Lutheran schools transform students, families, congregations, and communities. While effective school leadership is crucial for this potential transformation, the difficulties of school leadership continue to increase. Leaders of Christian schools face challenges unique to the parochial context. The purpose of this study was to explore how…

Purposeful play has many educational benefits that support the whole child. As academic rigor continues to rise, the need for developmentally appropriate practices that support both academic and social emotional learning increases. The purpose of this quantitative study was to understand principals' perceptions of the incorporation of purposeful…

The research aimed to analyze the attitudes of Pre-School Managers (PSMs) towards a reform that was not adapted to the needs of the early childhood education system and its characteristics. Qualitative data were elicited from interviews with pre-school leaders, document analysis and a focus group. Findings indicated that PSMs felt that the reform…

Issues of social injustice are pervasive in school systems around the world (Welton et al., 2019) with ingrained institutional barriers that hinder students from reaching future successes. As a result, the purpose of this study was to understand the focuses, mindsets, and actions of leaders for social justice working to redress issues of inequity…

Pre-primary education is crucial for children's cognitive, social, and emotional development, setting the foundation for academic success. Parental engagement is a critical factor that positively impacts the quality of service provision in pre-primary schools. This study examined the influence of parental engagement on the provision of quality…

This qualitative phenomenological study utilized structured interviews with 23 preschool administrators to explore their beliefs about preschool inclusion and needed resources for providing high-quality preschool inclusion. Themes emerged regarding administrators' beliefs about inclusion, including divergent understandings of inclusion as…

Globalisation has significantly influenced preschool education around the world, including Hong Kong, where the official curriculum framework has recently integrated the Western notion of creativity as part of arts education, forming a new learning area: Arts and Creativity. The purpose of this study was to investigate how Hong Kong preschool…

During the last decade, the notion of norm-critique has had an impact on Swedish educational policymaking, including the gender-equality mission of the Swedish preschool. The aim is to better understand and problematize the relationship between gender equality, as formal curricular content, and norm-critique, as informal curricular content, in…

Although preschool principals are important for integrating sustainability, studies on this topic are scarce. Using an embedded mixed methods approach, this study explored and compared 50 principals' views and actions relating to sustainability in the operations of 25 eco- and 25 non-eco-certified randomly sampled preschools from 25 municipalities…

Today, about 50% of US elementary schools have a pre-kindergarten (pre-K) program located in the building. This article systematically reviews the empirical literature on principal leadership of pre-K programs in elementary schools. We collected studies using academic database searches, scanning reference lists of relevant articles, and consulting…

Education has historically been dominated by women, while those in leadership positions are male. Women are acutely underrepresented in the top position in public school districts across the nation. There is consistent evidence supporting that women often encounter both explicit and implicit barriers hindering their trajectory and growth to a…

The purpose of this study was to explore how the COVID-19 pandemic affected leadership through the case of a Swedish preschool. The analytical framework draws from turbulence theory and multiple ethical paradigms. Findings indicate that established routines, principals' flexibility, explicit communication, and ethical sensitivity contributed to a…

As state-funded Pre-K programs in elementary schools continue to grow, elementary principals are increasingly responsible for supporting, supervising, and leading these programs. Therefore, examining elementary principals' early childhood leadership competencies and the factors influencing them may help understand and improve their experiences as…

The purpose of this study is to contribute to the discussion concerning adaptations and improvements of preschool teacher education. Such changes are crucial, because many newly qualified preschool teachers struggle to live up to the requirements the profession places upon them. This study is conducted in Sweden, where early childhood education…

The Turkish educational system employs teachers in a variety of positions with varying levels of privileges but also with some shared traits. This study aims to ascertain contract teachers' and school administrators' perspectives on the contract teaching procedure from the standpoint of these distinctions. The focus group interview technique,…