Approaches to school leadership in Scandinavia

M⊘ller, Jorunn

doi:10.1080/00220620902808244

Cited by 37 publications

(21 citation statements)

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“…According to Harris (2007), this view of distributed leadership also rests on an idea of leadership as cognition as well as an idea of leadership as mediating social networks and the capital needed to develop these. Thus, the democratic features are specifically taken into consideration, and they have also been the focus of several studies on educational leadership within the Nordic context (Moos et al 2004;Moller 2009a). While perhaps not intentional, many of the recommendations from an organizational perspective (transformational, instructional, collaborative or distributed) on schools result in a technical or even instrumental approach, recommending leaders utilize a particular set of practices in order for educational organizations to develop effectively.…”

Section: Systems-theoretical and Functionalist Research Into Educatiomentioning

confidence: 99%

Non-affirmative Theory of Education as a Foundation for Curriculum Studies, Didaktik and Educational Leadership

Uljens

Ylimaki

2017

Educational Governance Research

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This chapter presents non-affirmative theory of education as the foundation for a new research program in education, allowing us to bridge educational leadership, curriculum studies and Didaktik. We demonstrate the strengths of this framework by analyzing literature from educational leadership and curriculum theory/didaktik. In contrast to both socialization-oriented explanations locating curriculum and leadership within existing society, and transformation-oriented models viewing education as revolutionary or super-ordinate to society, non-affirmative theory explains the relation between education and politics, economy and culture, respectively, as non-hierarchical. Here critical deliberation and discursive practices mediate between politics, culture, economy and education, driven by individual agency in historically developed cultural and societal institutions. While transformative and socialization models typically result in instrumental notions of leadership and teaching, non-affirmative education theory, previously developed within German and Nordic education, instead views leadership and teaching as relational and hermeneutic, drawing on ontological core concepts of modern education: recognition; summoning to self-activity and Bildsamkeit. Understanding educational leadership, school development and teaching then requires a comparative multi-level approach informed by discursive institutionalism and organization theory, in addition to theorizing leadership and teaching as cultural-historical and critical-hermeneutic activity. Globalisation and contemporary challenges to deliberative democracy also call for rethinking modern nationstate based theorizing of education in a cosmopolitan light. Non-affirmative education theory allows us to understand and promote recognition based democratic citizenship (political, economical and cultural) that respects cultural, ethical

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Section: Systems-theoretical and Functionalist Research Into Educatiomentioning

confidence: 99%

Non-affirmative Theory of Education as a Foundation for Curriculum Studies, Didaktik and Educational Leadership

Uljens

Ylimaki

2017

Educational Governance Research

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“…At the same time they experience a situation of decreased authority within the school context with limited recourses (Møller 2009a). Although Norway has less difficulties than several other countries in Europe (OECD 2008), international studies report that school leaders' work load, and difficulties with recruiting school leaders have increased (ibid).…”

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confidence: 99%

Multicultural Schools and New Demands on Leadership

Andersen

2014

Journal of Education and Training Studies

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The purpose of this study is to explore the Norwegian Government's expectations pertaining to new demands on leadership expressed in policy documents with regard to a multicultural society. Data from seven government's white papers were thematically analyzed with regard to knowledge, skills and attitudes. The study is framed within a theoretical approach, deriving from a tradition, promoting emancipatory pedagogies that arise from political and social movements, feminist perspectives, and critical pedagogy. Results indicate that there is a lack of a transformative movement that may produce critically thinking socially active minority students, deriving from critically thinking socially active school leaders and teachers. It is argued that there is too little emphasis on what kind of leadership competencies i.e. knowledge, skills and attitudes the school leaders must possess as their school populations become more and more linguistically and culturally diverse. The article concludes with possible implications for school leadership preparation programs.

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“…Traditionally, the 'old' deputy leader role did not have this responsibility, something which could permit extensive leeway in the interpretations of roles and practices, either as a managerial leader or as a teacher with extended managerial tasks. Further, the traditional role of the principal focused on administrative tasks and paid little attention to instructional leadership (Dale, Gilje, and Lillejord 2011;Møller 2009), a conclusion that is also supported in the OECD report entitled Teaching and Learning International Survey (2009;Vibe, Aamodt, and Carlsten 2009). An important aim of the reorganisation is therefore to facilitate instructional leadership through the deputy heads, leaving overall strategic leadership responsibility to the principal.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 91%

How do principals make sense of school leadership in Norwegian reorganised leadership teams?

Abrahamsen¹,

Aas

Hellekjær

2015

School Leadership & Management

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A growing body of research has emphasised the importance of school leadership practice for quality improvement in schools. Yet, little attention has been paid to the investigation of how principals reshape their leadership role and leadership practices when schools reorganise the leadership team with the purpose of increasing the number of formally assigned leaders. As such, this study provides additional insight into how moments of transitions may reshape institutional logics regarding principal leadership practice. Drawing on interviews and contextual observations of five principals in lower secondary schools, framed within a distributed perspective and theory of sense-making, we address this issue by demonstrating that regulative changes influence the normative and cognitive aspects of institutions. We argue that principals re-conceptualise leadership when they move from being solo leaders to sharing leadership, and this allows for subjective interpretations. We have identified two approaches for principal leadership practice which the reorganised leadership team can provide -the exchanging information -and collaborative discussion approaches.

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Approaches to school leadership in Scandinavia

Cited by 37 publications

References 0 publications

Non-affirmative Theory of Education as a Foundation for Curriculum Studies, Didaktik and Educational Leadership

Non-affirmative Theory of Education as a Foundation for Curriculum Studies, Didaktik and Educational Leadership

Multicultural Schools and New Demands on Leadership

How do principals make sense of school leadership in Norwegian reorganised leadership teams?

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