Purpose – Using a large-scale school improvement program in Sweden as a case, this article aims to explorethe state governance of a large-scale school improvement program in Sweden and how officials at the stateagency level made sense of the reform ideas and operationalized them in policy actions.

Design/methodology/approach – Data were integrated from Swedish Government Official Reports andformal directives from the Ministry of Education. Officials of the Swedish National Agency for Education(SNAE) were also interviewed. Data were analyzed to identify how regulatory rules, professional norms andcultural–cognitive beliefs shaped SNAE’s design of the program.

Findings – The article shows how different types of governance (i.e. regulatory rules, professional norms andcultural–cognitive beliefs) set the direction for managing large-scale school improvement. In particular, in thestudied case, the lack of clear regulatory directives enabled sensemaking processes clearly influenced bynormative ideas and cultural–cognitive beliefs.Research limitations/implications – The findings are mostly presented from the perspective of managers,so further study is required to attain a broader understanding of the state agency level’s role and function.

Practical implications – By illustrating the strengths of understanding various dimensions of educationalgovernance, the findings are highly relevant to both policymakers and educational managers at different levelsof school systems.

Originality/value – The article offers a valuable perspective on large-scale school improvement andeducational governance by focusing on a level that has hitherto received little attention

In the Nordic curriculum theory tradition, questions linked to educational reforms and school governance have long been a crucial research issue (Lindensjö & Lundgren, 2000; Englund, 1986; Wahlström & Sundberg, 2018). The mainly focus in this tradition has over time been on the relationship between changed societal conditions and (trans-)national school policy and its implications for local school practice. However, less attention has been paid to the processes that occur between the national political decision level and the national school agency level. That is, national educational policy and state policy directives must often, in a first step, be interpreted and operationalized by a national school agency in more concrete school reforms and programs before they are implemented at the local schools.

In this study, the implementation of a national large-scale school improvement program in Sweden, “Collaboration for the best school as possible” (CBSP) has been used as an empirical case. Based on a neo-institutional theoretical point of departure (e.g. Scott, 2001, 2008) in combination of sense-making theory (e.g. Weick, 1995, 2001) this paper aims to explore the state governance of the CBSP and how officials at the state agency level made sense of the ideas behind the reform and operationalized them in policy actions. Officials of the Swedish National Agency for Education (SNAE) were interviewed. This interview data in combination of Swedish Government Official Reports and formal directives from the Ministry of Education were analyzed to identify how regulatory rules, professional norms and cultural–cognitive beliefs shaped SNAE’s design of the program. 

The results show how different types of governance logics (i.e. regulatory rules, professional norms and cultural–cognitive beliefs) set the direction for managing the CBSP. In particular, the lack of clear regulatory directives enabled Officials’ sensemaking processes, clearly influenced by normative ideas and cultural–cognitive beliefs.

The aim of this study was to explore the results of and conditions for systemiclarge-scale school improvement. Through a multi-level analysis and a theoreticalframework inspired by organization- and sensemaking-oriented theories, the studyexamines how a Swedish large-scale school improvement program, “Collaborationfor the Best School Possible,” played out in two Swedish municipalities. Schoolactors at four organizational levels (at the National Education Agency, Local Education Authority, school leader, and teacher levels) in the two municipalities wereinterviewed. Because these school actors’ sensemaking is linked to different aspectsof the national largescale improvement program, the analysis shows a variation inthe strengthening of the couplings between these organizational levels. The different nature of the couplings affected the implementation process and the results ofthe program. While the national large-scale program seemed to have contributed toan improvement in the schools’ quality assurance systems and leadership practices,there were difficulties in maintaining general and sustainable changes in schools’instructional practices. The conclusion of the study was that, even if a nationallarge-scale school improvement program is well designed and backed up with manyresources, it must be perceived as legitimate among the local school actors at thedifferent organizational levels. This points to the importance of managing the balance between top-down efforts and visions and local professional knowledge andexperience.

In recent decades, there has been a growing body of research that highlights local education authorities (LEA) as potential contributors to support school capacity building and result development. Despite this, there are few empirical studies that have explored what effects different strategies and policy actions from the LEAs actual have over time. Based on results from a five-year research project in a major Swedish municipality, the aim with this multiyear and multi-level study is to explore the effects of a LEA’s quality management processes of six schools’ capacity building. The results from the study show a clear strengthening of the schools’ improvement agenda, improvement organization and improvement leadership of the six schools. Two LEA strategies can be distinguished as especially important to explain the school improvements: i) systematic and long-term data-based school improvement routines and processes; ii) quality dialogues for monitoring and support. Two conclusions can be drawn: i) the importance for the LEA to be responsive so its improvement strategies are integrated into the schools’ local school improvement system; ii) the importance that the LEA work with multifaceted strategies containing aspects of control and accountability and learning and support.

In many countries, we can see a movement to more large-scale and system-wide approaches to school improvement. The aim of this article is to study and theorize on conditions for school actors’ knowledge building within such large-scale school improvement reforms. Using a Swedish large-scale school improvement program, “Collaboration for the Best School Possible” (CBSP), as a case and the concepts of organizational routines and theorizing as theoretical lenses, we explore questions linked to school improvement design and conditions for school actors’ knowledge building. Internal policy documents from the Swedish National Agency of Education and interviews with responsible officials constitute the empirical material for the study. The results point to a great variation concerning the degree of standardization and formalization of the CBSP design. This implies that some parts of the CBSP process are to a large degree conditional on individuals’ competences, experiences, and attitudes. An important conclusion from the study is that an efficient large-scale school improvement design should contain organizational routines that can reinforce the interplay between the different levels of the school systems, but also create conditions for integrating research to nurture different types of theorizing. Such design will generate conditions for professional knowledge building and educational change

In the Nordic curriculum theory (CT) tradition, questions linked to educational change and school governance have long been a crucial research issue. However, despite several decades of decentralized school systems, local school governance has been a highly neglected field of research. Considering the changing landscape of school governance in terms of re-centralization, where the state’s aim is to take stronger control of school outcomes, the conditions for local school governance have changed. Based on results from two research projects in two Swedish municipalities, and from a neo-institutional theoretical perspective, the aim of this article is to contribute to the CT research field by exploring and theorizing on local school governance. Four management strategies that local educational authorities (LEAs) employed to manage the schools could be distinguished: local school management via i) data use, ii) the standardization and formalization of schools’ quality assurance processes and routines, iii) quality dialogues, iv) professional learning and best practices. These management strategies and activities were mostly organized, and conducted within the scope of the LEAs’ quality assurance systems and were primarily built on normative and cultural – cognitive elements. A way to conceptualize this form of governance is through the concept of ‘local quality management’.

From a new institutional theoretical perspective, this article explores school actors’ sense making linked to data-based decision making (DBDM) policy in general and processes of data analysis in particular. The study revealed how actors’ interpretation of and response to DBDM requirements pointed to strong and weak couplings between and within the local school system’s different organizational levels. While teachers primarily emphasized informal, daily analyses, the LEA and principals placed importance on formal, district and school-based analyses. In the same way teachers to a greater extent think that too much resources is spent on collecting and analyzing data rather than on innovation and school improvement.

International policy trends point to an increased focus on student achievement, teaching quality, and school outcomes. Attention to Swedish students' poor academic achievement over the past two decades has resulted in an increased emphasis on the responsibility of municipalities and schools to create a better educational atmosphere through building quality control systems at the local level. The purpose of this study is to contribute in-depth knowledge of not only how local education authorities (LEAs) support and control schools through quality management systems but also how these local governance strategies are conditioned and obtain legitimacy in relation to the national governance of schools. Based on interviews with LEA actors in one large municipality in Sweden, as well as observations of meetings within the quality management system, this paper uses an organizational theory to explore what appears to be important in a LEA quality management system and the tensions between the state, the municipality, and the school. The results show that the LEAs' quality management system is based on three specific strategies: (a) data use, (b) leadership, and (c) different forms of dialogues, which, in turn, contribute to relatively close system connections. The exception is the LEAs' ability to sustainably contribute to equity in outcomes and quality, where different tensions become clear. There is some support for the LEAs' potential to contribute to stability and coherence in relation to national governance and to the local schools.

In Sweden, as in many other decentralized school systems, extensive responsibility and autonomy has been delegated to Local Educational Authorities (LEA). However, decades of declining student achievement and decreased equality between schools have spurred an intensive critique against the Swedish school system and triggered a more state-regulated governing with aim to take stronger control over the schools’ outcomes. Considering such a ‘re-centralization’ movement, new conditions between the state, the local education authorities (LEA) and the schools has emerged (Wahlström & Sundberg, 2017a; Adolfsson, 2018). In the light of such a changing governing landscape, questions linked to local school governance can be raised. Based on results from two research projects conducted in two large-sized Swedish municipalities, the aim of this paper is to explore and theorize the dynamics of local school governance. The research question guiding this paper can be formulated as: In the light of an emerging re-centralization movement in Sweden, what governing strategies and actions do the LEAs apply to control and manage the schools?

Considering a ‘classical’ perspective of school governance (Lindesjö & Lundgren, 2014) four aspects of governance is often mentioned: regulation, economy, ideology (content) and evaluation. In this paper, these aspects are understood in light of a neo-institutional theoretical framework (Scott, 2008). From this perspective, three dimensions can be highlighted regarding how institutions control and affect other institutions, respond to external pressure, and seek legitimacy: regulative (rules and sanctions), normative (prevalent norms, expectations and ideals), and cognitive-cultural/discursive (shared conceptions and frames of meaning-making). These theoretical concepts enable to elucidate the character of the different strategies and actions that LEA undertake in the local governance strategies of the schools.

Empirical data from two research projects have been used to answer the research question (Adolfsson & Alvunger, 2020; Håkansson & Adolfsson, 2021; Adolfsson & Håkansson, 2021). These two projects had a common interest in the dynamic interplay between the LEA and principals in relation to a changed governing and policy landscape in Sweden. The data collections in these research projects were carried out through a multi-method approach (Tashakkori and Teddlie, 2010) in terms of policy analysis of local policy documents, interviews with various LEA actors and observations of meetings between LEA administration and school principals.  

In relation to the concept ‘Local quality management’ (Adolfsson & Håkansson, 2021) the results illustrate that the local school governance often is organized and conducted within the context of the LEA’s quality assurance systems. The following strategies can be distinguished as especially important:       

-          Governance through shared visions and language

-          Governance through standardization and ‘Benchmarking’

-          Governance through assessment and quality dialogues 

-          Governance through competence intervention 

Compared to national governance strategies, local quality management strategies are constituted by more normative and culture/cognitive elements rather than regulative. Finally, I’ll argue that ‘quality management’ should be seen as a fifth dimension of school governance.  

References 

Adolfsson, Carl-Henrik (2018). Upgraded curriculum? An analysis of knowledge boundaries in teaching under the Swedish subject-based curriculum. Curriculum Journal, 29(3), 424-440.

Adolfsson, C-H., & Alvunger. D. (2020). Power dynamics and policy actions in the changing landscape of local school governance. Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy, 6(2), 128–142.

Adolfsson, C. & Håkansson, J. (2021a). Mötet mellan den statliga och kommunala kvalitetsstyrningen inom ramen för Samverkan för bästa skola. Pedagogisk forskning i Sverige, 26 (1). 15-41.

Håkansson, J. & Adolfsson, C. (2021). Local education authority’s quality management within a coupled school system: strategies, actions, and tensions. Journal of Educational Change.

Lindensjö, B., & Lundgren, U. P. (2014). Utbildningsreformer och politisk styrning. Stockholm, Liber

Scott, W. (2008). Institutions and organizations: Ideas and interests. London: Sage.

Tashakkori, A., & Teddlie, C. (2010). Sage handbook: Mixed methods in social and behavioral research. London: Sage.

Wahlström, N., & Sundberg, D. (2017). Transnational curriculum standards and classroom practices: The new meaning of teaching. Routledge

Inom ramen för det svenska decentraliserade skolsystemet har ansvaret för att bygga upp, utveckla och bedriva ett systematiskt kvalitetsarbete i första hand varit en fråga för huvudmän och skolor att hantera. I ljuset av en ökad re-centralisering av skolan har uppbyggandet av olika kvalitetssystem för uppföljning och kontroll av skolornas resultat också kommit att utgöra ett viktigt sätt för huvudmannen att styra skolan på. I studien benämns detta i termer av kvalitetsstyrning. I och med Samverkan för bästa skola har dessa gränsdragningar mellan det lokala och det nationella kommit att utmanas. Studien bygger på intervjudata inhämtad på fyra skolor som deltar i Samverkan för bästa skola, från skolförvaltningen i samma kommun samt genom intervju med en representant från Skolverket. Utifrån begreppen löst kopplade system och organisatoriska rutiner studeras vad som karaktäriserar den nationella respektive den kommunala kvalitetsstyrningen samt vad som sker i mötet dem emellan på skolor som genomgår insatser inom ramen för Samverkan för bästa skola, samt med vilka konsekvenser. Resultatet av studien visar bland annat på att idéer och metoder om databaserad skolutveckling utgör viktiga legitimitetsgrunder för såväl den kommunala som den nationella kvalitetsstyrningen. Den nationella kvalitetsstyrningen via Samverkan för bästa skola är dock betydligt mer intensifierad och når längre in i skolornas organisation.