Shifting pedagogies through distributed leadership : mentoring Chilean early childhood educators in literacy teaching

The potential of a sociocultural approach for empowering early childhood educators cannot be presumed, and its impact on leadership strategies and literacy teaching may be open to question. This paper reports on research into a professional learning program, the Programa Futuro Infantil Hoy, develop...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Australasian journal of early childhood 2012-12, Vol.37 (4), p.68-76
Main Authors: Singh, Michael, Han, Jinghe, Woodrow, Christine
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Chile
Cultural Education
Culturally Relevant Education
Early Childhood Education
Educational History
Emergent Literacy
Foreign Countries
Instructional Leadership
International Educational Exchange
Interviews
Leadership
Literacy
Literacy education
Literacy programs
Mentors
Methods
Participant Satisfaction
Participative Decision Making
Preschool teachers
Professional Development
Social aspects
Sociocultural approach
Student centred learning
Teacher attitudes
Teacher Education Programs
Teachers
Teaching Methods
Teaching process
Training
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Summary:The potential of a sociocultural approach for empowering early childhood educators cannot be presumed, and its impact on leadership strategies and literacy teaching may be open to question. This paper reports on research into a professional learning program, the Programa Futuro Infantil Hoy, developed and implemented by a team of Australian early childhood academics in collaboration with Chilean early childhood educators. To contextualise and add meaning to this study in terms of the shifts from teacher-directed, instructional teaching to a child- centred, sociocultural approach, a brief partial account is provided of Chilean early childhood education. Analysis of interview data reveals that the participant early childhood educators changed from heroic leadership to a more distributed leadership role in their pedagogical interactions with children, parents and colleagues. The data analysis indicates changes occurred in the early childhood educators' teaching philosophy, curriculum, teaching strategies and model of literacy teaching. [Author abstract]
ISSN:1836-9391
1839-5961
DOI:10.1177/183693911203700410