Critical perspectives in and approaches to educaitonal leadership in two Nordic countries

Abstract

What this chapter is about This chapter will situate educational leadership in the Nordic countries in relation to political-ideological transformations that have taken place during the last decades by exploring the comparatively divergent development of neo-liberal reform in Sweden and Norway and critically discussing implications for education as a public good in general and for educational leadership in particular. Our aim is to situate educational leadership within the broader political environments that often go unaccounted for in studies of school leadership. By framing schools and their leaders as political agents, we will show how school principals may enact their roles in ways that are defined not just by their local contextual conditions, but also by their macro-level political structures. By connecting two bodies of scholarship (policy and leadership), we contextualize the field of educational leadership to include an explicit consideration of the broader policy forces and political contexts that act on educational leaders’ work. This approach offers perspectives to promote critical reflection on the implications of the reciprocal relationship between school leadership and education policy