Peer-reviewed article
Teacher leadership in the context of early childhood education: Concepts, characteristics and enactment
Sanni Kahila, Johanna Heıkka, Nina Kristiina Sajaniemi ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This is a literature review about how early childhood education teachers perform leadership roles in their work. The review describes teacher leadership as a multidimensional phenomenon involving collaboration and distribution of influence, with a focus on pedagogical leadership. The authors call for more research on distributed leadership in early childhood education contexts.
Key points
- ECE teachers' responsibilities have expanded to include leadership functions
- Teacher leadership in ECE is characterized as multidimensional and contextual
- Leadership involves intentional influencing based on collaboration and distribution
- Pedagogical leadership is a key focus, though teacher leadership is broader
- Research should examine distributed leadership and teachers' role in enhancing others' participation
Limitations
This is a conceptual literature review that does not evaluate outcomes for children or assess the impact of teacher leadership on child well-being. It focuses on understanding and defining the concept rather than demonstrating effects.
Abstract
Recent studies have indicated that early childhood education (ECE) teachers’ responsibilities have expanded to include leadership functions. In school contexts the phenomenon is called teacher leadership and the same concept has recently been adopted in ECE research literature. Additionally, there are other concepts and perspectives connected to leadership performed by ECE teachers. This literature review aimed to explore the conceptualization, characteristics, and enactment of leadership performed by ECE teachers. Leadership that ECE teachers perform in their work is characterized as a multidimensional and contextual phenomenon, and as intentional influencing, which is based on collaboration and distribution. The focus is on pedagogical leadership, although teacher leadership is a broader concept, which can also include administrative tasks. The findings of the review suggest investigating teacher leadership more within the distributed leadership perspective by focusing on ECE teachers’ essential role in enhancing other actors’ participation in leadership. The literature review reflects the need to clarify the conceptualization of ECE teacher leadership for developing teacher leadership research, especially in an ECE context.