School leaders and other school professionals in senior roles face a vast array of differing expectations, demands and formal requirements focused on the school’s day-to-day operations from various stakeholders that consume their time and garner most of their attention. Educational policy demands, in Scandinavia and many other educational systems, often focus on a view of school leadership rooted in the corporate sector, regarding the ‘school as a small business’ in terms of legislation, human resource management and financial management, and giving consideration to how school leaders can use performance data and ready-made best practice and ’what-works’ models of corporate management. These demands are rooted in the illusion that schools must implement national objectives within a framework established by national and municipal authorities.
However, these demands by no means provide a sufficient foundation for professional reflection on and practice of educational leadership. Educational professionals in management positions experience the resulting tensions every day. Schools and school leadership are subject to a more varied and complex array of expectations from society, culture, local communities, parents, students, history, and research. At the same time, the existing buildings and grounds, hierarchies and habits, technologies, and societal and cultural visions from both national and trans-national agents frame and condition these expectations. ’However, such aspects are not dealt with during training programmes for school leaders and are rarely explored in research on school leadership’.
We welcome post-docs, doctoral students and senior researchers to take part in this conference where we will seek to address these gaps in school leadership research and policy’.
The programme will be comprised of five keynotes and presentations of abstracts by participants. The intention is to create a creative meeting place where junior and senior researchers together can explore ’fundamental but often forgotten perspectives’ on schools and school leadership.
The Carlsberg Foundation supports the symposium
Helen Gunter is Professor of Educational Policy at the Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester, UK. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, and recipient of the BELMAS Distinguished Service Award 2016. Her work focuses on the politics of education policy and knowledge production in the field of school leadership. Her most recent books are: An Intellectual History of School Leadership Practice and Research, published in 2016 by Bloomsbury Press; Consultants and Consultancy: The Case of Education, co-authored with Colin Mills, published in 2017 by Springer; and The Politics of Public Education published in 2018 by Policy Press
James P. Spillane is the Spencer T. and Ann W. Olin Professor in Learning and Organizational Change at Northwestern University. He was elected to the US National Academy of Education in 2013. Spillane’s work explores relations between government policy and local practice at the system, school, and classroom levels with funding from foundations including the National Science Foundation, the Institute of Education Sciences, the Spencer Foundation, and the Carnegie Cooperation of New York. Spillane is author of five books as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters. He has consulted with public and private organizations in the US and around the world including OECD, the Spencer Foundation, Chicago Public Schools, the US Institute of Education Sciences, the National Commission on Educational Statistics, and the MacArthur Foundation
Cynthia E. Coburn is Professor at the School of Education and Social Policy, Northwestern University. Coburn studies instructional policymaking, policy implementation, data use, and the relationship between research and practice for educational improvement. She has been awarded numerous honors include: The Albert J. Harris award from the International Reading Association, and the Palmer O. Johnson award and the Early Career Award from the American Education Research Association. She was also elected Fellow of the American Educational Research Association, honoring “exceptional contributions to and excellence in educational research.” Coburn has a BA in philosophy from Oberlin College, and a MA in Sociology and a PhD in Education from Stanford University.
Neil Powell is a guest Professor at the Swedish International Centre of Education for Sustainable Development (SWEDESD), Uppsala University and Professor in Sustainable Development at the Sustainability Research Centre, University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia. His research supports the navigation of contemporary sustainability challenges such migration, water equity and climate change through the enactment of operation frames to foster norm critical transformations in leadership.
Lejf Moos has been researching and teaching school leadership, organizing education and global governance for many years in Danish, Nordic and International projects with many colleagues. As a result of those activities he has published books – like the ‘Pædagogisk ledelse i en læringsmålstyret skole?’ [Educational Leadership in an effective school?] and many journal articles and he has edited books, journals and the Springer book series on Educational Governance Research. Recently he has tried hard to combine leadership studies with studies in general education in his writing
