The development of preschool teachers’ leadership in relation to a clarified responsibility for teaching: A new institutionalisation in preschool

Abstract

Since 2010, educational reforms in Sweden have introduced teaching in preschool as a new concept and clarified preschool teachers’ responsibility for leading teaching, alongside principals’ responsibility for creating enabling conditions for it. Despite this policy clarification, how leadership is interpreted and enacted in everyday preschool practice remains a complex and evolving issue. The article analyses how preschool teachers’ leadership develops in relation to this responsibility and how it contributes to the new institutionalisation of preschool as an educational institution. Drawing on new institutionalism and interviews with six preschool teachers, the findings show that preschool teachers’ leadership develops through systematic reflection, both individually and within professional networks. The results indicate movement from patterns associated with pre-institutionalisation towards semi-institutionalisation, where leadership becomes increasingly articulated and begins to gain legitimacy in everyday practice. These dynamics are visible in two domains: leadership in relation to children and leadership in relation to the work team. The study contributes to research on preschool teacher leadership in early childhood education by showing how leadership responsibilities introduced through policy become articulated and legitimised in everyday preschool practice.

Keywords

early childhood education institutionalisation leadership preschool preschool teacher principal

Introduction

In Sweden, an educational reform introduced significant changes to Swedish preschool in 2010. Preschool became its own form of education and the first stage of the educational system, and the concept of teaching was introduced (Educational Act, 2010: 800). The reform aimed to strengthen the educational mission of preschool by increasing the focus on children's learning and development and by clarifying professional responsibilities. Children's learning and development were thereby given increased prominence, and preschool teachers were assigned a clarified responsibility for the pedagogical content and for leading teaching. At the same time, a division of labour between preschool teachers and caregivers was formalised (Swedish National Board of Education, 2010), and principals were given responsibility for creating conditions that enabled preschool teachers to fulfil this role (Swedish National Board of Education, 2018, 2025). The curriculum states that preschool teachers should lead and be responsible for teaching, while principals are responsible for ensuring the organisational conditions required for this work (Educational Act, 2010: 800; Swedish National Board of Education, 2025). However, these policy documents do not specify how such leadership should be enacted in practice, leaving preschool teachers and principals responsible for interpreting and translating policy into practice.

However, the clarified leadership responsibility for preschool teachers remains complex (Swedish National Agency for Inspection, 2022). In Sweden, preschool has a long tradition as a strong institution characterised by a flat organisational structure, where preschool teachers and caregivers have shared responsibility for the pedagogical content, regardless of their educational background (Cervantes and Öqvist, 2021; Halland and Winje, 2022; Steinnes and Haug, 2013). This organisational structure has been shaped by long-standing norms of equality, which continue to influence how work is organised and how responsibilities are understood in preschool practice (Halland and Winje, 2022; Steinnes and Haug, 2013). Although the reform introduced a formal division of labour, these historically established norms remain influential in shaping how leadership is interpreted and enacted (Cervantes and Öqvist, 2021; Eriksson, 2014). Taken together, these policy expectations, flat organisational structure and long-standing institutionalised norms of equality can be understood as constraints that shape and may limit preschool teachers’ opportunities to exercise leadership and influence the quality of teaching and children's learning.

In this context, leadership becomes central. Preschool teachers are expected to interpret and translate policy into practice that support children's learning and development. How this leadership is enacted is therefore significant for both the quality and the equity of preschool education. Previous research shows that preschool teachers face challenges in taking on this leadership role, as divisions of labour often remain unclear and work teams continue to view themselves as having equal responsibility and performing similar tasks (Cervantes and Öqvist, 2021; Eriksson, 2014; Heikka et al., 2018; Rantala et al., 2024). Studies also indicate that preschool teachers often do not perceive themselves as leaders within their work teams (Heikka et al., 2016, 2018; Sims et al., 2015), and that organisational conditions such as structures for planning, reflection and collaboration created by principals vary and strongly influence their opportunities to enact and develop leadership (Heikka et al., 2025; Kahila and Heikka, 2025; Öqvist and Cervantes, 2024, 2025). Children's opportunities to learn and develop therefore depend on how this responsibility is enacted in practice. Variation in local organisational conditions may contribute to unequal preschool education.

From a new institutional perspective (Meyer and Rowan, 1977; Tolbert and Zucker, 1996), the reform can be understood as introducing new leadership responsibilities that require processes of institutionalisation over time. Here, institutionalisation refers to the process through which new roles and practices gradually become recognised and legitimised within professional contexts. Although policy now positions preschool teachers as leaders, less is known about how such leadership is developed and enacted in practice. Understanding how leadership develops within this shifting institutional setting is essential for explaining how policy intentions are enacted in preschool practice. It also deepens knowledge about how preschool teachers shape and enact their leadership in relation to their clarified responsibility for leading teaching, both within the work team and in interactions with children. Against this background, leadership in this study is understood as preschool teachers’ responsibility for organising and leading teaching processes, and for the content, direction and quality of teaching in relation to children and colleagues within the institutional context of preschool. This understanding is informed by previous research showing that preschool teachers’ leadership in preschool is closely related to teaching, collaboration and the organisation of pedagogical practice (Heikka et al., 2022; Kahila et al., 2020).

The purpose of this article is to analyse how preschool teachers’ leadership develops in relation to their clarified responsibility for leading teaching, and how this development contributes to the new institutionalisation of preschool as an educational institution. This study takes preschool teachers’ perspectives as its empirical point of departure and focuses on how they describe and make sense of their leadership development. The study focuses on preschool teachers where organisational conditions have been established to support their responsibility for leading teaching (see the Method section for a description of the sampling strategy). While previous research highlights the importance of principals in creating organisational conditions for leadership, principals are not studied as empirical actors in this article. Instead, principals’ roles are addressed as part of the organisational context, based on preschool teachers’ experiences of the conditions that enabled their leadership development.

Preschool teachers’ leadership

Research on leadership in preschool has primarily focused on principals (Beattie, 2021; Douglass, 2018), while preschool teachers’ leadership has received less attention. However, prior research highlights its importance for improving the quality of preschool education (Cervantes and Öqvist, 2021; Fenech, 2013; Fonsén et al., 2022; Heikka et al., 2018; Kahila and Heikka, 2025; Larsdotter Bodin, 2026; Sims et al., 2018). Professional development can strengthen this leadership by enhancing preschool teachers’ knowledge, reflective capacity, developmental skills and their ability to lead both children's learning and colleagues’ professional growth (Fonsén and Ukkonen-Mikkola, 2019). While previous research establishes the importance of preschool teachers’ leadership for quality improvement, less attention has been paid to how it is enacted in practice. Recent studies show that preschool teacher leadership is shaped by political (e.g. policy reforms that redefine responsibilities), cultural (e.g. egalitarian work cultures that shape role expectations) and structural conditions (e.g. organisational arrangements enabling or constraining collaboration and role clarification) (Kahila et al., 2020), and integrates teaching, collaboration and strategic direction (Heikka et al., 2022). One example of a structural condition is planning, assessment and development (PAD) time, which can support role clarification, reflection and collaboration (Heikka et al., 2025; Kahila and Heikka, 2025). PAD time is therefore understood as an organisational condition that enables preschool teachers to develop their leadership responsibility for leading teaching. These insights resonate with the Swedish preschool context, where leadership responsibilities have been formalised through recent policy reforms. In Sweden, the 2010 Educational Act (2010: 800) introduced ‘teaching’ in preschool and gave preschool teachers a formal responsibility to lead it. Although the revised curriculum reinforced this responsibility (Swedish National Board of Education, 2018, 2025), research shows that their leadership roles remain ambiguous (Cervantes and Öqvist, 2021). Long-standing work team structures, rooted in egalitarian work cultures, have contributed to unclear divisions of labour between preschool teachers and caregivers (Cervantes and Öqvist, 2021; Steinnes and Haug, 2013). Preschool teachers’ expertise has often been undervalued, leading to weak differentiation of roles and staff qualifications (Halland and Winje, 2022; Karila and Kinos, 2012), and tasks being commonly shared regardless of competence levels (Cervantes and Öqvist, 2021, 2024; Ekström, 2007; Öqvist and Cervantes, 2024; Steinnes and Haug, 2013).

These institutional norms are closely connected to how preschool teachers have been positioned in policy. Swedish preschool teachers have historically been invisible and marginalised in policy, but since 2010, they have gained visibility. However, ambiguities in policy, where preschool teachers’ and work teams’ responsibilities overlap, create space for contested positions in which both preschool teachers and caregivers reinterpret their roles and responsibilities. How these policies are interpreted and implemented locally shapes the institutional conditions for leadership development and preschool teachers’ possibilities to enact leadership in relation to teaching (Öqvist and Cervantes, 2025). At the same time, leadership is shaped and redefined within everyday preschool practice, where professional norms and work team cultures influence how policy intentions are realised. Newly graduated preschool teachers often adapt to prevailing institutional norms, while others challenge established norms. ‘Experience discourses’, which give more authority to caregivers with long tenure, further blur role and professional boundaries (Halland and Winje, 2022). Historically, the focus on caregiving and fostering children’s social development has reinforced this distribution of responsibilities (Rubinstein Reich et al., 2017). Despite policy reforms, preschool teachers and caregivers have often maintained equal roles, resisting the intended division of labour. This weak repositioning hinders professionalisation and may affect educational quality, indicating a need for clearer role distinctions and institutional support (Cervantes and Öqvist, 2021).

To understand these dynamics in greater depth, recent studies have explored preschool teachers’ leadership in daily practice. Larsdotter Bodin (2026) identifies categories such as diffuse roles (unclear professional boundaries and weak leadership articulation), team importance (how work teams enable, negotiate or constrain leadership), care (a relational orientation shaping leadership in the work team), practical wisdom (experience-based professional judgement) and role modelling (leading by example in interactions with colleagues and children). These categories illustrate how leadership is shaped by professional judgment and practical wisdom, requiring preschool teachers to navigate between care, pedagogy and collaboration. Heikka et al. (2022) further show how leadership is enacted in pedagogical activities aimed at steering children's and work teams’ actions toward established goals, with leadership adapted to situational demands. Leadership is thus enacted within a dynamic interplay between policy, professional norms and local organisational conditions. A key organisational factor shaping this interplay is the role of principals, who can enable or constrain preschool teachers’ leadership (Cervantes and Öqvist, 2026; Öqvist and Cervantes, 2024). Research shows that principals often struggle to establish clear structures distinguishing preschool teachers’ and caregivers’ responsibilities and to support preschool teachers in leading teaching (Cervantes and Öqvist, 2026; Öqvist and Cervantes, 2024; Rantala et al., 2024). Flat organisational cultures and long-standing norms make this process challenging, as principals often tend to expect staff to negotiate the division of labour themselves, while staff expect principals to lead these changes (Nuttall et al., 2018). When principals create structures and time for preschool teachers to collaborate, the conditions for preschool teachers’ leadership are strengthened (Öqvist and Cervantes, 2024).

New institutionalism as a theoretical framework for analysing the development of preschool teachers’ leadership

In this article, new institutionalism is used as an analytical perspective to examine how leadership introduced through policy is interpreted, enacted and legitimised in everyday preschool practice (Meyer and Rowan, 1977; Tolbert and Zucker, 1996; Zucker, 1977). From a new institutionalist perspective, preschools are institutions embedded in normative environments that shape their structures, practices and professional roles (Meyer and Rowan, 1977; Meyer et al., 1981). Institutions are understood as relatively stable, yet as continuously reproduced configurations of shared norms, roles and meanings enacted in everyday practice, rather than fixed structures. This perspective makes it possible to analyse how historically established understandings of responsibility, equality and legitimacy influence how leadership is enacted in preschool contexts. Within this perspective, institutionalisation is understood as an ongoing, practice-based process through which roles, actions and meanings gradually become taken for granted and legitimised in preschool contexts (Zucker, 1977). Institutionalisation is therefore not conceived as a linear or uniform process but as uneven and contested, where new practices may coexist with or challenge established norms. Preschool teachers are understood as active participants who interpret and enact leadership expectations in interaction with colleagues, children and organisational conditions.

To analyse how preschool teachers’ leadership develops in relation to the process of institutionalisation, the study draws on Tolbert and Zucker's (1996) concepts of pre-, semi- and full institutionalisation. These concepts are used as heuristic analytical tools rather than as fixed stages through which actors move. They make it possible to analyse how leadership becomes articulated, enacted and gradually legitimised in practice. Pre-institutionalisation refers to situations where leadership is weakly articulated and lacks shared professional legitimacy. Professional norms and expectations are present, but they do not yet provide collective recognition or support for preschool teachers’ responsibility for leading teaching. Leadership practices are therefore shaped primarily by formal policy requirements, individual interpretations and established routines, rather than by shared understandings of leadership as a professional responsibility. Semi-institutionalisation refers to situations where leadership becomes increasingly articulated through reflection, dialogue and collaboration, and begins to gain provisional legitimacy within the professional culture. However, these understandings remain tentative and may be challenged by competing norms, organisational constraints or conflicting expectations. Full institutionalisation refers to practices that are widely recognised, normatively grounded and embedded in everyday professional routines. Leadership is understood as a legitimate and expected part of preschool teachers’ professional role (Tolbert and Zucker, 1996). Importantly, these categories function as analytical lenses rather than stages of development.

Method

The study adopts a qualitative research approach, enabling preschool teachers to share their experiences, and researchers to gain a deeper understanding of the phenomenon under study (Kvale and Brinkmann, 2014; Silverman, 2021). The focus of the study was on preschool teachers’ view of their reality, and interviews were therefore chosen as the method for data collection, to capture their perspectives and experiences in depth (Silverman, 2021).

Sampling

The participants were six preschool teachers in Sweden with between five and 20 years of professional experience. An overview of the participants is provided in Table 1.

Table 1.

Overview of participants.

Pseudonym	Years of experience	Qualifications	Preschool context
Caroline	11	Preschool teacher	Municipal preschool
Julia	13	Preschool teacher	Municipal preschool
Victoria	5	Preschool teacher	Municipal preschool
Sofie	20	Preschool teacher	Municipal preschool
Alicia	15	Preschool teacher	Municipal preschool
Marie	17	Preschool teacher	Municipal preschool

The study employed a purposeful sampling strategy. Participants were selected based on their relevance to the research aim, namely preschool teachers working in preschools where organisational conditions had been established to support their responsibility for leading teaching. These conditions, as described by the preschool teachers themselves, included structured time for planning and reflection, participation in formalised preschool teacher networks and perceived principal’s support for their responsibility for leading teaching. Initial contact was established with principals in preschool, who were informed about the study's aim and participation criteria. Principals were asked to identify preschool teachers who met these criteria. Identified teachers were then contacted directly by the researchers and provided with detailed information about the study. Participation was voluntary. The sampling strategy enabled an in-depth exploration of leadership development in contexts where such organisational conditions were present. The preschools consisted of several departments, where preschool teachers and caregivers worked together in work teams. Each department had its own work team.

Ethical considerations

The study followed the ethical considerations for research of the Swedish Research Council (2024). All preschool teachers were informed about the study and that their participation was voluntary, with the right to withdraw at any time without providing a reason. They were assured that their identities would be protected and treated confidentially; thus, pseudonyms were used in the presentation of the results to protect anonymity. All preschool teachers provided informed consent to participate in the study.

Data collection

An interview guide was designed to include open-ended questions that invited preschool teachers to share and reflect on their leadership experiences in their own words. This design made it possible for preschool teachers to speak freely and reduced the risk of researcher preconceptions. Some examples of interview questions are ‘How do you understand your responsibility for leading teaching?’ ‘Can you describe situations where your leadership felt clear or unclear?’ ‘How have your experiences of leading teaching changed over time?’ ‘How have organisational conditions influenced your leadership?’ Follow-up questions were used to encourage elaboration and clarification without directing responses. The interviews were conducted either face-to-face or online, lasted approximately one hour, were audio-recorded with consent and transcribed verbatim. As Silverman (2021) notes, such recordings support systematic identification of patterns in participants’ narratives, thereby deepening the understanding of preschool teachers’ experiences and perspectives.

Analysis

A content analysis was conducted in accordance with Krippendorff (2018), focusing on both the content and the contextual meaning of preschool teachers’ narratives. The analysis explored how preschool teachers described the development of their leadership in relation to their responsibility for leading teaching. The analytical process followed four steps inspired by Hsieh and Shannon (2005). First, interviews were transcribed and read repeatedly to achieve familiarity with the material. Second, meaningful units of text were identified and coded inductively, allowing patterns without predefined theoretical categories. Responses were organised in relation to the interview questions to maintain coherence between data collection and analysis. Third, codes with similar content were grouped into preliminary categories. This process revealed two central empirical areas: leadership in relation to children and leadership in relation to the work team. At this stage, the analysis remained close to the empirical material and focused on how preschool teachers themselves articulated their experiences. Fourth, these empirical categories were further interpreted through an iterative movement between the empirical material and the theoretical framework (Creswell, 2007). In this interpretative phase, analytical questions derived from new institutionalism were raised, such as the following: ‘How do preschool teachers describe their leadership when it is primarily guided by external demands, such as the curriculum and the Education Act?’ ‘What ambiguities do preschool teachers express regarding their responsibility for leading teaching?’ ‘How do shared understandings of preschool teachers’ leadership begin to develop?’ ‘In what ways do preschool teachers describe increased legitimation of their leadership in practice?’ The concepts of pre-, semi- and full institutionalisation were introduced as heuristic analytical tools to analyse how leadership responsibilities were articulated and gained legitimacy. These concepts did not function as coding categories but as analytical lenses applied to patterns already identified in the empirical material. The two empirical areas were thus theoretically interpreted as two overarching analytical dimensions of leadership development: leadership development in relation to children and leadership development in relation to the work team. When viewed through the institutional framework, these developmental patterns indicated shifts in how leadership responsibilities were articulated and gained legitimacy in practice. This movement does not imply fixed stages or linear progression but reflects shifting degrees of articulation and normative grounding in everyday practice. To ensure construct validity, quotations from the preschool teachers’ narratives are presented in the findings to illustrate and substantiate the analytical interpretations (Gibbert et al., 2008).

Results

Analysed through a new institutionalisation lens, the results show how preschool teachers’ leadership develops in relation to processes of new institutionalisation, characterised by shifts in how leadership is articulated and gains legitimacy in practice. The findings illustrate movement from patterns associated with pre-institutionalisation towards semi-institutionalisation in preschool teachers’ experiences of leadership. The results are organised into two analytical dimensions of preschool teachers’ leadership: in relation to children and in relation to the work team. These dimensions illustrate this development as (a) leadership in relation to children: movement from pre- towards semi-institutionalisation, and (b) leadership in relation to the work team: movement from pre- towards semi-institutionalisation.

Leadership in relation to children: Movement from pre- towards semi-institutionalisation

The results show that preschool teachers, through continuous reflection, develop leadership skills and become aware of the importance of how they are leading teaching in relation to children. Before conditions were created by principals, the preschool teachers expressed they felt insecurity about leading teaching in relation to children when it did not go as planned. A feeling of emptiness and dissatisfaction emerged, and they struggled with how to handle it. They tended to focus more on themselves as preschool teachers rather than on children's learning processes. Caroline expressed this as follows:

I have often felt a sense of emptiness when teaching I led did not go as planned. Reflecting on this, I realised I was focusing too much on myself rather than on what was happening with the children during teaching. (Caroline, preschool teacher)

This illustrates leadership characterised by features associated with pre-institutionalisation, where the role of the preschool teacher as a leader is weakly articulated and lacks shared professional legitimacy. The focus remains on preschool teachers’ own actions rather than on leading children's learning processes. Preschool teachers also reported experiencing frustration when a feeling of failure in leading teaching in relation to children arose, especially when the teaching goal was not achieved. Julia described it as follows:

It has been frustrating when I felt that I failed to reach the teaching goal, and instead experienced a sense of failure because I couldn’t get the children to complete what was intended. When I started reflecting on my leadership, it became clear to me that I hadn’t seen the individual child and what was required of me to support their learning progress; in other words, how I, through my teaching, could drive their learning forward. (Julia, preschool teacher)

In this pattern of pre-institutionalisation, leadership remains weakly articulated, with a focus on performing activities rather than leading children's learning processes. Leadership in relation to children is therefore not yet fully integrated into preschool teachers’ professional identity, reflecting the absence of shared understandings of what leadership in teaching entails. A shift was described regarding when principals created conditions that supported leadership development in line with policy's clarified responsibility for leading teaching. Through systematic self-reflection and collegial dialogue, preschool teachers began to articulate their leadership, marking a movement towards semi-institutionalisation, where leadership gains shared meaning and legitimacy. The focus shifts from teacher-centred to child-centred leadership, that is, towards how children should be led in their learning processes rather than on preschool teachers’ own actions in carrying out teaching. Julia explained:

I now teach smaller groups of children, which allows me to focus more on seeing each child and how, through my teaching, I can capture each child's interest to keep them motivated all the way through. I have the opportunity to see each child, ask those important questions and respond to each child based on their needs. It has made a huge difference, and through this, I have developed my leadership, understanding that each child has needs to be met in different ways. I need to adapt my leadership to each child and their needs in the teaching process, but that requires smaller group sizes. (Julia, preschool teacher)

Here, leadership becomes increasingly articulated and recognised as intentional and pedagogically grounded, focusing on stimulating inquiry, motivation and curiosity. By restructuring teaching into smaller groups, preschool teachers develop new pedagogical routines aligned with emerging shared understandings of leadership that strengthen communication with children in their learning processes. Victoria expressed the following:

I see that it is important to put into words what the children have learned, to show that they have developed and to let them see their own progress. It motivates the children to want to learn more. It shows that you care about them and notice what they do. (Victoria, preschool teacher)

Through dialogue and reflection, leadership in relation to children becomes less contested and increasingly articulated as a legitimate professional responsibility, reflecting a movement towards semi-institutionalisation, where leadership becomes more stable within shared pedagogical values.

Leadership in relation to the work team: Movement from pre- towards semi-institutionalisation

Preschool teachers’ clarified responsibility for leading teaching has also required reflection on how leadership is enacted within the work team. Before conditions were established by principals, preschool teachers described how the prior flat organisational structure persisted, with equal responsibilities within the work team. Even though leadership responsibilities were formalised in policy, this had not yet led to changes in practice. This can be understood in light of institutional theory, which highlights the decoupling between formal policy and everyday practices, as established norms and routines may persist despite formal change (Meyer and Rowan, 1977). Boundaries between preschool teachers and caregivers remained unclear, meaning that preschool teachers’ responsibility for leading teaching was not yet institutionally supported within the work team. When preschool teachers attempted to assume this responsibility, it often resulted in resistance and conflicts. Sofie explained this:

We have previously shared equal responsibility. All decisions were made collectively within the work team. This contributed to a strong sense of unity and equality, but at the same time created a certain lack of clarity about who was responsible for what. I noticed that when I began taking the initiative to introduce changes, trying to clarify who should do what according to the new guidelines, it collapsed and led to conflicts and resistance. There was frustration about no longer having the same level of responsibility, and I kept hearing that they [caregivers] felt devalued and that their competence no longer mattered. I was even asked, ‘Why are you suddenly the one making the decisions?’ I felt questioned. (Sofie, preschool teacher)

This illustrates leadership characterised by features associated with pre-institutionalisation, where leadership lacks legitimacy and collective acceptance within the work team. Although professional norms are present, they do not yet support preschool teachers’ clarified responsibility for leading teaching. Instead, deeply institutionalised norms of equality constrain how leadership is articulated and recognised. Preschool teachers described how attempts to enact leadership were questioned and interpreted as hierarchical rather than pedagogically grounded. Leadership remains contested and weakly legitimised, indicating that the clarified responsibility introduced through policy has not yet been embedded in shared professional understandings within the work team. A further shift is described when preschool teachers engaged in systematic reflection and collegial dialogue, both individually and within professional networks. Through these processes, preschool teachers began to verbalise and articulate their leadership role. This reflects a movement towards semi-institutionalisation, where leadership becomes more visible and begins to gain normative grounding. Preschool teachers shift their focus from questions of hierarchy and authority to viewing leadership as guiding and supporting colleagues in achieving shared pedagogical goals. Alicia explained this as follows:

I have reflected deeply on this and realised that I need to step into a leadership role and guide others in a constructive way, in alignment with our shared mission. I have spent considerable time thinking about how to do this, how to involve the caregivers differently than before, to move away from an ‘us and them’ mindset and shift the focus away from who is in charge. As a leader, my task is to lead others, and I have identified the strengths of everyone in the work team. I have started to praise my colleagues, show genuine appreciation and listen more attentively to their ideas. (Alicia, preschool teacher)

Here, leadership is increasingly enacted through everyday practices of guidance, listening and coordination, rather than through control or formal authority. In contrast to leadership characterised by features associated with pre-institutionalisation, where the role of the preschool teacher as a leader is weakly articulated and lacks shared professional legitimacy, recognition here becomes linked to differentiated competencies and leadership. Preschool teachers begin to recognise and mobilise colleagues’ competencies in relation to shared teaching goals. Marie expressed this:

My colleague excels at inspiring children with her body language and tone in teaching. She really captures children's interest. She makes teaching sound really exciting and strengthens children's curiosity, motivation and willingness to learn. I had not fully recognised this as a skill before. I, on the other hand, am strong in planning activities, linking them to curriculum goals and analysing the outcome and how to develop further. By acknowledging these strengths, we have started to discuss how we can leverage each other's competencies for the benefit of the children’s learning in teaching activities. (Marie, preschool teacher)

These accounts illustrate leadership that is increasingly articulated and normatively recognised, where differentiated responsibilities are understood as legitimate and pedagogically meaningful. Collaboration shifts from shared responsibility towards coordinated practice led by preschool teachers’ responsibility for teaching. Leadership in relation to the work team thus becomes less contested and more consistently enacted as a professional responsibility that mobilises complementary strengths to advance children's learning, signalling ongoing processes of new institutionalisation.

Discussion

The purpose of this article is to analyse how preschool teachers’ leadership develops in relation to their clarified responsibility for leading teaching, and how this development contributes to the new institutionalisation of preschool as an educational institution. The findings illustrate how preschool teachers’ leadership develops through processes of institutionalisation, showing movement from patterns associated with pre-institutionalisation towards semi-institutionalisation in two domains: leadership in relation to children and leadership in relation to the work team. Leadership becomes increasingly articulated and normatively grounded, though not fully stabilised. These findings align with prior research showing that preschool teachers often experience difficulties in assuming leadership roles due to unclear divisions of labour and persistent egalitarian norms (Eriksson, 2014; Heikka et al., 2018; Rantala et al., 2024). While prior studies have documented such ambiguities, this study shows how they are addressed through processes of articulation and legitimisation in everyday preschool practice.

The development of preschool teachers’ leadership in relation to children shifted from a teacher-centred focus on carrying out teaching to a more intentional, child-centred focus on stimulating children's inquiry, motivation, interest and curiosity in learning processes. Although leading children's learning is a core task, the findings show that recognising and enacting this leadership requires articulation, reflection and institutional support. This helps explain why preschool teachers in prior research did not perceive themselves as leaders within their work teams (Heikka et al., 2018; Sims et al., 2015). As leadership becomes articulated and collectively recognised, preschool teachers begin to understand their teaching as a legitimate form of leadership rather than solely as an individual teaching practice.

The development of leadership in relation to the work team likewise involved the gradual establishment of norms of collaboration and mutual recognition that began to challenge older equality norms tied to hierarchy and shared responsibility. As preschool teachers recognised and mobilised colleagues’ specific competencies, leadership was increasingly enacted through everyday actions such as listening, encouraging and creating opportunities for others to contribute, rather than being seen as a position of control. In line with Tolbert and Zucker (1996), such developments reflect emerging normative pressures that strengthen and legitimise preschool teachers’ responsibility for leading teaching. Systematic reflection and collegial dialogue within preschool teacher networks function not only as tools for professional development (Fonsén and Ukkonen-Mikkola, 2019) but also as mechanisms of institutionalisation through which leadership becomes articulated and legitimised. While Fonsén and Ukkonen-Mikkola (2019) demonstrate that organised opportunities for systematic reflection strengthen preschool teachers’ leadership capacities and empower them to lead both children's learning and colleagues’ professional growth, the present study extends this research by showing how such processes contribute to shared understandings of leadership and consolidate preschool teachers’ responsibility for leading teaching within the institutional culture. In line with Kahila and Heikka (2025) and Heikka et al. (2025), the findings further show that organisational arrangements, such as structured time for planning, networking, assessment and development, provide essential conditions for collaboration, role clarification and the strengthening of preschool teachers’ leadership and pedagogical quality. When such organisational conditions are absent, clarified responsibilities remain weakly institutionalised, and preschool teachers continue to experience uncertainty regarding their leadership role. This helps explain why leadership roles often remain unclear despite policy reforms (Cervantes and Öqvist, 2021; Heikka et al., 2018).

From a new institutional perspective (Meyer and Rowan, 1977; Tolbert and Zucker, 1996), this development demonstrates that policy reforms and structural changes alone are insufficient to establish a new institutionalisation. Meyer and Rowan (1977) argue that formal structures often fail to translate into practice unless they are accompanied by cultural alignment and shared meanings. The results show that in patterns associated with pre-institutionalisation, preschool teachers’ leadership was largely shaped by policy requirements such as the Educational Act (2010: 800) and curriculum guidelines (Swedish National Board of Education, 2025), while shared professional understandings that legitimise leadership were not yet sufficiently consolidated within work team cultures. This explains why clarified policy responsibilities alone were insufficient to establish preschool teachers’ leadership as a normatively recognised and legitimate dimension of their professional role. This finding can be understood in terms of the decoupling between formal policy and everyday practices (Meyer and Rowan, 1977). Although leadership responsibilities have been clarified in policy, their enactment remains dependent on established norms, routines and organisational conditions. This helps explain why changes in formal structures do not automatically translate into changes in practice.

Consistent with Heikka et al. (2022), leadership in preschool is enacted through a dynamic interplay between policy, professional norms and organisational conditions. A key organisational factor influencing this interplay is the role of principals, who can either enable or constrain teachers’ opportunities to enact leadership (Cervantes and Öqvist, 2026; Öqvist and Cervantes, 2024; Rantala et al., 2024). Our findings show that when principals provide organisational structures and time for collaboration and reflection, they support the movement towards semi-institutionalised patterns of preschool teachers’ leadership by strengthening shared professional norms and legitimising new practices. This study adds explanatory depth to previous research regarding why uncertainties persist: they reflect institutional norms and local work team cultures that shape what is recognised as legitimate leadership. The findings also align with Zucker's (1977) argument that institutionalisation occurs when actions acquire shared meaning and social legitimacy. Taken together, the results indicate that preschool teachers’ leadership is becoming increasingly institutionalised, as leadership practices are articulated, enacted and gradually legitimised within preschool practice. While Tolbert and Zucker (1996) describe full institutionalisation as taken for granted and normatively embedded practices, our findings suggest that further stabilisation of preschool teachers’ leadership depends on principals’ and policymakers’ consolidation of professional norms and routines that support preschool teachers’ leadership in everyday practice.

Conclusion and implications

This study shows that preschool teachers’ leadership is developing towards semi-institutionalised patterns, where shared understandings of responsibility and legitimacy are beginning to stabilise, although they are not yet fully embedded in preschool culture. Although policies have clarified responsibilities, these intentions have only been partially realised in practice. The findings highlight that the development of preschool teacher leadership depends on organisational conditions that enable reflection, collaboration and role clarification. For policymakers, this underscores the importance of aligning formal responsibilities with practical conditions for enactment. Policies alone are insufficient and must be accompanied by processes that support implementation and coherence between national intentions and local practice. Principals play a crucial role by translating policy into practice through organisational structures and support that legitimise preschool teachers’ responsibility for leading teaching. For preschool teachers, actively engaging in the articulation of their leadership contributes to the new institutionalisation of both their leadership and preschool as an educational institution. By articulating their leadership, recognising colleagues’ competencies and intentionally leading children's learning processes, preschool teachers strengthen both their professional identity and the quality of teaching. While full institutionalisation refers to leadership practices that are widely taken for granted and normatively embedded (Tolbert and Zucker, 1996), our findings suggest that preschool teachers’ leadership remains semi-institutionalised and dependent on organisational support and continued professional dialogue. This is important because leadership is not yet consistently embedded in practice and remains dependent on local organisational conditions, which may lead to variation in children's opportunities for learning and development.

Limitations and further research

While the study is small in scope and does not aim for generalisability, its limited size allowed for rich, reflective dialogues that yielded nuanced understanding of the development of leadership within the preschool education context. Including principals, caregivers or observations of practice could have provided a broader understanding of how leadership is enacted and articulated in everyday preschool settings. The study captures the development of leadership at a specific moment in time, focusing on movement from patterns associated with pre-institutionalisation towards patterns associated with semi-institutionalisation. A longitudinal design would have been valuable to explore how such patterns of institutionalisation are sustained, further stabilised, challenged and reconfigured over time. While this study does not directly examine children's learning outcomes, the findings highlight leadership development as a key mechanism through which policy intentions to improve educational quality and children's learning opportunities are enacted in preschool practice.

Footnotes

ORCID iD

Anna Öqvist

Ethical considerations

This study was conducted in accordance with the ethical guidelines of the Swedish Research Council. Informed consent was obtained from all participants involved in the study.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are not publicly available due to ethical considerations. In accordance with the consent provided by participants, we are unable to share the data publicly.

Author biographies

Anna Öqvist is a associate Professor in Education. Her area of research is teachers' and principals' leadership in early childhood education to upper secondary school education.

Sara Cervantes is senior lecturer in Education. Her area of research is policy, governance and professionalisation in education, with a particular emphasis on preschool practice and the leadership of preschool teachers and principals.

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