Relations between an improving Swedish LEA and school principals with joint quality and improvement responsibilities

Abstract

This study addresses a fundamental but neglected aspect of efforts to ensure quality and improvement in a decentralised school system: the relationship between the local education authority (LEA) and local school principals. Empirically, it is based on analysis of relevant documents and interviews with key actors in a Swedish LEA (a municipality), selected as a deviant and successful case. The data analysis is rooted in the theoretical concepts of sense-making and framing. The results show that to handle the joint responsibility the LEA introduced new artefacts for quality and improvement work. These included an expanded support unit for quality and improvement, a visionary document for all educational units and a system of tools and forums to expand quality work at local school level and stimulate collaboration between LEA-level actors and school principals. The principals saw a need for most of the artefacts and regarded them as useful. However, the analysis also reveals some negative resonance concerning relevance for the local schools and expectations of uniformity. In addition to presenting and discussing these findings, issues concerning trust and relationships are highlighted in this paper.

A professional development practice to enhance principals' instructional leadership – enabling and constraining arrangements

“…Identified arrangements in principals' PD practice Principals' professional development structure for their dialogues found this to be significant for their PD. This is in accordance with previous research showing that artifacts can bring structure to dialogues and contribute to principals' PD (Liljenberg and Andersson, 2020;Burch and Spillane, 2004). However, artifacts can initially be perceived as constraining as it takes time to get comfortable working with them.…”

Rangkap Jabatan Kepala Sekolah Dan Pengaruhnya Terhadap Manajemen Sekolah Dasar: Studi Kasus Di Kota Cirebon

“…Kepala sekolah adalah pemeran utama dalam keberlangsungan sebuah institusi pendidikan, baik atau buruknya sebuah institusi pendidikan akan bergantung dari kemampuan kepala sekolah dalam melaksanakan tugas-tugasnya (Liljenberg & Andersson, 2021;Perni, 2017;Winingsih & Sulistiono, 2020). Kepala sekolah berperan penting dalam menentukan arah dan kecepatan perkembangan sekolah (Meyer et al, 2020;Rukandi et al, 2023).…”

‘Tell us what, but not how’ – understanding intra-organisational trust among principals and LEA officials in a decentralised school system

“…Against this background, this article and its analysis are linked to a research project focusing on municipal school organisations significantly improving their quality (Liljenberg and Andersson 2020). The project has a case study design and especially target the joint responsibility among principals and LEA officials.…”

“…A previous paper (Liljenberg and Andersson 2020) described how a number of new artefacts, to improve systematic quality work, were introduced in the organisation: expanded support for quality and improvement, a visionary document for the local school organisation, new tools, and forums for collaboration. In this paper, we briefly describe these initiatives to put focus on the intraorganisational trust among principals and LEA officials.…”