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In almost all societies, schools are seen as an important base for transferring knowledge and values related to how today’s democratic society works and develops from one generation to the next. Going to school is considered an opportunity for the individual student to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to make individual choices and prepare for a future job or occupation. Besides transferring individual competence and skills, schools play an important role in how the democratic nation-state is understood and valued.

New technologies and AI open possibilities that we have not seen before at the same time as we have large societal and environmental challenges. Taken together, national and global events and processes change values, and norms, and the understanding of the concept of democracy, which have a direct impact on schools and the younger generation.

Hence, we believe that future schooling needs to focus on sensemaking, values, and ethics to meet upcoming challenges in which the ambition to support and develop democratic citizens is crucial. This chapter is a commentary that explores these issues and educational leadership based on Swedish education policy documents. We argue for an authentic, values-based, communicative leadership for learning and democratic improvement.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to extend knowledge of how school actors’ conditions, understandings, and priorities influence what is regarded as school success and successful principalship. Empirically, it is based on a detailed analysis of how school success and successful principalship is understood and acted in a rural Swedish school context.

Design/methodology/approach: Inspired by ecological system and complexity theories, together with protocols recently established in the International Successful School Principalship Project (ISSPP), we applied a mixed method approach combining half–structured interviews and a teacher-survey. In total we conducted 16 interviews with school leaders, teachers, students, parents, a superintendent, and a student counsellor.

Findings: The interviewed school actors emphasized the importance of trust and combining efforts to maintain sufficiently good academic results with respect for students’ needs and wellbeing. They described success in their school context as being built on cooperation and teamwork that preserves well-proven values and practices, with flexible, well-qualified teachers supporting students’ efforts to attain their individual goals while simultaneously seeking to widen their perspectives and knowledge.

Originality/value:  Previous research on principalship in rural schools has shown the importance of individual principals maintaining a high profile and closely cooperating with the surrounding community. We add nuance to this understanding of successful principalship by highlighting the value of principals focusing on teamwork, drawing on their schools’ existing culture and the surrounding community to create a stable learning environment for students, while striving to lead incremental changes.

Att rekonstruera skolor med stöd i forskning - om vägar till likvärdig utbildning behandlar en utmaning som berör alla skolor i samtliga skolformer, nämligen rätten till likvärdig utbildning i skolor som verkar under olika villkor med varierande kapacitet. Denna utmaning kan i sin tur kräva att skolor rekonstruerar den verksamhet och de arbetssätt de vurmade för igår men som inte längre håller.

In Sweden as in many other countries, there is increasing segregation due to students' socio–economic background. This study aims to identify and nuance what successful school principalship looks like in a school situated in a low socioeconomic area. The school has, for several years, had a high turnover of principals and teachers in combination with low academic results among students. The study seeks answers on how leadership promotes teacher quality, academic emphasis, and equity in the organization to turn around a school and make success sustainable. Studying a school with students who have not yet received high academic grades means we look for other signs of success. We used a mixed methods approach for interviews and a survey for teachers based on the revised ISSPP protocol. The first priority of the principal was to restructure the school day and introduce common pedagogical models to improve teaching. After two years in the organization, the principal is now taking ownership and creating an inclusive agenda. There are many ongoing complex processes in the school, where the principal’s energy and initiative is crucial. One concern is how the principal can go deeper and wider, sustaining the momentum.

Denna text "Centrum för skolledarutveckling - 30 år vid Umeå universitet- då, nu och framöver en text skriven för tidigare, nuvarande och kommande personal" som du håller i din hand har kommit fram genom diskussioner i olika grupper. En viktig grupp bestod av Leif Lundberg, Peter Högstadius och Olof Johansson. Vi samtalade och mindes olika saker och förhållanden kring de första åren.

En andra grupp ha bestått av Björn Ahlström, Helene Ärlestig och Olof Johansson. Vårt fokus i samtalet har legat på övergången från Rektorsutbildning (RUT) till Rektorsprogrammet (Rp) och Centrums utveckling i stort.

Hela manuset har sedan lästs av Björn Ahlström och Helene Ärlestig. I pennan har Olof Johansson hållit.

Vi hoppas att ni som tar er tid att läsa vår text ska finna den intressant och lärorik i förhållande till Centrum för skolledarutvecklings tillblivelse och utveckling under 30 år.

Förskolan har en lång historia, men det var först för drygt 20 år sedan som förskolan blev en del av utbildningspolitiken. Den här boken bygger på omfattande empiri från fyra nationella undersökningar gjorda mellan 2012 och 2021 där vi kan följa professionsutvecklingen hos förskolans rektorer. I denna tredje upplaga har samtliga kapitel reviderats och uppdaterats.

Resultaten av undersökningarna visar bland annat att förskolans rektorer har höga krav på sig själva och numera också på sin huvudman. Idag deltar de flesta barn i förskolans läroplansstyrda verksamhet och förskolan är både en viktig och självklar del utbildningskedjan. Trots detta anser nästan en tredjedel av förskolans rektorer att förskolan prioriteras lägre än skolan i olika beslutsstrukturer.

De fyra nationella undersökningarna möjliggör jämförelser över tid. Där framkommer bl.a. att rektorerna känner sig säkrare i sin roller 2021 än 2012 och att den senaste läroplanen har bidragit positivt till förskolans utveckling. Utifrån den sista enkäten redovisas också rektorernas syn på sin situation under pandemin.

Undersökningarna ger intressanta bilder av hur förskolans rektorer upplever sitt uppdrag och deras olika förutsättningar för att genomföra uppdraget på ett framgångsrikt sätt. Författarna gör jämförelser med rektorerna i skolans uppfattningar, vilket gör det möjligt att diskutera likheter och skillnader i skolledarnas arbete. 

Elisabet Nihlfors, professor em. i pedagogik med inriktning mot ledarskap, Uppsala universitet. Linda Jervik Steen, doktorand i statsvenskap, Umeå Universitet. Olof Johansson, senior professor i statsvetenskap, Umeå universitet.

Purpose: In the rational model of the democratic governing chain, intervening spaces at all levels are neglected in relation to the policy process. An intervening space is a group of persons with the power and responsibility to interpret policy at their level in an organization. The research question is as follows: How are democratic policy ideas visible in the intervening spaces of a governing chain in public schools.

Design/methodology/approach: The study is based on two municipalities representing the 25 most populated cities in Sweden. The data are based on interviews with 66 informants with leadership roles on the district level and two schools in each municipality.

Findings: Leadership is obviously more than making decisions. It is also about facilitating and creating trust, engagement, motivation and willingness to take responsibility. In this process, intervening spaces are central. They exist at all levels from the national ministry to the classroom. The empirical examples show the importance and challenges in how different leadership roles, relationships and interaction transform policy intentions to practice on the local level.

Originality/value: The authors contribute by highlighting the parallel interpretation processes that take place at various leadership levels locally. There are possibilities and challenges in aligning the intervening spaces into a rational governing chain. The findings indicate that intervening spaces and policy drift is vital to support, control and use professional competence in the process to transfer political ideas to classroom practice.