Nordic Superintendents’ Leadership Roles: Cross-National Comparisons

Mediation, Collaborative Learning and Trust in Norwegian School Governing: Synthesis from a Nordic Research Project

“…The Nordic superintendent survey portrays a sense of meaningfulness in the job, paired with a self-belief of efficacy related to mastering the tasks-even if the workload increases further (Johansson, Moos, Nihlfors, Paulsen, & Risku, 2011). Superintendents also feel high self-efficacy in schools and with principals, which is supported by the fact that they share the same cultural capital in terms of professional knowledge, documented in the background of superintendents as educationalists.…”

“…Superintendents also feel high self-efficacy in schools and with principals, which is supported by the fact that they share the same cultural capital in terms of professional knowledge, documented in the background of superintendents as educationalists. Nordic superintendents' main motivation clusters around a sense of self-efficacy in perceiving their work as meaningful and important for the municipal school owner, and around self-belief in their own capacity to develop school leaders in a positive direction (Johansson et al, 2011). Superintendents see themselves mainly as implementation and change agents for schools and school leaders (Nihlfors, Johansson, Moos, Paulsen, & Risku, 2013).…”

The Nordic Superintendents’ Leadership Roles: Cross-National Comparison

“…One main function is to mediate between political and administrative managers, on one side, and educational practitioners, especially school leaders, on the other. This pattern is laid out theoretically in an earlier paper (Johansson et al 2011 ). To give some examples of the superintendent's role and work in the context outlined above, we concentrate on the relations between the superintendent and the chairperson and between the superintendent and the principals, respectively.…”

New approaches in management of educational institutions

“…A school head was the local representative of the state's school administration at school level. During the 1960's and 1970's, an authoritarian top-down school administration was emphasized -and culminated -in the work of principals and school heads, until it started to unravel in around 1972 and 1973 due to growing social pressure (Johansson, 2011).…”

“…In addition to producing domestic information, the report can be considered to be linked to global information production in at least two ways. Firstly, the report makes use of the study on principals, which forms part of a met study examining research into principals carried out in 13 countries in the 21st century (Johansson 2011). Secondly, the report complements an international research programmed that studies educational leadership at administrative, school and class levels.…”