The aim of this dissertation is to describe and critically analyze ideas about quality management within different arenas of the Swedish education systemand how these relate to leadership and the enacted curriculum. The study conceptualizes systematic quality work as a governance tool and a national accountability program created with the aim of solving problems concerninglack of equity and lowered national test scores. Two tensions within the policyprogram are identified. The first is between external results-oriented forms ofcontrol and internal professional trust. The second is between nationalcurriculum goals and local organizational goals. The empirical study consists of a cross-case study of the most different designs of four quality systems enacted by the heads of the school organizations andthe principals. The main sources of data are interviews with principals and school leaders and documents and policy artifacts. The data are analyzed froma combined perspective of loosely coupled system, discursive institutionalismand sensemaking. The main conclusion of the study is that while systematic quality work represents an attempt by the state to create a more coherent and centralized accountability system, the results point to a decentralized and loosely couplededucation system focused on local organizational goals. The contents of theenacted policy solutions show that the ideational content of quality work ishighly malleable to localized uses and interpretations, which also raises questions about how equity is to be understood within the policy program. The enacted solutions show great variance concerning how tensions relatingto internal and external dimensions of accountability were handled. The reasons for these differences where related to different leadership strategies,varying pressures from the school market and distinct organizational needs.While the enacted accountability systems in all four cases have created results-oriented frameworks for teaching, their impact on the enacted curriculum wasclearly mediated in three of the four cases.
