IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/sagope/v12y2022i2p21582440221091260.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Perspectives on Leadership in Early Childhood Education and Care Centers Through Community of Practice

Author

Listed:
  • Kirsi-Marja Heikkinen
  • Raisa Ahtiainen
  • Elina Fonsén

Abstract

This article investigates early childhood education and care (ECEC) leadership through the concept of community of practice (COP). The focus is on ECEC leaders’ perceptions regarding their leadership during the educational changes taking place in the context of Finnish ECEC. The purpose is to increase understanding of how leaders see themselves in relation to the ECEC multi professional working community and practices of distributed leadership. The data are five focus group interviews of ECEC leaders analyzed with directed content analysis within the theoretical frame of domain, practice, and community forming the core of COP in Lave and Wenger. The results show how all three COP components comprise several dimensions in ECEC leaders’ perceptions of their leadership. For example, the component of the leadership domain consists of ECEC values, ECEC legislation, and ECEC curriculum. The results indicate that a formal leadership role is essential in leading the community and its vision. Moreover, building flexible leadership structures and supporting multi professional cooperation in the community augment leadership as a community’s joint enterprise.

Suggested Citation

  • Kirsi-Marja Heikkinen & Raisa Ahtiainen & Elina Fonsén, 2022. "Perspectives on Leadership in Early Childhood Education and Care Centers Through Community of Practice," SAGE Open, , vol. 12(2), pages 21582440221, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:sagope:v:12:y:2022:i:2:p:21582440221091260
    DOI: 10.1177/21582440221091260
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/21582440221091260
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/21582440221091260?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:sagope:v:12:y:2022:i:2:p:21582440221091260. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.