Enabling inclusive education: the leadership ecosystem in an early childhood-school-community context

ABSTRACT

Effective leadership ecosystem coordinates capacities, collaborations and contributions in school-community contexts to develop social capital, support and positive attitudes for inclusive education practice and implementation. As global institutions and policies encourage countries to redistribute and promote education access, quality and equity for all learners, Ghana is implementing inclusive education. Yet more needs to be learned or unveiled about the leadership for engendering inclusive practice in schools. The study involves one large early childhood and school setting, selected for its vision, initiatives and commitment to educate young children. It uses a qualitative single case study approach to collect interview data and documents to explore leadership ecosystem that facilitate successful inclusive practice. Headteacher and teacher participants identified two contextual levels of leadership ecosystem – the school and community, comprising headteachers, teachers, parents, experts and other education stakeholders – as enabling inclusive education. Headteachers’ scaffolding leadership and involvement were significant in rallying and coordinating inclusive practices of other key school and community actors. Insights of these enablers provide useful exemplars for early childhood and school settings to include young children. Further implications, informing research, practice and policy, are highlighted.

KEYWORDS:

• Leadership
• leadership ecosystem
• school-community involvement
• early childhood education
• inclusive education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Griffith University International Postgraduate Research Scholarship.

Notes on contributors

Francis R. Ackah-Jnr

Francis R. Ackah-Jnr teaches and researches at Griffith University and Griffith College, Australia. He is a keen educator with proven experience in higher education, has hands-on teaching, research and service in Inclusive Education, Leadership, Communication and Pedagogy in Early Childhood. He believes everyone can learn and succeed within scaffolding and mentoring environments that ignite leadership and agency. He was the recipient of an Australian Council for Educational Leadership (ACEL) Award in 2017.