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The overall aim of this thesis is to deepen the understanding of preschool teachers’ professional competence, with a particular focus on their leadership role in educational practice, and to explore how this can be interpreted through a virtue ethics perspective. A further aim is to examine how preschool teachers’ reflections within the framework of dialogue seminars can contribute to expanded insights into their own professional competence, and how such reflections may shape their understanding of their role as preschool teachers. Based on this overarching aim, the three sub-studies included in the thesis are guided by three research questions. The first question, “How do preschool teachers describe their professional competence, and which aspects are highlighted as particularly important in their narratives?”, is linked to the licentiate thesis (sub-study I). The second question, “How do preschool teachers understand and describe their pedagogical leadership through individual and collective reflection, with a focus on experiences of their practical actions in the leadership role? “, is connected to sub-study II. The third question, “What significance do individual and collective reflections have for preschool teachers’ insights into their leadership, in relation to personal, professional, and positional perspectives on leadership? “, guides sub-study III.

The thesis contributes to addressing and problematizing the knowledge gaps identified in previous research by deepening the understanding of preschool teachers’ professional competence, with particular attention to their leadership role in educational practice. The results indicate that the leadership role of preschool teachers lacks a clear definition, which may lead to uncertainty regarding both its content and the preschool teachers’ mandate to act. This thesis therefore offers new perspectives on how preschool teachers’ leadership can be understood, supported, and developed in practice. It is grounded in three key theoretical frameworks. The first draws on Aristotle’s (1993 [1967]) tripartite conception of knowledge, episteme, techne, and phronesis, with particular emphasis on phronesis. The second framework is based on Saarukka’s theoretical model (2015, 2017), which offers a deeper understanding of preschool teachers’ professional competence, especially in relation to their leadership role within educational practice. Saarukka’s model encompasses personal, professional, and positional dimensions of leadership. The third theoretical foundation is a virtue ethics perspective, which serves as an analytical lens in the synthesizing analysis of the thesis’s three sub-studies (Study I, Study II, Study III). Virtue ethics enables a nuanced understanding of how preschool teachers’ professional competence and leadership are shaped through practical wisdom (phronesis), ethical judgement, and reflective practice in everyday educational situations. In this thesis, virtue ethics is used to illuminate how preschool teachers’ leadership can be understood as rooted in their experience-based professional knowledge.

This thesis also draws attention to the dialogue seminar (Hammarén, 1999, 2018) as a data collection method, with the aim of achieving a deeper understanding of the professional skills of preschool teachers. Through the dialogue seminar as a form, the preschool teachers in all three studies were given the opportunity to reflect on their professional skills both individually and collectively. The findings in the synthesis indicate that the dialogue seminars provided preschool teachers with opportunities to become more aware of, and expand, their previously held understandings of the pedagogical responsibilities expected of them in their professional role. Taken together, these insights contribute to the field of didactics by clarifying the central significance of leadership within preschool practice. This contribution is relevant for several target groups: students in preschool teacher education, practicing preschool teachers, principals, and teacher educators at universities.