Pedagogical leadership and children’s well-being in Finnish early education

Abstract

In this paper, we present research that focuses on pedagogical leadership that is evaluated by the staff in the early education unit. The evaluations relate to the observed indicators of the well-being of children and leadership evaluations conducted by the early education centre directors. The methods include systematic observation of children, educators’ evaluation of leadership and directors’ evaluation of their leadership. The measurements are independent of each other. The data were collected between 2017 and 2019 in Finnish early education units. The results indicate the connection between the pedagogical leadership of director and observed activities of children, including involved learning, positive emotion, physical activity and participation. The connection between pedagogical leadership evaluated by the staff was also connected with leadership evaluated by the director, highlighting the need for the director to focus on pedagogical leadership and staff involvement. The results provide a perspective to help the director to focus on the main task of early education, the well-being of the children.

Mapping the intellectual lineage of educational management, administration and leadership, 1972–2020

“…While early childhood education did not emerge on this term map, we noted that it was present on maps that used a somewhat lower threshold (e.g. Fonsén et al, 2020;Gibbs, 2020).…”

Successful Pedagogical Leadership: Bibliometric Analysis from the Web of Science database (2017-2021)

“…As PL is theoretically, conceptual, and empirically explored, more and more scholars are trying to understand its dimensions, applications, and effects on teaching and learning. From content analysis, it can be highlighted that most articles defined pedagogical leadership as an approach that involves a collaborative process of planning (Yang & Lim, 2020;Zohar & Cohen, 2016), decision making (Ho, 2010), action (Male & Palaiologou, 2017;Seiser, 2020) and evaluation (Fonsen et al, 2020(Fonsen et al, , 2020 in which teachers and administrators define shared goals for their school (Garcia-Martinez & Martin-Romera, 2019;Muli et al, 2017). Pedagogical leaders consult with interested parties (Gonzalez-Fernandez et al, 2020) about the means to reach those goals, and create an environment in which all students will have greater access to highquality educational opportunities (Reis & Flores, 2014;Rogers & Grunewald Nichele, 2020).…”

“…It can be said that the study of PL is elusive and emerging in the body of knowledge. In addition, many international findings are also centralized on the importance (Muli et al, 2017;Rogers, 2019), effectiveness (Angelo & McCarthy, 2020;Fonsen et al, 2020), and evaluations of observed practices from PL (Culhane et al, 2018). Because PL tends to overlap with Instructional Leadership, Distributed leadership, and Situational leadership (Male & Palaiologou, 2015), there is no prominent instrument to measure Pedagogical leadership in this region yet.…”

The significance of music in early childhood education and care of toddlers in Finland: an extensive observational study

“…The importance of music in the groups was measured with Reunamo's evaluation model (Fonsen et al 2020;Rintakorpi and Reunamo 2017). The emphasis of music was evaluated with the statement, 'Music and song are important in our everyday education' on a scale of one (does not describe) to five (describes very well).…”