Responsible leadership in the preschool education for tomorrow

Project managers Ebba Hilden, Annica Löfdahl Hultman and Katarina Ribaeus

Project description

The Swedish preschool is in a long-standing change from content-based focus to subject didactic teaching and learning environments, from children’s development in groups to a greater focus on children’s individual learning and development. Not least, new forms of distribution, responsibility and management of the work with the children have been implemented. In both the Act of Education and the Curriculum for preschool, it is now clearly stated that teaching in preschool must take place under the guidance of preschool teachers who, within their mission, must also lead the goal-directed teaching processes. It can be interpreted as a relatively revolutionary change in the organization of the preschool, where previously dominant approaches and practices advocated horizontal relationships in work teams, despite different education and employment forms. The present project is limited to studying the leadership that pre-school teachers exercise with the aim of leading teaching carried out by childminders. In the project, we are interested in how this leadership is performed and what the changed organization means for both preschool teachers, childminders and the preschool's teaching practice.

In order to be able to study this and contribute to the development of a specific leadership, we use an action-research approach Through various actions, leadership is tested in the planning, implementation and evaluation of teaching. The project group includes seven preschool teachers together with researchers. Implemented actions are jointly analyzed from theorizing about teachers' preparedness for action where experiences and contextual aspects form analytical concepts to study how leadership can be tested in practice, theorized, developed and returned to practice.

The purpose of the project is to develop knowledge of how leadership can be conducted in order to both take advantage of the preschool's own traditions and experiences and look forward to preschool teachers' leadership of teaching based on proven experiences and a scientific basis.

Below you can find a brief summary of the first article from the project:

Teachers’ leadership in change and the need of a guiding concept of ‘responsible leadership’ in preschool education for tomorrow.
Hildén Löfdahl Hultman 2023 Ledarskap i förändring.pdf (kau.se)

Ebba Hildén and Annica Löfdahl Hultman, Karlstad University, Sweden

Introduction, aim and theoretical frames

Recently, educational practices in many countries has undergone policy changes (Hardy et al., 2019), which highlights the need for developing pedagogical skills in leadership. One of the main policy changes deals with teachers’ leadership, both leadership in the classroom as well as collegial leadership. Previous research within the field of leadership in education has hitherto mostly focused on formal leadership and the role of principals as well as primary and secondary school teachers’ leadership (Håkansson & Sundberg, 2018). However, there is a lack of research focusing on teachers’ leadership in the ECE. 

The current focus on teachers’ leadership in ECE seems to be an international phenomenon (Zulkifly et al., 2020). The Nordic council of ministers stress teachers’ competence, ‘an increased demand on pedagogical skills in leadership to lead and develop education in the ECEC’ (Hännikäinen & Lipponen, 2017, p. 27). In the Nordic countries, ECE teachers are responsible for teaching, which means leading other professional categories (childminders) and taking responsibility for pedagogical decisions. In Sweden, teaching must be conducted under the guidance of the ECE teacher (Education Act). Leadership tasks have proven to be problematic as the historical organization of the ECE holds horizontal distribution of tasks with ‘anyone can do anything’, continue to be of great importance (Catucci, 2021; Hildén, 2021; Olsson et al., 2020; Vallberg Roth, 2020). Overall, there seems to be a lack of theoretical concepts that can clarify and guide ECE teachers in the new task of enacting leadership when guiding childminders in teaching.

The aim of the article is to explore ECE teachers’ professionalism and ability to achieve agency related to leadership. In order to describe, understand and discuss ECE teachers’ leadership, we use two related theoretical concepts that are both anchored in pragmatism. We believe that how leadership is enacted, relates to different kind of professional logics prevailing in the specific ECE context. We rely on the concept of teacher professionalism according to Solbrekke and Englund (2011), which in our study means the pedagogical quality of how ECE teachers enact their leadership (how) and with what content (what).

Our research questions guiding the analysis are

• What professional logics appear when ECE teachers are guiding childminders in teaching? and
• How does these different professional logics affect teachers’ agency when guiding childminders in teaching?

The analysis was conducted within the theoretical framework of professionalism as responsible or accountable (Solbrekke & Englund, 2011). Professional responsibility emphasizes an autonomous teacher who can act in the present and assess a situation based on their competence, who trusts their colleagues and can act proactively. On the other hand, an accountability professionalism, where adherence to guidelines and standardized norms for teaching, controlling and allowing predefined assessment criteria to determine what is considered to be teaching of good quality. Within this professionalism, the teacher acts reactively in relation to decisions made by employers and politicians.

To further interpret and describe ECE teachers’ leadership, we have based our analysis on theories of teacher agency (TA) (Priestley et al., 2015). TA can be described as an ecological approach with temporal dimensions of past, present and future, in which experiences are central and where cultural, structural and material resources are considered vital when enacting leadership in the ECE setting. 

Method

The data consists of short written descriptions collected from 18 ECE teachers and 3 childminders. All of them work at three schools under the leadership of the same principal, whose approach consists of specifically arranged learning environments. In addition, all schools work with pedagogical documentation as a procedural approach to plan, analyse and follow up teaching. Relevant ethical guidelines have been followed.

These 21 research participants make up just over half of those who were asked to, via e-mail, provide us with a description based on the following question:

• What do you think about the phrase "teaching under the guidance of ECE teachers"? How is it done today? What experiences do you have of leading and of being led?

Altogether, the texts comprises of a total amount of 5108 words. The analysis have been conducted through several steps. As a first step, we have searched for words and concepts connected to ECE teachers’ leadership, both when it comes to leading as well as to be led. As a second step, we have interpreted the described leadership actions in terms of professionalism as professional responsibility or accountability (Solbrekke & Englund, 2011).

Finally, the results of the different professional logics have been related to the theory of teacher agency (Priestley et al., 2015). We have looked for specific experiences in the descriptions of leadership and to what extent we could distinguish visions and ideals of future leadership. Above all, the cultural aspects in terms of tradition within the school’s way of organizing leadership and teaching activities have been our analytical tool.

Results

In the descriptions of ECE teachers’ leadership over the teaching of childminders, four central concepts emerge: Children, collegiality, learning environment, and documentation. These four concepts have been taken into account in the analysis of the professional logics that data has generated.

The results of ECE teachers’ professional logics are described as three fields of tension around ECE teachers’ leadership while guiding the childminders in teaching. These relate to the professional mandate and the predetermined governance, trust and control, and proactive and reactive actions of ECE teachers. Children and collegiality appear to be more strongly linked to professional responsibility, while the learning environment and documentation are more strongly linked to accountability.

ECE teachers’ agency, which is built up from both experiences and visions, is made visible in the dimension of the present in what they themselves describe as learning environments. Agency in this dimension is based on experiences and visions of children’s development and learning. However, ECE teachers’ agency when guiding the childminders in teaching is almost non-existent as their own experiences are based on collegiality and trust, which is reinforced by the cultural resources in the form of historical and traditional organization in work teams where anyone can do anything. It prevents ECE teachers from actively guiding childminders in the teaching and documenting processes, as stressed in the governing documents (structural resource). The cultural and structural resources counteract each other and in this way prevent ECE teachers from acquiring agency regarding leadership. Finally, in the article, we present and discuss a theoretical model holding aspects of a responsible leadership that will help and guide ECE teachers in their new task of enacting leadership when guiding childminders in teaching.

References (381/400)

Catucci, E. (2021). Undervisningsuppdraget i förskolan ur ett didaktiskt perspektiv [The teaching task in preschool from a didactic perspective] [Doctoral disseration, Mälardalens universitet]. DiVA. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-55720

Hardy, I., Rönnerman, K., & Beach, D. (2019). Teachers’ work in complex times: the ‘fast policy’ of Swedish school reform. Oxford Review of Education, 45(3), 350–366. https://doi.org/10.1080/03054985.2018.1546684

Hildén, E. (2021). Uppdrag undervisning. Bland ärtpåsar och lagtexter i förskolan [Teaching in preschool : Managing the concept and the mission] [Doctoral disseratation, Karlstads universitet]. DiVA. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-83502

Håkansson, J., & Sundberg, D. (2018). Utmärkt ledarskap i skolan: Forskning om att leda för elevers måluppfyllelse [Excellent leadership in schools: Research on leading for student achievement]. Natur & Kultur.

Hännikäinen, M., & Lipponen, L. (2017). The Nordic ECEC pedagogy: Current challenges and good practices – and key areas for development in the future. I K. Kristi, E. Johansson, A-M. Puroila, M. Hännikäinen & L. Lipponen (Red.), Pedagogy in ECEC: Nordic challenges and solutions (ss. 26–36). Nordic Council of Ministers.

Olsson, M., Lindgren Eneflo, E., & Lindqvist, G. (2020). Undervisning i förskolan: En företeelse i rörelse [Teaching in ECE: A phenomenon in motion]. Pedagogisk forskning i Sverige, 25(4), 30–56.

Priestley, M., Biesta, G., & Robinson, S. (2015). Teacher agency: An ecological approach. Bloombury Academic.

Solbrekke, T. D., & Englund, T. (2011). Bringing professional responsibility back in, Studies in Higher Education, 36(7), 847-861. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2010.482205

Vallberg Roth, A-C. (2020). What May Characterise Teaching in Preschool? The Written Descriptions of Swedish Preschool Teachers and Managers in 2016, Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 64(1), 1-21. https://doi.org/10.1080/00313831.2018.1479301

Zulkifly, N. A., Ismail, I. A., & Asimiran, S. (2020). Collegial and distributed leadership: two sides of the same coin? International Journal of Leadership in Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603124.2020.1804623