The Study of Sustainable Private Kindergartens

[[abstract]]This study used a self-developed “Scale of Sustainable Management of Private Kindergartens” to collect the opinions of 116 principals and 217 teachers in licensed private kindergartens in Taipei County and City. Issues including (1) the relationships between organizational factors, staffs’ personal factors, and the status of sustainable management of the kindergarten, (2) the relationships between organizational variables, staffs’ personal variables, and the characteristics of sustainable management, (3) the relationships between the extent of the characteristics that the kindergarten has acquired and its status of sustainable management, and (4) the relationships between staff position, status of sustainable management, and the characteristics of sustainable management, were explored. The major findings of this study were as follows: 1. The constructs of the characteristics of sustainable management of private kindergartens: Through exploratory factor analysis, “continuous pursuit of improvement” and “rigid visionary leadership” were two factors extracted from both the scale for principals and the scale of teachers. However, the questions under the factor of “continuous pursuit of improvement” between the two scales were significantly different. “Organizational culture”, previously considered as one of the key dimensions in successful school management and sustainable corporate management was not a characteristic of sustainable management of private kindergartens. 2. The relationships among organizational variables, personal variables, status and characteristics of sustainable management: The research results revealed that no significant relationship exists between kindergarten scale, duration of experience of principal/teacher, age of principal/teacher, and the status and characteristics of sustainable management. 3. The relationships between the status and the characteristics of sustainable management: This study examined the characteristics of sustainable management that kindergartens in the status of sustainable management and not in the status of sustainable management have acquired. It was discovered that (1) No matter the status of sustainable management, the principals all conceived that they have acquired the characteristics of “continuous pursuit of improvement” and “rigid visionary leadership”; (2) Teachers of the kindergartens in the status of sustainable management tended to more agree that their kindergartens have acquired both characteristics of sustainable management than those of the kindergartens not in the status of sustainable management. 4. The relationships between staff position and characteristics of sustainable management: The results also indicated that the principal and teachers of the same kindergarten have different opinions about the characteristic of “continuous pursuit of improvement”, and the principal may show a significantly higher level of agreement. In the aspect of “rigid visionary leadership”, no significant difference was found between the opinions of the principal and teachers. However, the analysis of interactive effects showed that in the kindergartens in the status of sustainable management, teachers and the principal have no different perceptions, but in those not in the sustainable management, teachers have less perceptions than the principal. Based on the above research results, suggestions were proposed for the authority concerned, kindergartens, and future studies. Keywords: private kindergartens, sustainable management, sustainability, early childhood education