Session Information
26 SES 11 B, Nordic Superintendents: Agents in a Broken Chain (Part 1)
Symposium to be continued in 26 SES 12 B
Contribution
We are researching school superintendent governance in a cross-cultural perspective based on national studies – through surveys from 2008-2012 – of school superintendents in the Nordic Countries. The overarching research question that has guided our studies is: How do Nordic superintendents, the political boards and school leaders see the function and the structure, the challenges and opportunities, at this middle-municipal level, in times when the political and practical context and culture is changing and being shaped with trans-national inspiration and national and local interpretations.
The straight chain of governance – from state to municipality to schools – is still a powerful discourse and model, but it is in reality often broken and thus leaving agents, like superintendents, with new challenges and opportunities for acting as active agents in practice. However the traditional forms of governance are being adjusted, partly due to transnational influences.
The focus of the project is superintendents, seen from their own perspective, the political boards’ and school leaders’ perspective. On the basis of the surveys we wrote country reports from all countries and on the basis of them, thematic papers that look closer into similarities and differences between the Nordic systems and the modes of translation that are being applied in each country.
In order to capture superintendents’ relations, functions and positions, we make use of several theories like: New institutionalism, network governance, theory of translation, power and governance, social technologies and sense-making, and theory about relations between politicians and administrators.
We find basically that distinctions between policy makers, administrators and professionals are being blurred, that network governance, emphasising meta-governance and self-governance are gradually substituting the chain of governance.
References
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