Giving voice: inclusive early childhood teachers’ perspectives about their school leaders’ leadership practices

Abstract

Educational leadership has been identified as an important predictor of quality inclusive education. Yet much remains to be learned about how early childhood teachers who work in inclusive kindergartens in developing country contexts experience leadership practices. This article uses teacher voice, framed in dialogic interviews as the method of inquiry to collect qualitative data from 15 early childhood teachers from three private kindergartens in Thailand. The focus was on how these teachers experienced principals’ leadership practices. Framework Analysis combined with an interpretivist perspective revealed three interrelated themes that echoed a common voice across themes that described leadership as a ‘command’ and rules to follow. Our research contributes to existing knowledge by drawing attention to leadership training within the ideals of responsibility to all in order to cultivate and enact leadership with teachers for improvements to occur in inclusive early childhood educational settings.