'Nobody left behind': barriers to engagement in early years digitally mediated leadership development

Article

Halls, K., Sakr, M. and Cooper, K. 2024. 'Nobody left behind': barriers to engagement in early years digitally mediated leadership development. Early Years. https://doi.org/10.1080/09575146.2024.2308099
TypeArticle
Title'Nobody left behind': barriers to engagement in early years digitally mediated leadership development
AuthorsHalls, K., Sakr, M. and Cooper, K.
Abstract

This research pinpoints the barriers UK early years (EY) leaders face in accessing digitally mediated leadership development. Furthermore, we consider initiatives to disrupt digital exclusion and ensure more equitable access to professional learning opportunities. The onset of the Covid-19 pandemic catalysed an upsurge in the use of digitally mediated professional learning in the UK EY sector. While digital mediation has proven useful in delivering EY leadership development programmes, this article considers who has access to these programmes and who is left behind. Through an inductive thematic analysis applied to 24 qualitative case studies with UK EY training providers, underpinned by the multilevel intersectionality model created by Núñez (2014), we consider how digital exclusion operates through socioeconomic status, geography and race within the sector. Based on this, we emphasise the need for the sector to disrupt these inequities by enacting bottom-up and top-down initiatives to foster digital inclusion across EY.

KeywordsDigital exclusion; professional learning; multilevel intersectionality; digitally mediated leadership development
Sustainable Development Goals4 Quality education
Middlesex University ThemeCreativity, Culture & Enterprise
Research GroupCentre for Education Research and Scholarship (CERS)
PublisherTaylor & Francis (Routledge)
JournalEarly Years
ISSN0957-5146
Electronic1472-4421
Publication dates
Online31 Jan 2024
Publication process dates
Submitted31 Jan 2023
Accepted13 Jan 2024
Deposited25 Jan 2024
Output statusIn press
Publisher's version
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Copyright Statement

© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1080/09575146.2024.2308099
Web of Science identifierWOS:001153320400001
LanguageEnglish
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