A Bourdieusian Analysis of Good Practice Partnerships: Implications for Private, Voluntary and Independent Early Childcare Leaders
School of Education and Professional Development, The University of Huddersfield, Huddersfield HD1 3DH, UK
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Academic Editor: Krishan Kumar Sood
Educ. Sci. 2021, 11(11), 707; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci11110707
Received: 20 September 2021
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Revised: 25 October 2021
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Accepted: 29 October 2021
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Published: 4 November 2021
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Leadership of/in Early Years—Primary Education Sector: An International Perspective)
This article applies the theoretical lens of Bourdieu to explore leadership and the distribution of power between teachers and early childhood practitioners in the private voluntary and independent (PVI) sector in a good practice partnership. It questions the effectiveness of such partnerships in bringing about sustained improvements to practice in this sector. Data were collected in three focus groups with practitioners from 10 settings that were recruited by a consortium of schools to the partnership to take part in a 10-week intervention. The findings showed that the power imbalance between teachers and early childhood practitioners cancelled out collaborative pedagogical models of leadership intended to underpin the good practice partnership. Furthermore, this power imbalance contributed to the lack of sustainability of the intervention. In conclusion, leadership practices need to be more closely aligned between early childhood practitioners and teachers by drawing on ideas of moral leadership elicited from a symbolic frame. The article has relevance for leaders operating in collaborative contexts where existing power imbalances are evident.
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Keywords:
Bourdieu; symbolic frame; good practice partnerships; power; teacher; childcare practitioner; leadership practices
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
MDPI and ACS Style
McMahon, S.; Firth, N.; Youde, A. A Bourdieusian Analysis of Good Practice Partnerships: Implications for Private, Voluntary and Independent Early Childcare Leaders. Educ. Sci. 2021, 11, 707. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci11110707
AMA Style
McMahon S, Firth N, Youde A. A Bourdieusian Analysis of Good Practice Partnerships: Implications for Private, Voluntary and Independent Early Childcare Leaders. Education Sciences. 2021; 11(11):707. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci11110707
Chicago/Turabian StyleMcMahon, Samantha, Nicola Firth, and Andrew Youde. 2021. "A Bourdieusian Analysis of Good Practice Partnerships: Implications for Private, Voluntary and Independent Early Childcare Leaders" Education Sciences 11, no. 11: 707. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci11110707
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