Distributed Leadership in Child-care EECERA –conference Prague August 29th - September 1st 2007 Eeva Hujala & Johanna Heikka University of Tampere

Theoretical approach to leadership: Leadership of organisations is based on the same paradigm and same goals as the core task of the organisation. Contextual theory Distributed leadership

Theory basis of the research: Contextual view to early education Contextual and distrubuted leadership

LEADERSHIP in ECE&C means to involve people connected to child care to take care of and develop early childhood education and to take responsibility of developing quality management system in ECE Hujala, Parrila, Lindberg, Nivala, Tauriainen & Vartiainen (1999)

ECE director’s/manager’s role position in child care is to help individuals and groups to achieve quality and commitment in their work to take responsibility of decision making and development of quality assurance systems in the organisation

Osasto\nimi\pvm6 State Provincial Offices ECEC Administration and Steering Parliament Council of State Services Child Care, Pre-School, School, Open ECEC Services etc. Municipality Core Curriculum for Pre-School Education National Curriculum Guidelines on ECEC National Board of Education Ministry of Social Affaires and HealthMinistry of Education National Research and Development Centre for Welfare and Health Board on Social Affairesetc.Board on Education Affaires Principles in Pupils´ Morning and Afternoon Activities

Benefits of leadership research - to develop distributed leadership - to improve the quality of ECE&C - to advance the commitment of personnel to their work - to bring out the status and importance of early education

The aim is to describe the leadership discourse in ECE Leadership discourse is about concretizing the core task and defining it as a foundation of work and leading in the organisation. Leadership discourse represents the leadership culture of ECE&C

Objective of the research is: to find out how the leading administrative officials, centre directors and teachers of child care view the tasks and purposes of leadership describe distributed leadership in ECE&C

The research methods The data was collected by focus group –method. The tasks and purposes of leadership were studied by analysing leadership talk on three levels: 1. leading administrative officials in ECE&C 2. centre directors 3. teachers The hypothesis is that the actual talk about leadership demonstrates how leading administrative officials, centre directors and teachers understand the tasks and meanings of leadership.

Focus group themes I Core tasks of child care and early education 1.How do you understand the core task of child care? 2.What is the meaning and objective of the child care and early education work? 3.Who is the customer- can the term customer be used in child care and early education? 4.Who is responsible for the quality of child care? II Leadership in child care and early education 5. What are the essential challenges that the leaders of child care and early education face? 6. What are important issues in child care leadership? 7. What is skilful leader like? 8. What sort of expectations you have concerning the leadership in your own municipality?

Data Analysis Data was analyzed by using the qualitative content analysis. Each group was analyzed separately in order to form the categories which describe: -the tasks and responsibilities of leadership -the purposes of leadership The studied three levels were compared in order to find out the emphases and differences between them.

RESULTS: The tasks of leadership Leading administrative officialsCentre directorsTeachers The pedagogical leadership Multiprofessional, organizational and municipal co-operation Daily managementHuman resources management Daily management Responding to families’ needs Providing diverse child care services Multiprofessional co-operation Child care-preschool-school – continuum Responding to families’ needs Daily managementResponding to families’ needs Providing diverse child care services Multiprofessional co-operation Political tasksPotical tasksPolitical tasks

Purposes of leadership Leading administrative officialsCentre directorsTeachers The quality of ECE Accountability of educational system and child wellware in municipality Personnel’s and centre director’s motivation and commitment to work Personnel’s motivation and commitment to work and professional development Staff well-being Strengtening of parenthoodReconstruction and development of educational cultures ECE’s image and status in society Strengthening of parenthoodConstruction of pedagogical continuum ECE’s image and status in society

Research based challenges for leadership The leadership discourse was described mainly as centre directors’ position by all researched groups  There is a need for cultural change and implementation of distributed leadership The centre directors were laden with responsibilities  challenge: roles and responsibilities need to be defined and shared There is not enough time/resorces for pedagogical leadership. The development of educational work was inconsequent.  Need to build quality assurance systems