Tapping into Leadership in Early Childhood Development Centers: Learning from the Lived Experiences of Principals in South African Townships

Sibonelo Blose and Evelyn Muteweri

SAGE Open, 2021, vol. 11, issue 4, 21582440211061395

Abstract: Leadership is one of the critical drivers of educational institutions and has been overwhelmingly researched across countries. However, there is little with regards to early childhood development centers in the scholarship of educational leadership. South Africa has an assortment of early childhood development centers (ECD) ranging from fully registered and well-resourced centers in affluent areas to less regulated and poorly resourced community-based centers in townships, informal settlements and rural areas. In these centers, there are individuals performing a pivotal role of leading and managing the institutions. In this paper, we hone in on these individuals, specifically in a township setting, whom we refer to as ECD center principals. By means of narrative inquiry methodology, we solicited and interpreted the lived experiences of selected ECD center principals to garner an understanding of what it means to lead an ECD center in a township setting. The paper makes two broad contributions, namely, ECD center principals’ self-cognitions and their experiences of leading centers in townships.

Keywords: early childhood development; leadership; servant leadership; self-cognition; identity; narrative inquiry (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:sagope:v:11:y:2021:i:4:p:21582440211061395

DOI: 10.1177/21582440211061395

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