How Teachers Navigate Leadership and Policy: A Case Study of Preschool Teachers in Pre-K–3

• In Event: 52.050 - Teacher Leaders' Identity Development

Abstract

With the ongoing national focus on early education, preschool to third grade (P-3) alignment is emerging as an approach to address learning from birth to age eight. Using cognitive sensemaking theory, this qualitative case study investigates the ways that preschool teachers in a P-3 professional learning group make sense of their roles as early childhood educators, leaders, and policy implementers. Findings show that as teachers engage with leadership and policy demands, they search for concrete connections to their existing knowledge and relationships, and that they display conflicted conceptualization of leadership. Implications include developing professional learning that takes these needs into account, including an explicit focus on leadership development, and engaging in further research on teachers across the P-3 continuum.

Author

• Kathleen Kuhl, University of Washington - Seattle