Social Leadership in Early Childhood Education and Care

"Bravo! This book brilliantly meets the moment." – Julie Nicholson, Mills College and Co-Director, Center for Equity in Early Childhood, USA

"A lovely insightful exploration of leadership through a social justice lens." – Lord Victor Adebowale, UK

Across the world, organisations in early childhood education (ECE) face major organisational challenges, including staff recruitment, retention and wellbeing, in the context of sectoral fragmentation and under-investment. These issues impact negatively on the experience of children, staff, parents and the wider community. Social leadership is a new model of leadership that aims to address these challenges by refocusing leadership through a much stronger social justice lens and a community. It highlights the significance of warm and inclusive modes of leadership as a means of driving positive change.

Based on in-depth interviews with renowned global leaders in ECE, this book provides an introduction to the six-element model of social leadership and shows how it can be developed and implemented by organisations, training bodies and educational institutions. Written in accessible language and illustrated with original international case studies the book begins a much-needed dialogue about how we can work from within ECE to overcome the workforce and sectoral hurdles we face.

June O’Sullivan MBE is Chief Executive of the London Early Years Foundation (LEYF). She is author of Leadership Skills in the Early Years (Bloomsbury, 2009), Successful Leadership in the Early Years (Bloomsbury, 2015) plus numerous other sector titles which focus on topics such as leadership in Early Years settings and sustainability.

Mona Sakr is Senior Lecturer in Early Childhood at Middlesex University, UK. She is co-editor of Postdevelopmental Approaches to Childhood Art (Bloomsbury, 2019) and co-author of Creativity and Making in Early Childhood (Bloomsbury, 2018).