57. årgang, nr. 4. – December 2020: Pædagogisk kvalitet gennem organisatorisk og professionel udvikling

Bent B Andresen: Preconditions for exploratory practice and organisational learning in day care

This article relates to efforts to improve pedagogical environments and activities in day care, i .e ., family day care (0-2-year-olds), day nursery (0-2-year-olds) and kin- dergarten (2-5-year-olds), where the leader and the employees are engaged in ex- ploring these environments and activities – and learning from it . The historical de- velopment of day care in Denmark indicates that analytical practice has not always been emphasised, but in recent decades, positive experiences have been taken place to cover the need for the knowledge provided by the analytical practice . In general, it helps to strengthen the primary actors’ understanding of pedagogical environ- ments and activities . It presupposes a view of children, where they are considered competent in relation to important aspects of their lives as children, and an ap- proach in which the pedagogical staff incorporate children’s perspectives . It strengthens the staff’s professional knowledge and judgment . Furthermore, it strengthens the preconditions for professional guidance including the conditions for receiving pedagogical-psychological consultancy .

Jan Peeters: In search of Pedagogical Heroes: What makes practitioners improve their pedagogical practice?

Since I started working in ECEC, first as an educational psychologist, and later as a researcher, I have been fascinated by the following two questions: what makes people change their practice in order to meet the needs of children and families?
And what makes others not able to change and often reproduce the same practice of mediocre quality during their whole career? (Peeters, 1993; Peeters, 2008a; Peeters, Vandenbroeck, 2011; Peeters, Sharmahd, 2014)
For the last few years I have been working as a consultant/researcher in coun- tries in Eastern-Europe, the Caucasus, South Africa and Vietnam (Peeters, Hulpia, 2018, Peeters, 2019, Declercq, Peeters, 2020) . In the different countries where I worked and conducted field visits, I saw the same phenomenon . For every ECEC centre that gives answers to the challenges of today’s society, another ECEC centre reproduces the same low-quality practice as years ago . Nevertheless, both services receive similar financial support from the government .
To get an answer to this question of what makes individuals and services open to change, I propose a journey that will lead us from narratives of practitioners that work in innovative services, to inspiring continuous professional development (CPD) paths, and to coherent policy on a local, national, and international level .

Bente Jensen, Roddy Walker and Maria Marquard: The importance of pro- fessional development in improving the quality of early childhood educa- tion has been increasingly recognised and appreciated internationally in recent years.

The importance of professional development in improving the quality of early childhood education has been increasingly recognised and appreciated internation- ally in recent years . Therefore, greater attention is drawn towards the design, out- comes and implications of professional development initiatives, where their influ- ence on professional practices and child development opportunities, as well as the sustainability of initiatives, comes under scrutiny . Mapping the design and findings of a series of research projects in Denmark, focusing on the provision and evalua- tion of professional development in ECEC provides the opportunity to consider how approaches have evolved in this context . This emphasises the importance of encour- aging participant’s engagement and a shift towards participant-driven and collabo- rative learning models . Insights gained from these studies manifest in a profession- al development initiative provided for family day care workers across 11 municipal- ities in Denmark, where the sustainability of the model and its capacity to monitor the influences the initiative has on both children’s development opportunities and professional practice are central to its design . Rather than expert instruction, prac- tice-based learning is prioritised through the provision of theoretical and practical resources via a digital platform, coupled with the facilitation of individual and col- lective reflection in organised learning groups .
Keywords: Early-childhood education, sustainable professional development, pro- fessional learning communities

Peter Andersen: Organisational Development through Psychological Safety and Responsive Leadership

This article focuses on the question of how, as a leader in everyday life character- ised by paradoxes, one can still contribute to creating Organisational Development . This does not happen with hero management, but rather through creating Psycho- logical Safety in the organisation via Responsive Leadership, where you as a leader also dare to show your vulnerability . It is argued that Psychological Safety is the foundation of Organisational Development .

May Britt Drugli: Transition to childcare – the process of young children 
Starting in childcare is one of the first major transitions in young children’s life . In this study, the process of 146 one-year-old children when they entered childcare was explored . Parents and key persons wrote notes on children’s day one, three, five and nine in childcare and these notes were analysed by use of thematic analy- sis . Results indicate that several visits to childcare before starting and parents at- tending childcare more days seem to facilitate the transition of young children. Further, several children were found to be tired at the end of the second week in childcare . Findings are discussed .