As school leadership has increased in complexity, policy makers, educationalists, and researchers have realized that principalship requires preparation. However, several researchers have called for a better understanding of how school leadership education affects the learning and activities of principals. This empirical study explores how novice principals in Sweden understand and engage in principal training and investigates their formation of identity in the interaction between school leader education and professional practice. Observations, individual interviews, and focus group interviews revealed three learner identities and a corresponding typology. In addition, this study found that professional identity enables or restricts the way practice is experienced because principals engage in diverse leadership practices. These findings are discussed in relation to former research on learner identities, leadership learning, and novice principals. This study concludes that it is crucial not only to emphasize a program design but also focus on the participants in leadership education, especially their orientations and understandings of education and practice.
Blending principal education programmes and leadership practice has become a common feature in the education of school principals. However, the need for further research in how programme participants experience learning within an overall structure of a programme has been highlighted since the same programmes are experienced differently. This empirical study used a practice-based approach to explore how participation in the Swedish National Principal Training Programme intertwines with principals’ work in practice. A situated perspective was used, interviewing and observing principals in both their educational and their workplace practice. In addition, teachers were interviewed at their school. This study revealed processes of continuous learning, which connects practice to what was learned in the Principal Programme. These processes mend and bridge old practices with new practices and therefore facilitate change. The principal also becomes a broker, rendering legitimacy in practice. The analyses, however, also reveal processes of interrupted learning, which disconnects working in practice from the participation in the Principals’ Programme, leading to discontinuous processes and exits. Increasing consciousness of the value of working with bridging and brokering would support principals’ professional learning and function as a foundation for leadership development.
School leader education as a qualification requirement is a growing trend and influence has been shown. However, principals have also come to understand and use content from educational programs in widely different ways. There is therefore a need to study how participating principals experience learning differently within one and the same program. This empirical study uses qualitative methods to examine fourteen compulsory school principals’ experiences of how the mandatory Swedish National Principal Training Program contributes to their professional development. The findings show how educational elements can be experienced as contributing to professional development of some principals while being experienced as obstacles for others, depending on becoming active or passive driving forces for participants in terms of orientation, reflection, exploration, and interplay. Applying a theoretical framework made it possible to describe and understand their professional development through education in a nuanced way. In terms of analytical generalisation such knowledge may form the basis for educational development concerning school leader education.
School leadership is found important for school development and student learning. Consequently, the interest in professional leadership education for principals has increased. In Sweden, professional leadership education for novice principals was made mandatory in 2010. Moreover, enhanced focus on leadership for teaching and learning in terms of 'pedagogical leadership' is highly topical. This study aims to deepen our knowledge of novice principals' experiences of pedagogical leadership practices and relate these to their paths toward principalship. The study follows a qualitative and situated design and adopts a practice-based approach. Observations were conducted in the educational and workplace practices of novice principals in Sweden and interviews were conducted with principals and teachers. Using a conceptual framework of Wenger (1998), the analyses show that principals experience challenges concerning pedagogical leadership if their competence and experience are not aligned with practice and context. This mismatch seems to impair their pedagogical leadership practice. In addition, a lack of leadership experience obstructs their learning in the professional leadership education for principals.
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