enactment of leading as a set of collective, dynamic practices undertaken by both emerging and positional leaders and the conditions for cultivating leadership within ECE settings utilising the theory of practice architectures. The gathering of data and subsequent analysis conducted within a framework of the theory of practice architectures illuminated how the emergence and development of leading were enabled and constrained by the cultural-discursive, material-economic, and social-political arrangements evident at each site (Gibbs, 2020). The cultural-discursive arrangements (evident in language and culture), the material-economic arrangements (evident in action and space), and the social-political arrangements (evident in power and relationships) are prefigured and shaped by the practice architectures characteristic of the individual sites (Kemmis et al., 2014). The findings indicate that organisations should consider diverse approaches to leadership cultivation. The organisational arrangements for leadership cultivation and development must, however, be considered in the unique context of jurisdictional regulations, governance practices, and early childhood education traditions.
References
Alchin, I., Arthur, L., & Woodrow, C. (2019). Evidencing leadership and management challenges in early childhood in Australia. Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 44(3), 285-297. https://doi.org/10.1177/1836939119855563 Coleman, A., Sharp, C., & Handscomb, G. (2016). Leading highly performing children’s centres. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 44(5), 775-793. https://doi.org/10.1177/1741143215574506 Douglass, A. (2019). Leadership for quality early childhood education and care. OECD Education Working Paper No. 211 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/education/leadership-for-quality-early-childhood-education-and-care_6e563bae-en Gibbs, L. (2020). Leadership emergence and development: Organizations shaping leading in early childhood education. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 1-22. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1177/1741143220940324 Heckman, J. (2011). The economics of inequality: the value of early childhood education. American Educator, 35(1), 31. Kemmis, S., Wilkinson, J., Edwards-Groves, C., Grootenboer, P., & Bristol, L. S. M. (2014). Changing practices, changing education. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-4560-47-4 Siraj-Blatchford, I., & Manni, L. (2007). Effective leadership in the early years sector: The ELEYS study. Institute of Education Press. Waniganayake, M., Cheeseman, S., Fenech, M., Hadley, F., & Shepherd, W. (2016). Leadership : contexts and complexities in early childhood education (Second ed.). Oxford Press
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