The book presents a conceptual framework for understanding leadership for effective educator learning in early childhood settings. The book describes how leaders can move centre practices from crisis to stabilization. It argues that a core component of leaders’ work in early childhood settings is to construct and enact epistemological accounts of practice change. The book includes case examples that bring to life the contexts early childhood services and services leaders who participated in the research. The book also describes the application of cultural-historical activity theory to the development of practice in early childhood education. It describes how background theory, literature, and data can be synthesized to create new focal theory in education.
Readers will benefit from the theory that is presented, establishing a sound basis for testing in future research in schools as well as in early childhood education.
“Joce Nuttall and team are congratulated for their ground-breaking scholarly endeavour in designing, implementing, validating findings, and then writing a book that unambiguously connects theory-policy-practice in enacting leadership in early childhood settings. This book is ambitious, eloquent, and inspirational. The research was driven by a bold vision to build a new theorisation of early childhood leadership. The writing style of the book makes the complex clear and easy to digest, and thereby strengthening its readability and understanding. The comparative lens adopted in the study, underscores the neoliberal control of the working lives of early childhood leaders in both Australia and England. The use of case study narratives to explain various aspects including the study design and methodology, was refreshingly engaging. Notes of encouragement addressed to novice researchers such as those embarking on higher degree studies, also provide apt guidance about the messiness of conducting qualitative research. The book is infused with lots of examples demonstrating the transformative power of learning – especially when expertly scaffolded by the research team, and thereby increasing practitioner agency and quality improvement across the early childhood setting. If professional autonomy is the driver of reform and change, then we must find ways to nurture strong educational leaders who can think outside the box. Overall, Nuttall and team succeed in arousing learning-rich possibilities for reimagining early childhood leadership in theory and in practice, and thereby making a magnificent contribution to the scholarship of educational leadership.” Professor Manjula Waniganayake Ph D, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia
Table of Content
Section 1: Background and rationale.- 1 Why do we need a new theory of leadership in early childhood education?.- 2 Responding to the state of the field: Existing discourses of early childhood leadership in policy, research, and practice.- 3 The project: Key concepts, design, methodology and approach to analysis.- Section 2: The participating leaders and their centres: Pen portraits.- Section 3: The new theory.- 4 Crisis in context: Cultural-historical contradictions as the stimulus for practice development.- 5 Imagining practice otherwise: Mobilizing collective creativity for improved quality.- 6 Design, re-design, design again: Leading and implementing practice change.- 7 Re-concretized but not sedimented: Program quality and the stabilization of new practices.- Section 4: Conclusion, implications, research directions.- 8 Theorizing leadership and change in early childhood education.
About the author
Joce Nuttall is Executive Dean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Canterbury, in Christchurch, New Zealand. Joce’s research focuses on the professional learning of leaders and educators from early childhood settings to tertiary education, with a particular emphasis on the development of practice in childcare settings. This work is principally informed by cultural-historical activity theory. Joce’s current research is investigating the learning needs of migrant early childhood teachers and their colleagues in the Asia-Pacific region.
Linda Henderson is a Senior Lecturer – Early Years Education in the School of Education, Culture, and Society in the Faculty of Education at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. Linda’s work investigates leadership, workforce development, and policy across the early years of education. Drawing on critical post-humanist theories and collaborative methodologies, Linda’s research is anchored in the working lives ofteachers. She is particularly interested in exploring intersections between institutional cultures, the impact of reform measures, policy implementation, and the effects these have on the everyday work of teachers.
Elizabeth Wood is Professor of Education at the University of Sheffield, England. Her research focuses on early childhood and primary education, with specific interests in play and pedagogy; curriculum and assessment in ECE; teachers’ professionalism and professional knowledge; and international policy analysis and critique. Her recent collaborative research with colleagues at Australian Catholic University and Monash University focused on the work of educational leaders in England and Australia, specifically theorizing learning-rich leadership of practice in early childhood settings.
Jenny Martin is a Senior Lecturer in Science Education and Education Studies in the National School of Education at Australian Catholic University. Jenny’s research program is concerned with human agency in educational settings, and she specialises in the use of positioning theory and interactive approaches. She was previously a full time Research Fellow on an Australian Research Council Discovery Project theorising learning-rich leadership for quality improvement in early education and is currently a Partner Investigator on a Hong Kong Research Grants Council project exploring the dynamics of the agency amongst young STEM makers.
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