Finnish Early Childhood Education and Care Leaders’ Conceptualisations and Understandings of Pedagogical Leadership

Abstract

Since the 2010s, the field of early childhood education and care (ECEC) in Finland has gone through several changes. Leaders working in ECEC have a crucial role in developing pedagogy and practices in their centres. Pedagogical leadership is one of the key concepts in educational discourse around leaders’ work; however, the field lacks a unified definition for pedagogical leadership in terms of both research and practice in ECEC. Therefore, it is necessary to examine how leaders conceptualise pedagogical leadership and how they see their own roles as pedagogical leaders. The data are five focus group interviews with ECEC leaders (N = 15) that were conducted in 2019. The data were analysed by employing the discursive institutionalism approach. The discourse analysis revealed how ECEC leadership tasks were reflected in relation to the importance of pedagogical leadership competence and the use of ‘pedagogical lenses’. Further, leaders described the ECEC curriculum as a strategic tool. Pedagogical leadership was seen as a means for leaders and teachers to jointly interpret and implement the curriculum. In light of these findings, it may be stated that ECEC pedagogical leadership is a concept that appears to be taking shape theoretically in ECEC leaders’ discourses. However, its daily implementation requires clarification before a shared understanding of the matter can be reached.