PRESENTATION OUTLINE
Leadership in Early Child Education and Care:
How it is and How it could be
Geraldine Nolan
Trinity College Dublin
IRELAND
30 years working in the primary and pre-primary sector, more recently working with early years students at third level
BA (Hons); PGCE; Montessori Diploma AMI;
BA (Hons) ECCE; M.Ed. (Distinction)
Irish professional body, advocating for improved conditions and recognition for ECE children and practitioners.
LOW ECONOMIC STATUS
'precarious work' insecure, flexible working conditions. no pension, maternity pay, and little if any sick pay (Pembroke, 2017);
LOW SOCIAL STATUS
Little more than glorified babysitters
(Moloney, 2011; Madden, 2012; Neylon, 2014).
CRITICAL CAPACITY
'Many services... struggling' with the implementation of the recent frameworks (DES, 2013, p. 25).
Knowledge of Síolta and how to use it - 22%
(DES, 2016, p. 57).
1. LOW ECONOMIC STATUS: Poor pay, limited training opportunities, little job security/career progression; even in countries with relatively well-developed ECE (Eurofound, 2014)
Disillusioned
Frustrated
Disenfranchised
Albeit highly trained and skilled graduates (Moloney & Pope, 2013, p.9).
CRITICAL CAPACITY
This is a significant issue, as without the capability to question or support and implement the recent changes in ECE policy, regulations and frameworks and without the capacity to respond critically and democratically to change and embrace different ways of acting, thinking and advocating for their sector, there is the potential that ECE will remain a disenfranchised sector with poor working conditions, which may have far-reaching negative implications for ECCE children and adults.
Which may have far-reaching negative implications for ECCE children and adults.
QUE FARE?
- How to support ECE practitioners to develop the knowledge, skills and critical capacity to address their social, economic and professional concerns?
LEADERSHIP
- Strong discourse in the sector, with government departments (DES, 2013; DCYA, 2013) calling to develop ECE leadership capacity .
Timely to look at leadership, what it means and whether or not leadership has the potential to facilitate the early childhood practitioner develop their critical capacity to address their needs.
LEADERSHIP CURRENTLY
- CONFUSION (Rodd, 1997; Waniganayake, 2014)
- DISCONNECTION (Hallet, 2012)
- LIMITED LITERATURE (Campbell-Evans et al., 2014)
- LIMITED: training, research, policy
- POSSIBILTY: leadership not the answer (Alversson & Sveningsson, 2003).
We cannot know what leadership is until we include the stakeholder’s perspectives and their construction of leadership (Southworth, 2002).
AIM
- To begin to address the limited nature of leadership research in ECE Ireland and to explore and examine how ECE leadership is conceptualised by the various ECE stakeholders (government officials, educational institutions, professional organisations and early years practitioners).
OBJECTIVES
- To explore how ECE stakeholders’ understand leadership, how it is practiced
- To ascertain the influences that shape, enable or constrain leadership understanding/practice
- To ascertain the influences that shape, enable or constrain leadership understanding/practice
- To ascertain the influences that shape, enable or constrain leadership understanding/practiceTo document the stakeholder’s ideas/strategies for building leadership capacity
- To document the stakeholder’s ideas/strategies for building leadership capacity
A country’s constitution is often used as a starting point in analysing ideologies, political systems and policy approach’ (Hayes & Bradley, 2009, p. 21).
Under Article 41.2.2 of the Irish Constitution, women were not to engage in labour to the neglect of the family.
In the 1930s the Irish Government barred married women from working.
Theoretical Framework
A social feminist perspective: Aim, to improve the lives, working conditions, pay and the recognition of women (Holstrom, 2002).
Nancy Holstrom (2002) a socialist feminist: Anyone trying to understand 'woman and subordination in a coherent way and systematically way that integrates class, sex …other forms of identity with the aim of using the analysis to liberate women' (p.1).
By examining what leadership means to ECE stakeholders and examining the structures and policies nationally and internationally that inform ECEC while simultaneously examining the material existence (economic or sexual) and ideology that defines their role (Hansen & Philipson, 2009), there is the potential to begin to understand ECE leadership and discover ways to develop leadership.
To comprehensively understand women’s situation and potential emancipation, an analysis of both capitalism and patriarchy is necessary (Eisenstein, 1990).
TENTATIVE FINDINGS
- 1. Confusion/Reluctance
(Hujala & Eskelinen, 2013; O Gorman & Hard, 2013)
2. Role confusion:
leadership/management (Heikka & Halttunen, 2011)
3. Limited reference:
to leadership for advocacy, research, politics and activism.
TENTATIVE FINDINGS
- GENDER: Behaviour, Identity,Ideology
- GENDER: Behaviour, Identity,Ideology Class: Class Matters
- Training, Professional Identity.
- Class: Class Matters
3. Limited reference:
to leadership for advocacy.
Finding a Home in the World: Migration, Indigeneity, and Citizenship. Recent events shine new light on a familiar theme – the wrenching displacement of large populations because of war, violence, religious persecution, poverty, environmental disasters, and human-made climate change.
Level 4 Leadership Roles/Responsibilities
- Public relations function: Community outreach and advocacy, networking, dealing with government and non-government agencies, fundraising, marketing and planning special events (Ebbeck & Waniganayake, 2003).
Hard, Press, & Gibson (2013) suggest that historically ECE has its origins in charitable and educational reform movements, rooted in the principles of human rights and social justice.
Solly (2003) found that the vast majority of early childhood leaders in her study saw their strengths as advocacy, inspiration, passion and enthusiasm along with being a lifelong learner and having a team ethos.
One participant did not know what advocacy meant?
PRACTITIONER (ADVOCACY)
- I don't have time to look outside the setting, we have so much paper work and deadlines, advocacy is all well and good but how can I do it all ? '(D6).
Practitioner/Advocacy
- 'I don't have time to look outside the setting, we have so much paper work and deadlines, advocacy is all well and good but how can I do it all ? '(D6).
It has been argued that practitioners may now be more concerned with issues and relationships within their services than critiquing or addressing border concerns (Sims, Forrest, Semann & Slattery, 2014).
'Do not realise how they themselves might influence and shape policies through advocacy' (Hollingsworth, et al,2016) .
PROFESSIONAL ORGANISATION
- 'We are the dedicated policy and advocacy body' (C)
- The --- Organisation does this, its their job, we don't have anything to do with this (D5b)
- Oh no that has nothing to do with the practitioner, that is the role ----- and they are good at it (B4)
With the introduction of independent advocacy services for children, practitioners may have handed over the responsibility of advocating for the rights of the child to these organisations.
If the principles of social justice are to be supported practitioners need to re-engage collectively and regain a culture of advocacy (Mervalla & Hadley, 2012; Boylan & Dalrymple, 2011).
'I am thinking you know about
Freire, empowering students, are we taking that way from them, is there within the university a place for developing critical skills around politics and advocacy within leadership nd are we living up to that responsibility ?,you're leaving me with more questions than answers (B2)
'Knowledge and skills regarding policy and advocacy are important
expectations for today’s early childhood workforce, yet policy and
advocacy content and processes have not traditionally been
emphasized in teacher preparation programmes' (Hollingsworth, Knight-McKenna Bryan, 2016, p. 1664)
'Dominant constructions of professionalism in early childhood education can diminish early childhood teachers’ and educators’ undertaking of advocacy at the systems or political level' (Fennech & Lotz, 2016, p.1).
Hollingsworth, Knight-McKenna & Bryan (2016) suggest that 'society desperately needs early childhood professionals who will articulate cogent,
research-based advocacy messages and engage in advocacy efforts that have the potential to influence
policies' (p.1673)
ECE Advocacy can and should, extend beyond their own schools and communities into the broader national debate (Blank & Schulman, 2014).
WAY FORWARD (Leadership/Advocacy)
- TRAINING
- PROFESSIONAL ORGANISATIONS
- SUPPORT PRACTITIONERS 'to question the status quo and believe that they can be agents of change' (DuBois Davey, 2000, p.181).
EMBEDDED CASE STUDY
When examining any phenomenon or organisation, the voices from all levels in an organisation need to be considered (Stake, 1994).
Insights have more significance if the participants are “key persons in the organizations, communities, or small groups being studied”, not just the “average member of such groups” (Yin, 2012, p.12).
As Carr and Kemmis (1998) suggest, praxis embodies certain qualities that require a person to “make a wise and prudent practical judgment about how to act in this … [all] situation” (p.190). Through this understanding there may be the potential for early years professionals to develop the skills to crtitcally question, contest, and/or implement recent reforms, the potential to develop shared understandings and goals both within and beyond the ECCE