Has something changed? Leaders’, practitioners’ and parents’ interpretations after renewed early childhood education and care legislation in Finnish private centres

Abstract

This study addresses leadership enactment in the context of early childhood education and care centres in Finland. The study was implemented at a time when the early childhood education and care legislation had changed. The research draws from relational leadership theory to address the following questions: How do leaders, practitioners and parents evaluate and interpret the impacts of changing early childhood education and care legislation in private Finnish centres? And how do these evaluations and interpretations reflect leadership enactment? This study conceptualises leadership as a context-dependent phenomenon constituted by shared meanings and relationships among leaders and other human actors in private centres. In order to achieve a multilevel picture of leadership enactment in private early childhood education and care centres, this study employed a mixed-methods approach. The data was collected through three online surveys and analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The findings revealed that private centres form a heterogeneous context for leadership enactment in Finnish early childhood education and care. Compared with practitioners and parents, the leaders were the most positive in their interpretations of the legislative changes. Specifically, the study found a gap between the leaders’ and parents’ evaluations of how the legislative changes had impacted daily praxis. The study calls for further research and tools for developing leadership enactment in private early childhood education and care.