Owners’ Governance of Directors’ Mentoring Practices in Early Childhood Education and Care Centres in Norway

This chapter draws on data from semi-structured lifeworld interviews with seven directors in early childhood education and care centres (ECEC) in Norway with both public and private owners. The research questions for the study are: 1) What kind of role do owners have in directors’ mentoring of staff in ECEC centres in Norway? and 2) Does owners’ governance influence the quality of mentoring practices? Mentoring is understood as a learning process where the intention is that staff reflect individually and collectively on pedagogical practice. The study shows that directors believe owners see mentoring as important to ensure the quality of the pedagogical work, and that they expect directors to organise mentoring of staff. However, few owners have written guidelines or strategies beyond systems for mentoring of newly qualified early childhood teachers. Owners seem to govern more through support and dialogue than through authoritative rules. Owners also offer pedagogical capacity building at meetings for directors at owner level, in the form of mentoring in which the directors themselves participate. Directors are positive towards being given autonomy in mentoring for staff, but they ask for more financial resources and time to do mentoring.