Förskollärares ledarskap som ett kunskapsfält i behov av begreppsliga resurser i förskoleverksamhet, utbildning och forskning

Abstract

The present study aims to investigate supervision activities as a form of teaching leadership in preschool teacher education. Work-based education constitutes a particular context for understanding of leadership in preschool due to its intention of bridging between practical and theoretical experience and knowledge. The empirical data analyzed consist of audio-recorded supervision in the form of weekly conversations between the student teacher and the preschool teacher within a five-week course with leadership as the learning content. Theoretically grounded in a sociocultural perspective on learning and communication, the analysis shows how leadership is mediated as a relational practice but without a definition. In addition, the conversations focus on the student teacher’s trajectories of developing leadership. In these conversations, the contents: meanings of leadership and the students’ appropriation of leadership, are blurred. Without an explicit meta-perspective in the conversations, it becomes analytically unclear whether, or to what extent, the participants establish conceptual intersubjectivity. The findings are discussed in relation to work-based education as a context for teaching and learning the prospective occupation. We conclude that theoretical knowledge of preschool teachers’ leadership becomes invisible in supervision without an education offering conceptual resources for this content.

Keywords

• conversation
• intersubjectivity
• preschool teacher education
• supervision
• work-based education