Abstract

This paper explores Chilean early childhood and care (ECEC) principals’ pedagogical leadership in the public sector, drawing upon literature regarding ECEC leadership. Following up a qualitative tradition, a purposive sample was used which considered 13 ECEC settings, from the 2 leading providers of public ECEC in Chile: JUNJI (the National Board of Nurseries for its acronym in Spanish) and Integra Foundation. Different techniques were used for data collection: semi-structured interviews with principals, ECEC teachers, teaching assistants, and parents. In addition, a shadowing technique was used to observe principals. Findings show that ECEC principals’ leadership is based on limited space to develop a pedagogical leadership due to a high administrative workload, alongside strong ethics of care fostered by principals, which are shared by the educational community–ECEC teachers, teaching assistants and families. We aim to generate knowledge about ECEC leadership for the Latin American context, particularly for the Chilean case, where we do not have any evidence about this topic.