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While there is abundant literature on how teachers can and should manage controversial issues (CI) in schools, far less attention has been paid to how school principals manage CI. We explore this topic by applying a socio-temporal understanding of agency to explore how school leaders understand their role in managing the specific controversial issue of racism. The study comprises interviews with principals in which they express how they understand and manage the controversial issue of racism. The findings show that the principals’ primary temporal direction of agency has consequences for how they manage racism. Principals primarily directed towards the present (practical-evaluative) or the future (projective) demonstrate more expanded agency, while principals primarily directed towards the past (iterative) display less expanded agency in managing the controversial issue of racism. One finding of the study is that principal deal with controversial issues seemingly to the same degree as teachers, however, they do so in different ways and under different circumstances. We therefore propose a conceptual shift from controversial issues to controversial spaces to better adhere to the specificities of principals’ encounter with controversy.

In an era where social justice and equity are central to educational discussions, principals' social justice leadership is crucial. Research shows how inequities perpetuate or increase in schools around the world. This chapter discusses how resistance can manifest in principals' social justice leadership, both through their actions to promote social justice and their need to handle resistance from others. Traditionally, resistance has been seen as something to overcome. However, this chapter views resistance through Michel Foucault's toolbox, describing it as necessary for change and an integral part of social justice leadership.

By introducing a conceptual framework consisting of the concepts of pastoral, disciplinary, and regulated power techniques, inspired by Foucault's theories, this chapter provides the opportunity to reflect on and discuss strategies for handling resistance and how it can be expressed. The aim is to provide a language to discuss strategies and resistance in social justice leadership. Furthermore, the aim is to demonstrate Foucault's way of critical thinking by analyzing how strategies and resistance, i.e., power techniques, can be analyzed in relation to norms and discourses, creating dialogue about how different strategies and resistance can either promote or hinder social justice and social justice leadership.

The chapter begins with a brief overview of social justice and leadership, followed by Foucault's view of power and resistance to establish the understanding of the framework. It then introduces and exemplifies the framework, presenting concepts of norms, normalization, truths, and discourses as a theoretical lens. The chapter concludes with a discussion on how different power techniques can affect social justice leadership. 

This paper is situated in a larger research project concerned with how principals deal with controversial issues in their everyday practice. One early finding is that resistance to change is perceived as controversial issue by many principals (Rantala, forthcoming). In this paper I seek to deepen knowledge about the resistance from employees that principals meet and how they deal with it.

Having to change is inevitable. As society changes, schools and preschools also need to change to meet the demands which is placed on children and pupils both during and after their time in school. The principal, as a change leader, has the responsibility over and an important role in the improvement work that must take place (SFS, 2010:800; Timperley, 2011), but leading change work is no easy task (Holmes, Clement & Albright, 2013; Starr, 2011). Leading change involves dealing with resistance (Dolph, 2017; Starr, 2011) and resistance is always in relation to power (Foucault, 2002).

There is a vast body of research that describes how leaders carry out or should carry out change work (e.g. Fullan, 2015; Hargreaves et.al., 2010; Kotter, 2014). Research has also focus on strategies that principals need to adapt to enable change management to lead to change (e.g. Shaked and Schechter, 2017; Soini, Pietarinen & Pyhältö, 2016; Wang, 2018). But it also emerges, in research, that change leadership is complex and that the strategies even can collide (e.g. Homes, Clement & Albright, 2013).

Previous research on teachers' resistance to change has focused on resistance to specific changes, for example change in the curriculum (Kazakbaeva, 2021), resistance against educational reforms, for example introduction of in-service teacher certification (Choi, 2017) or quality assurance policies (Terhart, 2013). These studies show how resistance can arise when there is a lack of support and resources to create understanding for the change initiative (Kazakbaeva, 2021). Resistance can be expressed implicitly and that there can be prestige in the fact that the change initiative must succeed (Chio, 2017; Terhart, 2013). Research shows four factors that influence human resistance, self-interest, different values, low tolerance and lack of trust (Kotter & Schlesinger, 2013).

There are knowledge gaps in research regarding teacher's resistance to change in relation to principal's strategies, which is done in this paper. The aim is to study principals’ and deputy principals´ leadership of change, by analyzing principals’ and deputy principals ‘description of employee’s resistance and their strategies to handle it in school development work. This is then discussed in relation to power techniques. 

Amundsdotter et.al. (2015) and Linghag et.al. (2016) describes, anchored in Foucault’s theory of power techniques (2002; 2003; 2008), three different techniques, repressive, pastoral and regulated. They use these concepts both to describe employees' resistance and the principals' strategies for dealing with it. Amundsdotter et.al. and Linghag et.al. describes repressive resistance as clear and direct resistance, pastoral resistance takes more subtle expressions or is masked in other forms, e.g. lack of time or resources, and regulated resistance is about placing responsibility on others. Repressive strategies are for example when principals refer to laws or governing documents, blaming individuals, threats reporting or raising to a higher instance, pastoral strategies refer to offering help and guidance, demonstrating benefits, inspiring and motivating and regulatory strategies refer to building the change into the organization by emphasizing that it is a shared responsibility, reminding of the mission and what different roles entail. In this paper this concept is used to both to categorize and analyze the principals' and deputy principals' descriptions of employees' resistance to change and to categorize and analyze their descriptions of strategies they use to deal with the resistance.

Research topic/aim: School is often described as mirror that in its pedagogical practice and content captures or reflects societal challenges and opportunities (Johansson, 2015). Therefore, societal questions aligned with tension usually find their way into the classroom and the discussions that take place here between teachers and pupils in teaching situations. In educational research these so-called controversial issues are a well-known field of study and have been so for several years (Larsson & Lindström, 2020). In this study we want to learn more about how school staff, and especially principals, handles issues that are seen as controversial in school.

Our aim is to explore schools as sites for controversial spaces (CS) and we are interested to see what impact these have on school- and leadership practice. The main questions for this investigation are as follows: (1) What are the differences and similarities of CS depending on school context? (2) How does the content of CS influence leadership practices?

Theoretical framework: Our study draws on the theoretical concept of controversial spaces to capture how different controversial issues affect principal's leadership (Rantala et al, in press).  

Methodological design: In total, a set of 26 in-depth, loosely structured interviews with principals in pre-school, primary school, and upper secondary school. The overarching theme of the interviews was the impact and consequences of controversial issues on leadership and school practice, and the collected data were subjected to a conventional content analysis (Hsieh and Shannon, 2005).  

Expected conclusions/findings: Preliminary findings suggest that schools’ controversial spaces are aligned with urgent or low-pressure content depending on schools’ socioeconomic composition. Principals in socially vulnerable areas deals with urgent controversial spaces exemplified through issues such as gang crime, drugs, racism. Hence, the space is filled with issues that demand a leadership that instantaneously takes actions. Here leadership must communicate and interact with actors outside of school, for example the police, social welfare, or the pupils’ guardians.  

In contrast, principals in well-situated school contexts act within controversial spaces constituted by issues that are less imperative, for example sustainability. Principals that lead in these schools tend to solve these issues in-house in communication with staff and pupils, hence the controversial space of school is primarily an internal affair. 

The possibility of agency (focused on students'/children's learning and teaching) for the principal thus differs depending on the context. The more social unrest, less room for principal to advocate their agency directed to pedagogical enhancement.  

Relevance to Nordic educational research: This study has relevance for contemporary Nordic educational research as it contributes with theoretical concepts to understand and analyze controversial issues that principals deal with in all Nordic countries.