Educational Leadership at Municipality Level

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to explore the roles and responsibilities that national education legislation in Iceland imposes on municipalities in terms of leadership. A qualitative content analysis was applied to explore the relevant national legislation—that is, education acts, regulations, and curriculum guides—and identify themes by looking for specific words that are characteristic in leadership practices. The findings reveal that policy ends concerning educational leadership of municipalities are somewhat tacit in current national legislation. Yet, the roles and responsibilities that the state delegates to municipalities comprise leadership functions that are distributed in nature and, to a large extent, harmonize with desired leadership practices as emphasized in the literature. Legislation emphasizes comprehensive education, but also in-cludes signs of technocratic homogenization. In the discussion of our findings, we argue that the educational system is quite dependent on the political emphasis at each given time, making it difficult for both munic-ipalities and the state to facilitate a cohesive leadership emphasis. We suggest that closer attention to the local level, and a recognition of it as an important unit and agency for educational development, is of sig-nificant importance. These observations will be followed by a further investigation into the actual practice of leadership at the local level.

Educational leadership regarding municipal school support services in Iceland

“…A key component in this positive milieu was the establishment of trust amongst all parties. Sigurðardóttir et al (2018) argue that the role of municipalities in education, as described in Icelandic legislative documents, requires leadership that falls within the framework developed by Leithwood et al (2008Leithwood et al ( , 2020. Thus, the framework is used in this study as an analytical tool to evaluate leadership practices in the SSS domain.…”

“…Accordingly, it seems unlikely that existing leadership practices enhance the official imperative of 'strengthening schools as professional institutions that can solve most of the issues that arise in schoolwork and provide school staff with guidance and assistance in their work, as appropriate' (Reglugerð Nr., 444/2019, article 2). Given that municipalities' legislative role in education requires leadership that falls within the framework of Leithwood et al (2008) (Sigurðardóttir et al, 2018), there is a gap between the legislation and the actual leadership practices regarding SSS. This indicates an opportunity for MES-leaders and municipal authorities to work on improving their leadership practices for the benefit of the schools.…”

“…All other municipalities have less than 10,000 each. Thirty-nine municipalities have less than 1000 inhabitants (Statistics Iceland, 2020) and most of those run schools with fewer than 100 students. Previously, while the state was responsible for the running of the compulsory school, the municipalities were distributed into eight regions/districts, each with its own local educational authority, under the auspices of the Ministry of Education, Science and Culture.…”

“…In Iceland, middle-level leadership, as explained above, is located at the municipal level and its main channel is through the school support services (Sigurðardóttir et al, 2018). The municipalities have been responsible for the school support services for the last 25 years but research on their leadership practices is sparse.…”

Under What Conditions Do Rural Schools Learn From their Partners?

“…At the same time, there are significant variations in a range of student achievements across regions and school districts in Norway and in most national systems (Hopkins, Spillane, Jakopovic, & Heaton, 2013;Steffensen, Ekren, Zachrisen, & Kirkebøen, 2017). According to Sigurðardóttir, Sigurðardóttir, and Hansen (2018), it seems fair to assume that the capacity to provide leadership and support varies greatly among municipalities, especially in terms of professional development and improving teaching and learning (Sigurðardóttir et al, 2018, p. 67). This case study aims to investigate how consistently high performing school districts enable schools to develop and improve by shaping learning processes, external collaboration and learning infrastructures (Leithwood & Louis, 2012;Spillane, 2013).…”