Leadership Responsibilities of Early Childhood Directors in Palestine from the Directors’ Viewpoint

This chapter discusses early childhood education (ECE) directors’ leadership in Palestinian ECE in a time when Palestine reforms and develops its ECE system. Specifically, the study sets out to investigate what key leadership responsibilities are being experienced by Palestinian early childhood directors. The lack of studies dealing with ECE leadership in the Palestinian context shows the need for a unified consciousness of leadership. This chapter adds to this challenge, and it is hoped that novel researched-based knowledge might also add to the understanding of leadership responsibilities internationally. The study belongs to the Norwegian Partnership Programme for Global Academic Cooperation (NORPART) project Developing Teacher Education in Pedagogy for Early Childhood Education and Early Elementary Schools in Palestine and Norway, in which researchers from Palestine and Norway investigated ECE leadership as one selected topic. This chapter builds on empirical data from a quantitative questionnaire (N = 166) administered to a purposeful representative sample of ECE directors from the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The results show the wide range of leadership responsibilities that ECE directors perceive in their daily work. Using the theoretical framework of leadership as function (Adizes, 1991), we found that ECE directors in Palestine range responsibilities to children highest. Even though leadership responsibilities related to administration were ranged as lowest, this category contains most areas of responsibility. Moreover, the results highlight the directors’ role and duties in securing and safeguarding the organisation’s goals as core responsibilities. The results make a new contribution to understanding and developing the professional role in order to strengthen ECE leadership and be more effective and dynamic in Palestinian ECE during a time of significant expansion.