Headteachers in Swedish comprehensive schools are supposed to guarantee pupils’ legal security, which is expressed in preparatory works, in accordance to the present Education Act. The following question will be under what circumstances the headteacher has to fulfil these demands. Accordingly a central concept of this dissertation is legal security, which will be explained from different aspects.

Furthermore, the fact that the demands on headteachers to be a guarantee for pupils’ legal security increased with the changed organisation of schools during the 80’s and the 90’s. The governing body was earlier centralised with many detailed rules, but became during this time decentralised and more goal oriented. The Education Act became at this time what in Sweden is called a framework law.

What are the opportunities for dissatisfied pupils to appeal headteachers’ decisions? In this thesis it is established that this opportunity is limited. Most of what happens in comprehensive schools is defined as real action and cannot be appealed. Furthermore, it is a fact that most of the decisions made by the Education Ordinance cannot be appealed.

In this dissertation the Head of the Following-up Department, and the Head of the Juridical Department in the National Agency for Education have been interviewed. Both of them are central figures at the National Agency for Education main office in Stockholm. Furthermore, all headteachers in one municipality have answered three questionnaires and some of them have also participated in a continued investigation. Also the National Head Teacher Training Programme has been investigated. As informant in this investigation the author has used a follow up study from the National Agency for Education.

The results from the investigation in one municipality shows: that headteachers should effect the pupils’ rights, that headteachers must be confidential with aims and rules of the school, that headteachers have to be fully aware of her/his school activities, that headteachers have to maintain pupils’ rights and that headteachers must apply administrative routines for documenting and reporting decisions. Questions about pupils’ legal security seem to have great topicality, but they do not seem to belong to either Education or Law. The investigation is too small to allow any possibilities for making generalisations from the results.

To make it possible to look at a specific question from several perspectives a first sketch of a theoretical model has been created in the dissertation. This model shall be looked upon more as a way to think than a complete model.