Street-level leadership: principals’ role in enacting inclusive policy in low-cost early childhood education and care in Indonesia

This study investigates how principals in low-cost Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) centers in Indonesia’s two inclusive cities, Banjarmasin and Banjarbaru, enact inclusive and child-safe policies within resource and institutional constraints. Using street-level bureaucracy, it examines how principals interpret national mandates, adapt them to local contexts, and negotiate tensions between policy ideals and community expectations. Data were generated through phenomenological interviews with principals. Findings show varied conceptualizations of inclusion. Principals’ views ranged from symbolic gestures to a broader ethos of belonging, where every child feels accepted. Concrete practices included parent agreements, classroom mediation, fostering emotional expression, and improvising learning media, though these remained fragile and unsystematic. Barriers were persistent: insufficient funding, absence of shadow teachers or psychologists, limited teacher training, weak parental collaboration, and the gap between inclusive policy rhetoric and everyday realities. To navigate these challenges, principals deployed hybrid leadership strategies: adaptive (reframing sexuality education as body safety), distributed (engaging teachers and parents), and moral (promoting nonviolence despite punitive norms). The study extends street-level bureaucracy by linking discretionary practices with hybrid leadership in ECEC. Practically, it underscores that sustainable inclusion requires systemic reforms and leadership development that strengthen principals’ agency in resource-constrained contexts.