Session Information
26 SES 12 B, Nordic Superintendents: Agents in a Broken Chain (Part 2)
Symposium continues from 26 SES 11 B
Contribution
School superintendents engage in hierarchical and horizontal networks through which they are coupled to important stakeholders in local school governance. They are in most cases coupled straightforward hierarchically to the top apex of the municipality organization through member-ship in a leadership team at the upper level and through personal ties to the CEO or similar im-mediate superiors. The analysis reveals that this form of network engagement provides oppor-tunities to take part in strategic decision-making processes beyond their primary domain of re-sponsibility. Also along the vertical axis superintendents are coupled to their primary stakehold-er group, i.e. the school principals, through strong and dense network ties. The analysis shows that networking with school principals encompasses both school leader group and personal relationships. Whereas the findings indicate that formal group level collabo-ration is important for strategic issues and coordination, deeper educational issues requires per-sonal direct communication. The findings also indicate that superintendents may play an im-portant role for school principals by acting as mentors and sparring partners in strategic and pedagogical problem solving. Along the horizontal axis superintendents are active network play-ers with peers, for example through superintendent association or more frequently mentioned through personal couplings to superintendent colleagues. Whereas superintendents are im-portant network actors seen from the school board members’ perspective, school principals are not: School boards seem to be rather loosely coupled to principals and teachers. On the other hand, superintendents are the most important actors in the board’s network, and it is therefore fair to assume they are the central actor in their local school governance networks. Taken to-gether, the chapter justifies to include social network engagement in theoretical modelling of contemporary superintendent leadership in the Nordic countries.
References
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