Browsing by Author "Järvinen, Kati"

The purpose of this study was to explore the importance of director's pedagogical leadership in everyday early childhood education. Through the research problems I wanted to find out how pedagogical leadership affects in the quality of interaction, learning environments and pedagogical atmosphere in early childhood unit. The theoretical background of this study is based on Finnish and international research of early childhood education and leadership. According to the earlier research pedagogical leadership plays an essential role in high-quality early childhood education. I believe that this study supports earlier research and by this research I want to highlight the relevance of the pedagogical leadership in children's everyday life in early childhood education. This was a quantitative research. The data used in this study was part of research and development project called Orientaation lähteillä which wants to find out what really happens in early childhood education. Project is implemented in co-operation between Teacher Education in Helsinki University and day cares in Uusimaa and Hämeenlinna. The data used in this study was collected using the questionnaires about learning environments answered by 766 units from 10 municipalities. The data included also responses of 143 child minders but in this research the data is limited to responses of the day care center workers. This study is based on the claim the pedagogical leadership and the educational culture should be strengthened in our unit. The SPSS-software was used for the analysis of the results. In the context of interaction, the lack of pedagogical leadership was reflected strongest in the emotional climate and atmosphere of the unit. When pedagogical leadership was strong, interaction between the unit seemed to be more positive and pleasure and well-being were more often present in everyday life. Pedagogical leadership seemed to play an important role in diversity of the learning environment and in the quality of physical learning environment and playing environment. What came to unit's pedagogical atmosphere, the lack of time and resources was the most significant variable that correlated with the pedagogical leadership. According to the results, director's pedagogical leadership affects many different ways in everyday early childhood education and that's why it should be acknowledged.