What is Formal Structures

This chapter considers how leaders in early childhood education can use social networks and social capital to promote professional learning and change. First, the author explores the ways in which effective leadership and social relationships are inextricably linked, through distributed leadership and collective work. Drawing on social capital theory, the author includes the importance of identifying the knowledge, skills, and resources (social capital) among the members of the school community, developing or maintaining formal and informal networks, and providing support for collaboration within and across those networks to support individual and collective goals. The affordances and constraints of intra- and inter-organizational networks are examined.