Team Leadership and Diversity in Norwegian Early Childhood Education and Care

This chapter presents a theoretical discussion of team leadership and the balance between sameness and difference. It draws upon and extends existing literature on team leadership in general, and team leadership in early childhood education and care (ECEC) in Norway in particular. In this chapter, I ask: How does the theory on team leadership handle the balance between sameness and difference in a diverse ECEC context?

To help answer this question, the chapter presents an analytical framework in which to discuss dilemmas of team leadership and diversity. Furthermore, it uses insights from literature on diversity management and discusses dilemmas of difference and sameness in organisations. The chapter highlights two shortcomings in mainstream literature on team leadership: leadership and diversity, and power and conflict in organisational culture. Moreover, the ambition is to contribute to theoretical advancement by introducing an intersectional approach to the theoretical framework for research on leadership in ECEC in diverse societies.