Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

In this conceptual article, the authors examine the context of early childhood education and care in England and the underpinning predominant ideologies to explore how these impact on the framing of leadership. The English context entails several contradictions (antinomies) at ontological, epistemological and axiological levels, and is heavily influenced by an ideological struggle concerning the value of play within the sector as opposed to a climate of child performativity. Moreover, the predominately female workforce (a factor itself) has faced relentless changes in terms of qualifications and curriculum reforms in recent years. With the introduction of the graduate leader qualification (Early Years Teacher Status), a vast body of research has been seeking to conceptualise what leadership means for early childhood education and care. In this article, the authors argue that these attempts are helpful and contribute to this discourse of leadership, but it needs to be thought of not only abstractly, but also practically. Thus, the authors conclude, the (re)conceptualisation of leadership should locate it as pedagogical praxis after evaluating the inherent deep dispositions of leaders in conjunction with their history, surrounding culture and subjective perspectives/realities.

Keywords

Early childhood education and care leadership pedagogical leadership pedagogy praxis

Introduction

The field of early childhood education and care (ECEC) in England can be described as a confusion of intent, with proposed leadership constructs and behaviours relevant to that context similarly afflicted (Cohen et al., 2018). Moreover, dominant ideologies are shaping the conceptualisation of what should constitute leadership in the field (Murray and McDowall Clark, 2013). It is our intention in this article to unravel this confusion and make the case for leadership to be pedagogical praxis. We will argue that instead of seeking leadership approaches from existing theoretical framings of leadership, in ECEC we should acknowledge its peculiarities and seek a continual interplay between theory, actions and practice in ‘one unified process’ (Gadamer, 1979: 275): praxis.

Building on the Aristotelian ideas of praxis, Freire’s (1972) notion of acting dialogically, Carr and Kemmis’s (1986) critical approach to theory and practice for educational reform, Furman’s (2012) social justice leadership, and Grundy’s (1987) discussion on knowledge and human interests, it has been suggested that:

The focus on praxis is thus not simply about everyday practicalities, professional development, competencies, skills or outcomes, but about deeper concepts, reflexivity, processes, actions and interactions whilst being deeply cognisant of environments of power and values. Praxeology leads not to the singularity and comparative hierarchy of ‘best’ practice models, but promotes Joy Goodman’s (2001) notion of ‘wise practice’, that is, a selection of professional responses which are considered, flexible and chosen as appropriate to context. (Pascal and Bertram, 2012: 481)

Our arguments presented here claim that this notion of praxis will allow for successful engagement by practitioners in the quest to provide effective learning environments for preschool children in England and maybe to be adopted in other early childhood education contexts.

The antinomies of English ECEC

In this section, we aim to address some key issues in ECEC in England. We characterise these issues as antinomies – a term that refers to situations that arise due to contradictory ideologies, laws or actions. In England, ECEC is still split between childcare and education, and there are still a number of patchy services under the umbrella of either care or education – a situation which creates a contradiction (antinomy) between care and education in early childhood and ‘positions early childhood professional practice in contrast to the managerial and technocratic language that dominates the discourse on early childhood education and care’ (Urban, 2014: 128).

To start with, the first antinomy arises from a mixed economy of state-maintained and state-funded practice and privately owned and privately maintained practice or, as they are known, ‘settings’ in ECEC in England (Cohen et al., 2018). This is partly because, in England, there is no requirement for the compulsory education of children under the age of five and, consequently, no coordinated state provision for those who do participate. There is strong evidence, however, of the government’s commitment to ensuring that effective education and care is available, which was initially manifested through the introduction of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) in 2008 (Department for Children, 2007, 2008) and has been supported financially by central funding, but this commitment falls short of providing state-maintained settings. The outcome is that the mandatory curriculum and standards of care contained within the succeeding iterations of the EYFS (Department for Education, 2014a, 2014b, 2017) have been delivered through a range of providers, ranging from young children being educated at home to formal, designated practices. Outside of the home, these have included single-person childminding services, nurseries, kindergartens (many of which are privately owned and operate on a profit-making basis), and preschool provision in independent and state-maintained primary schools. Recently, the government has announced that there is a ‘15 hour entitlement for the most disadvantaged two-year-olds; 15 hour entitlement for parents of three- and four-year-olds (the universal entitlement); and 30 hour entitlement for working parents of three- and four-year-olds (the extended entitlement)’ (Department for Education, 2018a: 4). At a basic minimum, therefore, all preschool children can receive education and care outside of the home, but, in many instances, the cost of such provision exceeds the amount provided by the central government (Fullfact, 2017). In other words, within ECEC provision, a market economy exists, which is a major consideration for leaders of settings within the sector (Ang, 2014).

This leads to another antinomy, related to the structure of preschool provision in England, which is far from coherent – a situation that gives rise to how the sector is accountable (e.g. Nutbrown, 2012, 2013, 2018; Osgood et al., 2017). This requirement is a joint responsibility involving several agencies, but operates as closely as possible to a failproof system following some unfortunate and notorious cases of child welfare in recent years where the systems in place failed to protect these children (e.g. Victoria Climbié (House of Commons, 2003) and Baby Peter (Lord Laming, 2009)). This brings into question the ethics of care that is at the core of ECEC (Tronto, 1993, 1995; Yelland, 1998), where

the central values of the ethics of care, responsibility and communication lead to a commitment to deal with differences, not only between individuals and social groups, but also within the self […] ethics of care has the capacity to deal with diversity and alterity, with the fact that subjects are different and in this sense both “strange” and “knowable” to each other. (Sevenhuijsen, 1998: 60)

Subsequently, instead of the government promoting ‘ethics as creative practice, requiring the making of contextualised ethical decisions, rather than following universal rules or codes’ (Dahlberg and Moss, 2005: 73), the outcome of such cases is that the quality of ECEC is monitored by agencies working under the guidance of the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted), the national school inspection service. In terms of accountability for young children, ECEC is responsible for educational goals, with the care and health of young children being the responsibility of social services and health authorities. The EYFS is central to the way in which such provision is run and provides the key focus of attention for each setting, which is required to implement a mandatory curriculum and standards of care. At the government level, there is an intent ‘to move decisively away from the idea that teaching young children is somehow less important or inferior to teaching school age children’ (National College for Teaching and Leadership, 2013: 6), but nevertheless there is still a dichotomy in the status, pay and qualifications of staff in the private and maintained sectors that implement the EYFS (Barron, 2016: 327). Longitudinal studies (e.g. Siraj-Blatchford et al., 2002; Sylva et al., 2004) have demonstrated, however, that high-quality early childhood services and provision are related to ‘strong leadership’ (Roberts-Holmes, 2013: 340–341), concluding that:

settings which gained a graduate leader with EYPS [Early Years Professional Status, a graduate qualification now replaced by Early Years Teacher Status] made significant improvements in quality for pre-school children, as compared with settings which did not. The evidence also suggests that EYPS provided ‘added value’ over and above gaining a graduate. (Mathers et al., 2011: 2)

Further complicating the increasing pressures for accountability, based on measures of children in a context of increasing managerialism, is the neo-liberal emphasis on standardised outcomes and outputs (Ang, 2012; Bradbury and Roberts-Holmes, 2018; Goldstein et al., 2018; Lloyd, 2015; Nicholson and Palaiologou, 2016; Osgood et al., 2017; Palaiologou, 2017). Top-down-imposed standards appear to be the ‘official’ approach of quality, characterised by an objective reality that can be measured, evaluated, assured and inspected (Moss, 2016). At the policy level, the governments in England have focused on ‘performance indicators chosen for ease of measurement and control rather than because they measure quality of performance accurately’ (O’Neil, 2002: 54).

There appears to be a replacement of what Ball (2003) calls a governing knowledge where reporting “what” we do, rather than what we actually “do”, matters. In essence, this is an epistemological reduction. This is in contrast to the work of Lubeck (1991: 168), who proposed that we question the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of doing certain things, and whose interests these actions served, ‘to begin to fill in what is missing and what could be’.

Currently, in ECEC, the government is seemingly seeking to create a universal, linear developmental line which promotes certain truths about children’s development and learning. The recent publication of the new early learning goals, which children need to meet when attending ECEC, to be piloted in September 2018 (Department for Education, 2018b), includes the proposal to use a baseline assessment test of children between the ages of four and five in the Reception year so that schools can compare and measure the progress children have subsequently made by the end of Key Stage 2 (at age 11), but seems to leave no space for the child to be a child, instead creating the performer child, where outcomes, goals and outputs are observable and measurable.

It assumes that children need to progress to the next stage of development, from maybe ‘lesser child’ to ‘better child’. The terms ‘development’, ‘developmental goals’ or ‘learning goals’ invoke a sense that children are not yet developed (whole/holistic) and thus need developing (‘improving’), or that there is an existing, pre-determined place at which a child may arrive (presumably school). (Palaiologou, 2016: 217–218)

Earlier, Moss et al. (2000: 108), in critiquing ECEC in England, argued that ‘the process [of “new managerialism”] includes the internalisation by early childhood workers of standards, targets and appropriate practice … the “quality standards” are not externally applied, but also come to “govern the soul” of practitioners’. Since then, the ‘new era of managerialism’ in ECEC has become a continual feature in communities of practice that are driven by learning goals and performativity, thus ignoring the ‘emotional labour’ – a term coined by Sachs and Blackmore (1998) and extended by Moyles (2001, 2006) – undertaken and the work characterised by an ethics of care (Chalke, 2013), and leaving ECEC ‘to remain grounded in a fixed body of developmental knowledge, honouring one culture, one history, one set of values and one concept of childhood’ (Yelland and Bentley, 2018: 11).

Osgood et al. (2017) argue that the ‘terrors of performativity’ to which Ball (2003) alludes are felt by practitioners as the rate and place of policy reform in ECEC intensifies. We conclude that the increased demands for the demonstration of competence mean that professional judgment is subordinated to the requirements of performativity, meaning that what is produced may be viewed as cynical compliance with the demands of performativity in the current policy context (the EYFS). This creates an antinomy: ‘One cannot expect positive results from an educational or political action program which fails to respect the particular view of the world held by the people. Such a program constitutes cultural invasion, good intentions notwithstanding’ (Freire, 1972: 93).

Up to this point, we have focused on policy antinomies that are ‘grounded in a fixed body of developmental knowledge’ and ‘fail to respect’ the ECEC community of practice, which, we suggest, represents an external ontological antinomy. Within the field of ECEC, however, there are axiological antinomies that are key factors framing leadership decision-making and behaviour within preschool settings in England.

Firstly, the pressure exerted at the government policy level seems to be to prepare young children for their entry into compulsory education in the year they turn five, typically manifested as school, frequently making this the most important focus for practitioners. There are many possible reasons for this, the most important of which are economic (i.e. pay scales), who gets the job, who is promoted, who obtains funding and who is in charge. This places the sector within the same performativity criteria (i.e. standards, outcomes, outputs and goals) as those who work in compulsory education. This has led to an ideological struggle within ECEC to demonstrate that play, play-based learning, playful learning and play-based pedagogy are valued. Campaigning for the value of play is central to ECEC communities of practice within the sector as they seek to legitimise their role as educators (see British Educational Research Association, 2003; Wood, 2014). Practitioners within ECEC settings are subject to a nationalised curriculum (the EYFS) that must be implemented, however, and this exerts pressure for conformance to standardised teaching at the expense of play.

Secondly, a predominately female workforce has affected the status of the qualifications, created an ideology that women do things differently and influenced the expectations for leadership behaviour. The ECEC workforce consistently features low-level qualifications and pay (Osgood et al., 2017), yet the demands contained within government policies anticipate skilful leaders and highly qualified professional staff.

This situation may be creating ontological insecurities among practitioners seeking to establish their professional identity when working with young children, leading Chalke to suggest that:

It is important to seek to capture and promote aspects of a ground-upwards professionalism such as: the pedagogical approach that allows recognition of work with the child, as well as with their parent and carers; the recognition of the mindful requirements of an ethic of care; and the importance of reflexivity for professional practice. (Chalke, 2013: 219)

To conclude, in a policy environment based on neo-liberal managerialism, the field of ECEC in England presents several antinomies and complexities. Those working in the sector – typically a low-paid and underqualified female workforce – are thus often required to fulfil more than one function, be accountable, show curriculum fidelity, demonstrate data-driven ‘quality’ and make sure that children will be ready for formal school at the age of five, in contrast to developing children’s capability as learners through play-based pedagogy. All this has led to increasing confusion regarding their profile, role and identity.

The oxymorons of developing leaders within the sector

The EYFS was preceded by the introduction of a new specialist qualification in 2006 - Early Years Professional Status (EYPS) – which was expected to increase the standards of the people working in the sector, with the ultimate intention ‘to deliver the Early Years Foundation Stage for children from birth to age five and provide pedagogical leadership in early years settings’ (Department for Education, 2017: 14). EYPS was a degree-level programme with the award being based on the ability of the practitioner to successfully engage with and apply theory to practice. This qualification was intended to be perceived as equivalent to Qualified Teacher Status, which already existed for those working in primary and secondary education. Those with EYPS were thus seen as ‘graduate leaders’ with the expectation that they would enhance pedagogy in the field, with an overarching government intention to ensure in time that there would be at least one in every setting. This provided a seemingly clear signal as to the type of leader that was to be developed, to supersede the ‘vagueness and haziness of what is meant by leadership in early childhood’ (Rodd, 2006: 4–5). Further investment in training and development saw the replacement of EYPS in 2013 by the new qualification of Early Years Teacher Status, which was to be available as both an undergraduate and postgraduate degree.

These qualifications did not address the key leadership challenge of the sector, however, which is to identify the point of accountability which normally ‘falls on the leader/manager of the early childhood setting, despite the fact so many others also have a leadership role’ (Male and Nicholson, 2016: 315). This statement is a recognition that formal leaders – those with the power to sanction others – have a wealth of responsibility that stretches beyond the leadership of pedagogy within the setting and includes a duty of care. Over the last decade, there has been a substantial increase in the body of knowledge which has examined the peculiarities and complexities of the leadership of ECEC in England (e.g. Ang, 2012; Campbell-Barr and Leeson, 2016; Davis, 2014; Lloyd and Hallet, 2010). Such work led Murray and McDowall Clark (2013: 293) to call for ‘new conceptual frameworks to better suit the educational purpose [of ECEC] and provide more sustainable models for the future’.

There has also been substantial debate and multiple claims that leadership in the sector is different from other educational contexts, and there is a need to theorise leadership in ECEC and avoid the temptation to ‘import mindscapes and models, concepts and definitions’, and rather to invent them, as ‘you can’t borrow the character, you have to create it’ (Sergiovanni, 1992: 214). Thus, it is argued, models that evolved from other occupations, such as ‘distributed’ and ‘transformational’ leadership, cannot simply be adopted, as the demands of the role concern ‘relational leadership, groups of people collaboratively working together to complete tasks and goals rather than being the work of one leader’ (Siraj-Blatchford and Hallett, 2014: 17). The revised EYFS of 2012 highlighted the centrality of those leading early childhood settings having to work within a framework of legislation and other support agencies to ‘reconcile the expertise and efforts of all other adults engaged in the support of pre-school children’ (Male and Nicholson, 2016: 317).

The conclusion to draw is that whilst the knowledge base of leadership in early childhood and care in England is still developing, practical and applicable solutions to specific contexts are required – the concept of ‘knowing in action’ (Schön, 1983). The challenge, suggest Aubrey et al. (2012: 27), is now based ‘in formalizing the leadership knowledge that practitioners believe, imagine and reflect upon that, while legitimate, must also be warranted with solid evidence provided to justify the new knowledge claims being made’.

Siraj-Blatchford and Manni (2007) came to the conclusion that the focus of leadership in the sector should be on children’s learning – a conclusion which moves beyond merely providing care and preparing young children for school. They argue for ‘a contextual literacy’ which has the children’s learning outcomes at the centre, and propose to think of leadership in ECEC as leadership for learning.

(Re)framing leadership in ECEC

As shown above, since the introduction of the graduate leader in ECEC in England, research has shown an increasing interest in leadership in the field. The trend has been to examine approaches to leadership that exist in other forms of education and attempt to apply them in ECEC. A consensus among research has been that, as ECEC is different in nature from other forms of education, it is necessary to rethink leadership as well. We endorse this view to reframe leadership in ECEC, especially in light of some of the antinomies we addressed earlier. The ‘contextual literacy’ of ECEC is shaped by the ambiguous ideology of play, the female dominance of the workforce, the emotional nature of the labour and the ethics of care.

Thus, some have turned to feminism paradigms in their quest to reframe leadership, as the emotionality, partiality and contextual specificity are attributed to leadership by women (Moyles, 2001; Sachs and Blackmore, 1998). Some have entertained the idea of distributed leadership as a democratic approach to leadership (Muijs et al., 2004; Spillane et al., 2004), whereas others have encouraged us to reframe leadership under the lens of participative pedagogy (Murray and McDowall Clark, 2013) or praxeological terms (Pascal and Bertram, 2012). Finally, some research has made a strong case to think of leadership in its context and frame leadership through pedagogical lenses (Heikka and Waniganayake, 2011; Male and Palaiologou, 2012).

Although such attempts are laudable and have opened the public debate on what constitutes leadership in ECEC, we argue that they examine leadership at an axiomatical level (What theory is the best fit?), ontological level (What actions are the best fit?) or epistemological level (What lessons have been learned?). Moreover, reflecting on Gadotti (1996: 7), who cautions us that ‘in pedagogy the practice is the horizon, the aim of the theory. Therefore the educationalist lives the instigating dialectic between his or her daily life – the lived school and the projected school – which attempts to inspire a new school’, we propose to rethink the ‘horizon’ of practice, ‘the aim[s] of theory’ and the context in leadership. We argue here that leadership is not only based on actions and reflections. If we approach leadership in that sense, it gives a sense of, using Freire’s (2001: 50) concept, ‘unfinishedness’.

(Re)conceptualising leadership: leadership as pedagogical praxis

Building on all these attempts to reframe leadership in ECEC, and based on our previous work (Feldges et al., 2015; Male and Palaiologou, 2015, 2017; Palaiologou and Male, 2016), we argue in Aristotelian terms that leadership embodies techne (‘craftsmanship’), as it is ‘an ethical and moral craft that draws from conceptual and abstract knowledge [and] engages in ongoing critical reflective inquiry’ (Black and Murtadha, 2007: 10), and phronesis (‘practical wisdom’), as it requires ‘mak[ing] a wise and prudent practical judgment about how to act in this situation’ (Carr and Kemmis, 1986: 190; original emphasis). Moreover, it is about poiesis – making action(s) to allow ‘moving back to forth in a critical way between reflecting and acting on the world’ (Brown, 2004: 96). Thus, in the ecology of a community (contextualised situation), leadership seeks an equilibrium between sophia (‘theory’), phronesis and episteme (practical wisdom and knowledge which is constructed through critical reflective inquiry (Freire, 1972)). We have been stimulated to think of leadership as pedagogical praxis not ‘at an abstract level without detailed analysis of what leadership as praxis actually means and entails’ (Furman, 2012: 203; original emphasis), but as a balanced interplay of all the Aristotelian concepts: ‘knowledge’ (episteme), ‘theory’ (sophia), ‘practical wisdom’ (phronesis), ‘craftmanship’ (techne) and the ‘taking of action(s)’ (poiesis) in ‘one unified process’ (Gadamer, 1979: 275).

This led us to bring together the terms ‘pedagogy’ and ‘leadership’ in light of the above understanding of leadership. Pedagogical leadership in the 21st century, we have argued, extends the principle of ‘leadership for learning’ beyond the classroom to embrace the community (Male and Palaiologou, 2012, 2015, 2017; Palaiologou and Male, 2016). This contrasts with earlier definitions which perceived pedagogy to be the direct relationship between the teacher and learner (e.g. Heikka and Waniganayake, 2011; Sergiovanni, 1992), which, in turn, seemingly provided the motive for the introduction of EYPS to lead learning in early childhood settings. Our construct of pedagogical leadership, however, sees the formal leader of educational institutions taking on a much wider role in the quest to create ‘one unified process’ of all learning opportunities. Thus, in this article, we locate leadership as pedagogical praxis in ECEC, arguing that, as it is a complex sector, the concept offers opportunities to ‘formalise the leadership knowledge’ as it

involves the continual, dynamic interaction among knowledge acquisition, deep reflection, and action at two levels – the intrapersonal and the extrapersonal – with the purpose of transformation and liberation. At the intrapersonal level, praxis involves self-knowledge, critical self-reflection, and acting to transform oneself as a leader for social justice. At the extrapersonal level, praxis involves knowing and understanding systemic social justice issues, reflecting on these issues, and taking action to address them. (Furman, 2012: 203)

In portraying ECEC, Yelland and Bentley (2018: 2) suggest that: ‘The lives we lead are complex; as early childhood educators, there is a pressing need to make sense of these complexities and their implications for the lives and educational experiences of young children’. In that sense, we seek to locate leadership as pedagogical praxis, in the Aristotelian sense of praxis, and subsequently identify it as ‘pedagogical leadership’. In rethinking leadership as pedagogical praxis, we do not seek prior knowledge of the right ways of doing things, but seek instead to examine the active conditions in any given ‘environment’ (hexis).

When conceptualising leadership in ECEC as pedagogical praxis, emphasis and examination should be directed at an in-depth understanding of the ‘environment’ (hexis) that impacts on ECEC, such as its historicity, culture and subjective perspectives/realties of the antinomies and oxymorons evident within the sector. This requires the exercising of judgment, practical wisdom, common sense or prudence, where ‘the phenomena modelled are social, and thus answer back in ways natural phenomena do not’ (Flybjerg, 2006: 39). Such an approach seeks polyphony and engages in ‘theorising the foundational concepts of leadership and pedagogy’ (Heikka and Waniganayake, 2001: 499).

Thus, we contend that the axiomatic elements of praxis – episteme (‘knowledge’), sophia (‘theory’), phronesis (‘practical wisdom’), techne (‘craftmanship’) and poiesis (the ‘taking of action(s)’) – are key features when leadership is examined in ECEC and should shape the ‘environment’ (hexis) when we attempt to understand the essence of leadership within neo-liberal, managerialist ECEC in England. Such an examination will lead to epistemological constructs, which might lead to home-grown constructions of leadership in ECEC where ‘action[s] works with theory’ (Foster, 1986: 189), instead of borrowing leadership framings from other levels of education. More experimental work is needed in this regard. However, from our work so far, the concept of praxis can guide the development of epistemological constructions of leadership in ECEC and maybe find that:

The purpose of a theoretical discipline [in this case, pedagogical leadership] is the pursuit of truth through contemplation; its telos [end purpose] is the attainment of knowledge for its own sake. The purpose of the productive sciences is to make something; their telos is the production of some artefact. The practical disciplines are those sciences which deal with ethical and political life; their telos is practical wisdom and knowledge. (Carr and Kemmis, 1986: 32)

Conclusions: pedagogical leadership as telos

To conclude, it has been argued here that pedagogical leadership in ECEC should not be viewed only as action(s) working with theory, but as an interplay of several contextually related factors (hexis) in any given situation. Thus, we propose viewing leadership as pedagogical praxis. The community of ECEC practice needs to defend its values in light of the policy reforms in England, and is under ontological pressure as the divide between ECEC and formal schooling is still present. Thus, we argue that we should understand and construct knowledge to represent the relationship between care and knowledge under the name of education, whilst paying attention to the living ecology of the community of practice, instead of ignoring all the antinomies and oxymorons that lead to borrowing leadership models from outside the field of ECEC. Praxis offers us the lenses to examine where the pressures on accountability, marketisation, datafication and readiness for school can allow us to ‘describe, transform, arouse emotions, investigate, evoke, impress [and] do good’ (Demetrio, 1996: 155), and develop ‘education for use’ (Lindeman, 1944).

In that sense, we conclude that pedagogical leadership is rooted in its specific context and pays attention to its own environment through engaging with the historicity, culture and subjective perspectives/realities of the contexts that are involved. Thus, the ECEC community (researchers and practitioners) should seek their own end purpose (telos), rather than trying to bridge ‘theory’ (sophia) from disparate and different communities.

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Ioanna Palaiologou

Author biographies

Ioanna Palaiologou is an academic associate of the University College London, Institute of Education, and a Child Psychologist. Her research focuses on ethics in research, child development, leadership and implications for pedagogy and the role of technology in early childhood. In 2017 EECERA annual conference, she was awarded best published paper for 2016 in the European Early Childhood Education Research Journal for her paper: ‘Children under five and digital technologies: implications for early years pedagogy’.

Trevor Male is the Head of Academic Affairs of the London Centre for Leadership in Learning, UCL Institute of Education. He also runs the MBA in Educational Leadership (International) and supervises doctoral theses and masters dissertations. He has worked in the field of education for 44 years, including full-time employment as an academic since 1993 in four universities. His area of expertise is educational leadership where he has several live projects and many publications.

References

Ang

(2012) Leading and managing in the early years: A study of the impact of a NCSL programme on children’s centre leaders’ perceptions of leadership and practice. Educational Management Administration and Leadership 40(3): 289–304.

Ang

(2014) Preschool or prep school? Rethinking the role of early years education. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood 15(2): 185–199.

Aubrey

Godfrey

Harris

(2012) How do they manage? An investigation of early childhood leadership. Educational Management Administration and Leadership 41(1): 5–29.

Ball

(2003) The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity. Journal of Educational Policy 18(2): 215–228.

Barron

(2016) Flight turbulence: The stormy professional trajectory of trainee early years teachers in England. International Journal of Early Years Education 24(3): 325–341.

Black

Murtadha

(2007) Toward a signature pedagogy in educational leadership preparation and program assessment. Journal of Research on Leadership Education 2(1): 1–29

Bradbury

Roberts-Holmes

(2018) How data impacts on early years educators. Early Years Educator 19(10): 38–44.

British Educational Research Association Early Years Special Interest Group (2003) Early years research: Pedagogy, curriculum and adult roles, training and professionalism. Available at: https://www.bera.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/beraearlyyearsreview31may03.pdf?noredirect=1 (accessed 11 November 2015).

Brown

(2004) Leadership for social justice and equity: Weaving a transformative framework and pedagogy. Educational Administration Quarterly 40(1): 79–110.

10.

Campbell-Barr

Leeson

(2016) Quality and Leadership in the Early Years: Research, Theory and Practice. London: SAGE.

11.

Carr

Kemmis

(1986) Becoming Critical: Education, Knowledge and Action Research. Lewes: Falmer Press.

12.

Chalke

(2013) Will the early years professional please stand up? Professionalism in the early childhood workforce in England. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood 14(3): 212–222.

13.

Cohen

Moss

Petrie

et al . (2018) ‘A new deal for children?’ – what happened next: A cross-national study of transferring early childhood services into education. Early Years. Epub ahead of print 19 August 2018. DOI: 10.1080/09575146.2018.1504753.

14.

Dahlberg

Moss

(2005) Ethics and Politics in Early Childhood Education. London: RoutledgeFalmer.

15.

Davis

(2014) Graduate leaders in early childhood education and care settings, the practitioner perspective. Management in Education 28(4): 156–161.

16.

Demetrio

(1996) Raccontarsi: L’autobiografia come cura di sè. Milan: Raffaello Guerinie Associati.

17.

Department for Children, Schools and Families (2007) The Children’s Plan: Building Brighter Futures. London: HMSO.

18.

Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) (2008) The Early Years Foundation Stage: Setting the Standards for Learning, Development and Care for Children from Birth to Five. Nottingham: DCSF.

19.

Department for Education (2014a) Statutory framework for the early years foundation stage: Setting the standards for learning, development and care for children from birth to five. Available at: file:///C:/Users/ioann/AppData/Local/Microsoft/Windows/INetCache/IE/URFNQRYS/EYFS_framework_from_1_September_2014__with_clarification_note.pdf (accessed 21 September 2015).

20.

Department for Education (DfE) (2014b) Early Education and Childcare: Statutory Guidance for Local Authorities. London: DfE.

21.

Department for Education (DfE) (2017) Statutory Framework for the Early Years Foundation Stage: Setting the Standards for Learning, Development and Care for Children from Birth to Five. London: DfE.

22.

Department for Education (2018a) Early years entitlements: Operational guidance for local authorities and providers. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/30-hours-free-childcare-la-and-early-years-provider-guide (accessed 5 November 2018).

23.

Department for Education (DfE) (2018b) Early Years Foundation Stage Profile. London: DfE.

24.

Feldges

Male

Palaiologou

et al . (2015) The quest to re-energise academic staff in an age of performativity. Educational Futures 7(1): 1–15.

25.

Flybjerg

(2006) Social science that matters. Foresight Europe 2: 38–42.

26.

Foster

(1986) Paradigms and Promises: New Approaches to Educational Administration. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books.

27.

Freire

(1972) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

28.

Friere

(2001) Pedagogy of freedom: Ethics, democracy, and civic courage. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.

29.

Fullfact (2017) Childcare costs in England. Available at: https://fullfact.org/education/childcare-costs-england/ (accessed 7 November 2018).

30.

Furman

(2012) Social justice leadership as praxis: Developing capacities through preparation programs. Educational Administration Quarterly 48(2): 191–229.

31.

Gadamer

H-G

(1979) Truth and Method. London: Sheed and Ward.

32.

Gadotti

(1996) Pedagogy of Praxis: A Dialectical Philosophy of Education. New York: State University of New York Press.

33.

Goldstein

Moss

Sammons

et al . (2018) A baseline without basis: The validity and utility of the proposed reception baseline assessment in England. London: British Educational Research Association.

34.

Grundy

(1987) Curriculum: Product or Praxis. Lewes: Falmer Press.

35.

Heikka

Waniganayake

(2011) Pedagogical leadership from a distributed perspective within the context of early childhood education. International Journal of Leadership in Education 14(4): 499–512.

36.

House of Commons (2003) The Victoria Climbié Inquiry Report. London: Stationery Office.

37.

Lindeman

(1944) New needs for adult education. ANNALS of American Academy of Political Sciences 231(1): 115–122.

38.

Lloyd

(2015) Early childhood education and care policy in England under the coalition government. London Review of Education 13(2): 144–156.

39.

Lloyd

Hallet

(2010) Professionalising the early childhood workforce in England: Work in progress or missed opportunity? Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood 11(1): 75–88.

40.

Lord Laming (2009) The protection of children in England: A progress report. London: Stationery Office.

41.

Lubeck

(1991) Reconceptualising early childhood education: A response. Early Education and Development 2(2): 168–174.

42.

Male

Nicholson

(2016) Leadership. In: Palaiologou

(ed) The Early Years Foundation Stage: Theory and Practice. 3rd ed. London: SAGE, pp. 312–328.

43.

Male

Palaiologou

(2012) Learning-centred leadership or pedagogical leadership? An alternative approach to leadership in education contexts. International Journal of Leadership in Education 15(1): 107–118.

44.

Male

Palaiologou

(2015) Pedagogical leadership in the 21st century: Evidence from the field. Educational Management Administration and Leadership 43(2): 214–231.

45.

Male

Palaiologou

(2017) Pedagogical leadership in action: Two case studies. International Journal of Leadership in Education Theory and Practice 20(6): 733–748.

46.

Mathers

Ranns

Karemaker

et al . (2011) Evaluation of the Graduate Leader Fund: Final report. London: Department for Education. Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/181480/DFE-RR144.pdf

47.

Moss

(2014) Transformative Change and Real Utopias in Early Childhood Education: A Story of Democracy, Experimentation and Potentiality. London: Routledge. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-teachers-standards

48.

Moss

(2016) Foreword. In: Parnell

Iorio

(eds) Disrupting Early Childhood Education Research: Imagining New Possibilities. London: Routledge, pp. viii–xvi.

49.

Moss

Dahlberg

Pence

(2000) Getting beyond the problems with quality. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal 8(2): 103–115.

50.

Moyles

(2001) Passion, paradox and professionalism in early years education. Early Years 21(2): 81–95.

51.

Moyles

(2006) Effective Leadership and Management in the Early Years. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

52.

Muijs

Aubrey

Harris

et al . (2004) How do they manage? Research on leadership in early childhood. Journal of Early Childhood Research 2(2): 157–169.

53.

Murray

McDowall Clark

(2013) Reframing leadership as a participative pedagogy: The working theories of early years professionals. Early Years 33(3): 289–301.

54.

National College for Teaching and Leadership (2013) Standards for early years teachers. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-teachers-standards

55.

Nicholson

Palaiologou

(2016) Early Years Foundation Stage progress check at the age of two for early intervention in relation to speech and language difficulties in England: The voices of the team around the child. Early Child Development and Care 186(12): 2009–2021.

56.

Nutbrown

(2012) Foundations for quality: The independent review of early education and childcare qualifications. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/175463/Nutbrown-Review.pdf

57.

Nutbrown

(2013) Shaking the foundations of quality? Why childcare policy must not lead to poor-quality early education and care. Available at: https://www.shef.ac.uk/polopoly_fs/1.263201!/file/Shakingthefoundationsofquality.pdf

58.

Nutbrown

(2018) Early Childhood Educational Research: International Perspectives. London: SAGE.

59.

O’Neil

(2002) A Question of Trust: The BBC Reith Lectures 2002. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

60.

Osgood

Elwick

Robertson

et al . (2017) Early years teacher and early years educator: A scoping study of the impact, experiences and associated issues of recent early years qualifications and training in England. Available at: http://tactyc.org.uk/research/

61.

Palaiologou

(2016) Child Observation: A Guide for Students of Early Childhood. 3rd ed. London: Learning Matters.

62.

Palaiologou

(2017) Assessing children’s play: Reality or illusion? The case of the Early Years Foundation Stage in England. Early Child Development and Care 187(8): 1259–1272.

63.

Palaiologou

Male

(2016) Critical hope or principled infidelity? How an urban secondary school in an area of sustained poverty in England continues to improve. Urban Review 48(4): 560–578.

64.

Pascal

Bertram

(2012) Praxis, ethics and power: Praxeology as a participatory paradigm for early childhood research. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal 20(4): 477–493.

65.

Roberts-Holmes

(2013) The English Early Years Professional Status (EYPS) and the ‘split’ early childhood education and care (ECEC) system. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal 21(3): 339–352.

66.

Rodd

(2006) Leadership in Early Childhood. 3rd ed. Maidenhead: Open University Press.

67.

Sachs

Blackmore

(1998) You never show you can’t cope: Women in school leadership roles managing their emotions. Gender and Education 10(3): 265–279.

68.

Schön

(1983) The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Think in Action. London: Temple Smith.

69.

Sergiovanni

(1992) Moral Leadership: Getting to the Heart of School Improvement. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

70.

Sevenhuijsen

(1998) Citizenship and the Ethics of Care: Feminist Considerations on Justice, Morality and Politics. London: Routledge.

71.

Siraj-Blatchford

Hallet

(2014) Effective and Caring Leadership in the Early Years. London: SAGE.

72.

Siraj-Blatchford

Manni

(2007) Effective leadership in the early years sector: The ELEYS study. London: Institute of Education, University of London.

73.

Siraj-Blatchford

Sylva

Muttock

et al . (2002) Researching effective pedagogy in the early years. Research report RR356. London: Department for Education and Skills.

74.

Spillane

Halverson

Diamond

(2004) Towards a theory of leadership practice: A distributed perspective. Journal of Curriculum Studies 36(1): 3–34.

75.

Sylva

Melhuish

Sammons

et al . (2004) The Effective Provision of Pre-school Education (EPPE) project: Findings from the pre-school period. London: Department for Education and Skills.

76.

Tronto

(1993) Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care. New York: Routledge.

77.

Tronto

(1995) Care as a basis for radical political judgements. Hypatia 10(2): 141–150.

78.

Urban

(2014) Not solving problems, managing messes: Competent systems in early childhood education and care. Management in Education 28(4): 125–129.

79.

Wood

(2014) Reconceptualising the play–pedagogy relationship. In: Brooker

Blaise

Edwards

(eds) The SAGE Handbook of Play and Learning in Early Childhood. London: SAGE, pp. 145–156.

80.

Yelland

(ed) (1998) Gender in Early Childhood. London: RoutledgeFalmer.

81.

Yelland

Bentley

(2018) Introduction. In: Yelland

Bentley

(eds) Found in Translation: Connecting Reconceptualist Thinking with Early Childhood Education Practices. London: Routledge, pp. 1–7.

Leadership in early childhood education: The case for pedagogical praxis

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

The antinomies of English ECEC

The oxymorons of developing leaders within the sector

(Re)framing leadership in ECEC

(Re)conceptualising leadership: leadership as pedagogical praxis

Conclusions: pedagogical leadership as telos

Footnotes

Funding

ORCID iD

Author biographies

References