Manjula Waniganayake

Manjula Waniganayake
Macquarie University · Institute of Early Childhood

PhD (ANU), BEd-Honours (USyd)

About

95
Publications
39,820
Reads
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1,386
Citations
Additional affiliations
October 2004 - February 2016
Macquarie University
Position
  • Professor of Early Childhood

Publications

Publications (95)
Article
Little is known about parents’ perceptions of discussing the topic of same-sex families with young children in early childhood (EC) settings. This may impact EC educators' comfort in discussing this topic explicitly with young children. A careful analysis of the literature reporting empirical research involving immigrant families attending EC setti...
Article
Purpose Retention of early childhood teachers in Australia is a critical issue, particularly for new teachers. The demanding nature of new teachers’ everyday work and high rates of stress and burnout have resulted in teachers leaving the sector. By designing a formal mentoring project, our aim was to support teachers to stay and flourish as respect...
Article
Mentoring is a leadership capacity development strategy for experienced early childhood teachers (ECTs). Being a well-trained mentor, who is supported to undertake the role can contribute to re-energising experienced ECTs and enhance the early childhood sector workforce. However, little is known about the benefits of outsourcing mentoring as most r...
Article
University students studying to attain an early childhood teaching degree frequently face a triad of competing demands – study, work and personal – that affect their capacity to maintain studies to successfully complete their qualification. In the Australian government’s ten-year early childhood workforce strategy, mentoring was identified as a pri...
Article
Full-text available
The National Quality Framework (NQF) was intended to drive continuous improvement in education and care services in Australia. Ten years into implementation, the effectiveness of the NQF is demonstrated by steady improvements in quality as measured against the National Quality Standard (NQS). The process of assessing and rating services is a key el...
Article
Full-text available
The Australian Government’s (2022) Preschool Reform Funding Agreement and initiatives by state governments aim to lift enrolment and maximise the benefits of early childhood education (ECE) in the year before school. The Agreement is particularly relevant for children and families from vulnerable and disadvantaged backgrounds, many of whom do not u...
Article
International recognition of the early years as a crucial foundational period has led to the design and implementation of quality rating and improvement systems (QRIS) that define, communicate, and monitor the components of quality in early childhood education and care (ECEC). The aim of these policies is to achieve effective quality assurance and...
Article
Every child should feel valued and have a sense of belonging in the early childhood (EC) setting they attend regardless of their family composition. A comprehensive literature review undertaken has revealed that a key source of EC practitioners’ reluctance to include same-sex families in their programmes has been their perceived opposition of paren...
Article
Full-text available
Introduction Australia’s National Quality Standard (NQS) outlines the criteria to assess the quality of early childhood services. A four-point rating scale: (i) Exceeding NQS; (ii) Meeting NQS; (iii) Working Toward NQS; and (iv) Significant Improvement Required is applied to services following a regular assessment and rating process. Settings rated...
Article
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Objective: Analyse the linguistic and numerical complexity of COVID-19-related health information communicated from Australian national and state governments and health agencies to national and local early childhood education (ECE) settings. Methods: Publicly available health information (n = 630) was collected from Australian national and state...
Article
Full-text available
Abstract This national study explored the role of digital technologies in early childhood education and care settings and whether they could contribute to quality improvement as reported by educators and assessors of quality in Australia. In this paper, data from Stage 2 of the Quality Improvement Research Project were used, which comprised 60 Qual...
Article
Full-text available
This paper details the research design of a multidisciplinary, multi-method, collaborative research project investigating health communication from the experiences of the early childhood education (ECE) sector during the COVID-19 pandemic. With the rapidly evolving pandemic, the ECE sector was instantly tasked with expanding their required health p...
Article
Pedagogical documentation within early childhood centres is a key component of pedagogy and teacher accountability. In Singapore, documentation is a requirement specified under legislative policies included in the national Pre-school Accreditation Framework, with parents often perceived as the main audience. This paper reports on a study utilising...
Chapter
Pedagogical leadership views leadership as something separate from formal authority or qualifications, seeing educators’ understanding, interpretation and passion as the key lever for continuous improvement in early childhood education (ECE). This book shows how effective pedagogical leadership can create the right conditions for quality ECE provis...
Article
Full-text available
This study explored the perceptions of deputy directors about their leadership in Early Childhood Education (ECE) centres in Finland. Our aim was to look beyond task distribution and understand how deputy directors enacted leadership with their colleagues. Six deputy directors employed in one municipality in Finland participated in this study. Inte...
Article
This study explores perceptions of child abuse and child protection matters involving staff working in the out-of-school-hours care (OSHC) sector. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected through an online survey, focus group and interviews with staff and managers employed by one organisation that provided OSHC services in Sydney, Australia...
Article
Full-text available
Whilst extensive research has been undertaken concerning educational leadership and management, there is a paucity of scholarship regarding the merit-selection of school leaders other than principals. This is especially true of principal-led merit selection panels convened to recruit middle-level school leaders, namely deputy principals, assistant...
Article
Extant literature on Early Childhood educator workplace well-being focuses on the disease model of well-being, with studies mainly addressing stress and burnout. There is a paucity of research conceptualising healthy workplace well-being for educators and an absence of theorising to frame, understand and enhance Early Childhood educator workplace w...
Article
Purpose This research paper explores the perspectives of Australian school principals in the state of New South Wales (NSW) regarding what they believe constitutes “merit” when selecting deputy principals, assistant principals (primary) and head teachers (secondary). Design/methodology/approach An online survey was utilised to collect qualitative...
Article
Early parenthood is associated with a range of adverse health, economic and social outcomes. Young people with an out-of-home care (OoHC) background are more likely than their peers to become parents at an early age, and less likely to receive consistent support from their families. While previous literature reviews on this topic have focused on th...
Article
This article reports on an exploratory study about maintaining and supporting the cultural identity of children from culturally and linguistically diverse family backgrounds in foster care placements. In this study, we spoke with foster carers and caseworkers who respectively live and work with children from culturally and linguistically diverse ba...
Article
Historically, research on educator wellbeing has focused on ill health including stress, burnout and emotional exhaustion. There is a dearth of research examining healthy workplace wellbeing among early childhood educators, which makes developing strategies to support their wellbeing difficult. Moreover, there is a lack of clarity about the concept...
Article
Professional learning and development for early childhood educators are increasingly recognised as pivotal in supporting curricula that are socially and culturally relevant to children. The ubiquitous nature of technology creates the necessity for educators to increase their knowledge and understandings of how to support children’s digital citizens...
Article
Full-text available
In 2013, members from the International Leadership Research Forum (ILRF) visited Australia to present their research on leadership in early childhood settings in their countries. This symposium, a joint venture between Macquarie University and Community Child Care Co-operative (NSW), brought together perspectives from Finland, Norway and Australia,...
Article
There have been few attempts to capture the experiences of lesbian-parented families in Australian early childhood settings. This study explored the experiences of such families since the implementation of the first national Early Years Learning Framework in 2009 by way of an online survey and follow-up interviews that were analyzed taking a queer...
Article
Purpose To explore sense-making of EC leaders in EC services rated as exceeding/excellent in Australian accreditation Design/methodology/approach An interpretivist ontology and social constructivist epistemology informs the study. The conceptual framework uses the concept of sense-making to explore how leaders make sense of the policy frameworks...
Article
Full-text available
Despite the relevance of early childhood services to children, families and nation states, the sector is largely undervalued and under resourced and, is not recognised as an established profession. Using collaborative auto ethnography, researchers from six different countries (Australia, Chile, England, Germany, Ireland and the United States) all m...
Preprint
The project upon which this paper is premised, arose from discussion at the 2017 European Early Childhood Education Research Association (EECERA) Conference Professionalisation Special Interest Group (P-SIG). Participants were engaged in vigorous debate around what the professionalisation of Early Childhood (the period from birth to eight years) me...
Article
Full-text available
This study investigates teacher leadership in Early Childhood Education (ECE) settings in Finland. We used discursive analysis to investigate repertoires of teacher leaders during weekly team meetings organized by staff teams. In Finland, a staff team usually comprises of an ECE teacher-who is the team leader, and two childcare nurses. In this stud...
Conference Paper
Research aims: To explore EC academics’ understanding of the ways in which the sector is pursuing professionalisation across six countries Relationship to previous research works - reference to existing literature and how it underpins your study: Neoliberalism is a key political ideology influencing how EC policy is developed, and the ways in whi...
Article
This paper explores the impact of gender on the employment of men in early childhood education and care (ECEC) centres through the voices of male and female early childhood teachers (ECTs) working in China. Gender imbalance in the ECEC workforce is a global phenomenon, and there has been little research about it in countries such as China. This stu...
Article
This article discusses findings from a study that examined how lesbian parents make disclosure decisions in early childhood (EC) settings. Using an online survey, 62 lesbian parents in Australia shared their experiences of EC settings. Follow-up interviews with 13 parents enabled an in-depth exploration of their decisions. Disclosure in EC settings...
Article
Children’s picture books featuring same-sex parented families have been suggested as a powerful resource in leading change in the struggle against heteronormativity in early childhood education. At present, little is known about lesbian parents’ perceptions of how picture books in their homes and in early childhood settings can influence children’s...
Article
Full-text available
In the Australian early childhood sector the role of educational leader emerged as part of a very large process of policy reform that began in 2009. The position of educational leader was established to drive the quality improvement requirements of the reform, but many organizations did not establish these positions until several years after the re...
Article
This study investigated perceptions of early childhood education (ECE) professionals employed at three ECE centres on teacher leadership enactment in Finland. These professionals comprised childcare nurses, teachers and ECE centre directors. Theoretically, the study was anchored on an analysis of teacher leadership and distributed leadership litera...
Article
This article explores qualitative shadowing as an interpretivist methodology, and explains how two researchers participating simultaneously in data collection using a video recorder, contextual interviews and video-stimulated recall interviews, conducted a qualitative shadowing study at six early childhood centres in Norway. This paper emerged thro...
Article
Full-text available
This study was aimed at investigating the enactment of teacher leadership in early childhood education (ECE) centres in Finland. Theoretically, the study was informed by the emerging scholarship of early childhood distributed pedagogical leadership and school based research on teacher leadership as well as classical theorizing of ECE leadership. St...
Article
School improvement is a central focus for school leaders. Whilst measures such as high-stakes testing and other government accountability agendas have at times marred the discourse of school improvement, how schools develop their capacity to ultimately improve the core business of student learning remains important. As an extensive area of scholars...
Article
Full-text available
There is international recognition of the importance of high quality services for young children with a consensus that three pillars contribute to quality improvement: adult: child ratios, staff qualifications and group size. In Australia over the past 5 years, early childhood policy has attempted to drive improvements in early childhood service qu...
Article
A range of studies has demonstrated that collaborative professional development and learning (PD&L) is effective in implementing curriculum reform. PD&L that is contextualised within a specific setting enables educators to explore new theoretical perspectives, review existing knowledge and beliefs, and examine their current practice. This article r...
Article
Continuous professional learning and development (PLD) is an essential component of effective practice in any profession. PLD as a professional responsibility and workplace requirement in early childhood (EC) settings is now embedded in Australian national policy. What PLD looks like and how it happens in EC settings is a hot topic both locally and...
Article
IN EARLY CHILDHOOD CENTRES directors have responsibility for ongoing professional learning to support the implementation of the Early Years Learning Framework (EYLF). Currently there is limited understanding about how early childhood leaders support educators to participate in professional learning. This article presents findings from two case stud...
Article
Early childhood (EC) educators are expected to cater for all types of families from diverse backgrounds. Research involving EC educators and the spaces they create indicate the dominance of heteronormative practices. This silences programmes, policies, experiences and interactions that could reflect and support children with parents who identify as...
Article
The notion of leadership for learning as a resource for improving student learning in schools has attracted much attention from scholars. However, its use lacks clarity or meaning for teachers implementing this concept in schools. In seeking to pursue a better understanding of leadership for learning based on a comprehensive review of relevant lite...
Article
Authoritative leaders are skilful in nurturing relationships whilst building a learning culture that demands excellence. However, as leadership in schools becomes increasingly complex, the ability of leaders to develop relationships whilst demanding excellence is difficult. This article presents research from a mixed methods study that identified t...
Article
Full-text available
In Australia, educational leadership studies emerged as a core area of study within early childhood bachelor degree courses during the 1990s. This inclusion was supported by findings from newly emerging research on leadership involving early childhood educators. A handful of Australian and Finnish scholars joined researchers based in the USA to act...
Article
When reflecting on their experiences with children from lesbian-parented families, 64 childcare centre directors in Victoria, Australia indicated that explicit programs, policies or resources of support were absent in their centres. Importantly, participants' pre- and post-professional education either ignored or superficially addressed lesbian mat...
Article
A schoolwide language assists the mapping of subject content, supports teachers to discuss teaching and learning issues and enables a shared understanding of school leadership to emerge, so that student learning is improved. This article presents findings from a mixed methods study investigating Leadership for Learning (LfL) in independent schools...
Article
This article seeks to establish a new research agenda on distributed leadership by linking early childhood and school leadership research. It begins with a discussion of how distributed leadership is conceptualized, including a discussion of the main features and meanings of distributed leadership as defined by key scholars who have maintained a su...
Article
Authoritative leaders are skilful in nurturing relationships whilst building a learning culture that demands excellence. However, as leadership in schools becomes increasingly complex, the ability of leaders to develop relationships whilst demanding excellence is difficult. This article presents research from a mixed methods study that identified t...
Book
This book contains research about early childhood leadership conducted by researchers from Australia, Azerbaijan, England, Finland, Norway, Taiwan and Trinidad and Tobago. For a free download of the book go to the International Leadership Research Forum homepage.
Article
Full-text available
A Self-Assessment Manual (SAM) for early childhood practitioners bas been developed around the previously reported framework (Raban, Waniganayake, Deans, Brown & Reynolds, 2003a), and this has been piloted in a number of early childhood settings. When engaging in self-reflection using SAM, practitioners collaborate with mentors from the Early Child...
Book
This book explores the complexities of intentional leadership in diverse early childhood contexts. The authors draw on their teaching and research-based activities in a variety of locations including metropolitan, rural and remote regions in Australia. Chapters address topics including engagement with community, social entrepreneurship, professiona...
Article
Full-text available
The report addresses a number of questions relating to child care and early education in Australia and contains findings on these topics:• child care and early education attendance patterns for infants and 4 to 5 year-old children• parents’ reasons for using care and satisfaction with their infant or child’s care/education• family, child and commun...
Book
25 Authors with research expertise contextualised within Asian, African, Australian and European countries, present unique insights on play based learning experiences during early childhood. The authors explore the connections between complex learning theories and professional practice in early childhood education, especially in relation to governm...
Article
Full-text available
In Australia and internationally, government policies aim to increase the supply of early childhood teachers and thus improve the quality of early childhood education and care services. In this paper, we suggest that such a policy-quality trajectory in Australia is not as straightforward as policy discourses suggest. From industrial relations and b...
Article
Full-text available
Societal conditions impacting on parenting have radically changed during the past two decades. There is variation between and within societies depending on social, cultural, political and economic factors. Today, Early Childhood and Care (ECEC) services play an increasingly important role in supporting families with young children during birth to t...
Book
This book presents an innovative framework for early childhood practitioners to manage their professional development plan in a strategic way. It contains interactive tools which practitioners can use to reflect critically on their past, present and future professional learning and continuous development.
Article
Research on quality in early childhood has consistently shown that staff are the cornerstone of excellence, and that staff training makes a difference to services provided to children and families. There is also a growing awareness of the importance of adopting a planned approach to career development and that this begins with self‐assessment, and...
Book
With increasing pressure to provide high quality children's services, standards of practice in administration, management and leadership are continually being scrutinised. This book clarifies for the first time what contemporary early childhood practitioners needed to know in order to manage and lead early childhood organisations.
Article
During recent years, the various theoretical perspectives that have been presented to preschool professionals can be perceived as giving conflicting advice for practice. Indeed, there may appear to be confusion, misinterpretation and little depth to the actions of teachers who might feel at a loss in driving the practice agenda forward. This paper...
Article
The roles and responsibilities of child care centre personnel are becoming increasingly demanding and complex. Management and leadership are different dimensions of the work of centre directors. However, these roles are not limited to directors only and may be performed by other centre staff. This paper is based on structured interviews with direct...
Article
The paucity of research into the study of political socialisation during early childhood is indicative of the Australian community's general apathy towards politics. This paper provides an initial assessment of what is known about early political socialisation based on a review of relevant literature. Examples from a large body of anecdotes collect...
Thesis
The primary purpose of this thesis is to examine the interconnections between the roles played by parents and teachers and children’s own sense of ethnic identification during early childhood. Although the study of ethnicity and multiculturalism received much attention during the 1980s associated research applicable within the Australian early chil...
Article
Full-text available
Production of a scholarly journal is a characteristic of a profession. The Australian Journal of Early Childhood (AJEC) and its predecessor, the Australian Pre-School Quarterly (APQ) share a remarkable tradition of scholarship in education. Based on the minutes of the AJEC editorial committee's meetings and the contents of the journals, this paper...

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