This study provides new insights into what Swedish superintendents (SIs) highlight in decision-making documents to their school boards regarding improving equity in education. It is an examination of which actions SIs consider to be urgent. Two hundred documents written by SIs proposing measures to increase equity were analysed using qualitative content analysis, through the lens of power theory. The findings indicate that SIs share a similar understanding of the areas in which changes can enhance equity: organisation, finances, pupil health, systematic quality work, and pupils’ grades and staff competence development. The findings also indicate that SIs make use of institutional and direct power, which are also part of the public arena in which the SIs operate.

In 2023, the Swedish government submitted a policy proposal for a National Professional Program (NPP) for principals, teachers and preschool teachers. The purpose of the reform was to develop teaching quality, strengthen the attractiveness of these professions and increase equity for students in Swedish education (Prop. 2022/23:54).

The NPP follows the international trend of evidence-based practice with policy techniques, such as certification standards for teachers and teacher proficiency (Holloway & Larsen Hedegaard, 2021) which also applies for school leaders (Møller, 2009). Pettersson (2008) points to how new actors, such as transnational institutions and regimes, have come to play a central role in exerting pressure to increase the national reform agenda, and how these affect Swedish national politics. During the 21st century, international organisations such as OECD, have influenced educational systems, and PISA has taken on an increasingly prominent position as an authoritative measurement of knowledge, functioning as a regulatory mechanism (Lingard et al., 2013). The driving role of the OECD is viewed as a consequence of the neoliberal ideology rooted in the 1980s (Baltzer, 2020).      

Around the globe, a crisis discourse has emerged, which legitimises educational reforms (Nordin, 2014). Based on the declining performance of Swedish students in PISA 2012, the OECD (2015;216) recommended a comprehensive and system-wide national school improvement strategy in Sweden. One aim was to improve the attractiveness of teaching and school leadership, and professionalism was highlighted as a central concept, characteristic of high-performing countries.

The OECD (2015) also pointed to insufficient coherence in Sweden’s recent career reform efforts: There is a lack of clarity in responsibilities of education priorities at various levels of administration as well as varying capacity at local level. Further, they draw attention to an imbalance between accountability and local autonomy. OECD’s concrete policy recommendations were to design a career structure including national professional standards.

In line with the OECD:s recommendations, the Swedish government suggests introducing a national structure for professional development in Sweden, as well as a national qualification system for teachers and school leaders. This implies a continuous professional development (CPD) of teachers and school leaders, which will increasingly become a state concern (Prop. 2022/23:54, 2022/23:UbU13), contrary to the system from 1991 where local authorities have been responsible.

From an international perspective, the Swedish case is an example of transnational policy trends, carried by powerful agents such as OECD, including key elements of what Ball (2003) refers to as policy technologies and performativity. Professionals’ in-service training can be considered as part of state regulation, producing new professional roles and subjectivities.

By the NPP, professional performance and excellence, but also the life-long learning discourse, has been put high on the Swedish political agenda, as in many other countries. This can be seen as a part of an accountability regime that keeps a constant gaze on teacher performance, and also the life-long learning discourse (Heffernan, 2016; Rizvi & Lingard, 2009). 

The aim of the present study is to visualise the discourses underlying the proposed policy. We will critically examine the intentions and the effects of the NPP policy. The study is inspired by Bacchi’s (2009) Foucault-influenced analytic strategy. Drawing on Bacchi’s methodological framework, ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’ (WPR), the following research questions guide our study:

- What problem representations can be identified in the policy proposal of a National Professional Program?

- What presuppositions or assumptions underpin these problem representations and how have they come about?

- What effects for Swedish school leaders are produced by problematizing the policy proposal of a Swedish National Professional Program for principals, teachers and preschool teachers?

Method

Based on our research questions, the study is designed as a text analysis. A selection of official education policy documents constitutes the empirical data and includes a total of four documents in the policy process that led to the proposal for the NPP. The first document is the 2015 School Commission's report with proposals for a national strategy for knowledge and equality (SOU 2017:35). That proposal led to the appointment of a special investigator to prepare a framework for the professional development of teachers and principals (SOU 2018:17). The proposal culminated in the government's proposal for a national professional program for principals, teachers and preschool teachers (Prop. 2022/23:54). The following parliamentary committee report (2022/23:UbU13) of the bill is also included in the empirical material. To give perspective on the context, another report has been used, however without per se being included in the analysis; on the municipalization of the Swedish school (SOU 2014:5). Following Ringarp and Waldow (2016), we argue that reports by government committees, such as Swedish Government Official Reports (SOU), constitute the indicators for education policy-making discourse. In the analysis, a selection of Bacchi’s WPR-questions have been applied, as part of an integrated analysis (Bacchi, 2015). Bacchi’s Foucault-influenced poststructural analytic strategy makes it possible to open up policy proposals for critical scrutiny. According to Bacchi, policy proposals can be considered as prescriptive texts, setting out practices based on specific problematisations, having governing effects (Bacchi, 2012). By a close analysis of policy documents, the identified problem representations may reveal discourses on what can be talked about ‘as possible or desirable, or as impossible and undesirable’ (Bacchi, 2016, p.1). The problem representations will not only have discursive effects, but also subjectification and material effects (Bacchi, 2009). The preliminary analysis of the documents started with a screening followed by an identification of the problem representations. Thirdly, the underlying discourses and possible effects were analysed. The analysis is in progress and a more in-depth analysis will be presented at the conference.Expected OutcomesA number of problem representations have been identified in the initial analysis of the documents. The most prominent are the NPP as a governance problem, a profession problem, an equity problem as well as a quality problem. Formulations regarding the profession problem are teacher deficiency, low status of the teaching profession, and difficulty in recruiting teachers. The NPP proposal can be viewed as an answer to rectify previous career reforms that have not been as successful as anticipated, for example the career teacher reform. Various examples claim that the state must take a clearer responsibility pointing to a steering problem. It is argued that there are system weaknesses, including the failing capacity and responsibility of many local governing bodies. Problems associated with students' results and equity are most palpable as narratives of a crisis discourse. The documents highlight that teaching is not of sufficiently high quality in all classrooms, and the quality of education varies within and between preschools and schools. Across the documents, overlapping discourses of neoliberalism, lifelong learning and the equity discourse can be seen underpinning these problem representations. For teachers and principals to be "really successful in their profession, continuous competence development is required throughout their professional life" (SOU 2018:17, p. 22). Through "standards", the professional skills need to be strengthened as well as the status of the profession itself. By increasing the attractiveness of the profession, the student results will improve. Many of the problem representations and underpinnings, found in documents stem from the OECD (2015) recommendations, point to the policy influence by international actors. The effects produced by the NPP proposal for Swedish local school actors are both an undermining of the school leaders’ local decision making regarding professional development, and a responsibilisation of the local actors for what can be perceived as system failures.

References 

Bacchi, C. (2016). Problematizations in health policy: Questioning how “problems” are constituted in policies. Sage Open, 6(2), 1-16. Bacchi, C. (2015). Problematizations in alcohol policy: WHO’s “alcohol problems”. Contemporary Drug Problems, 42(2), 130-147. Bacchi, C. (2012). Why study problematizations? Making politics visible. Open journal of political science, 2(01), 1. Bacchi, C. L. (2009). Analysing Policy: What ́s the problem represented to be? Pearson. Ball, S. J. (2003). The teacher's soul and the terrors of performativity. Journal of education policy, 18(2), 215-228. Baltzer, C. (2020). Lärarlegitimation som facklig professionsstrategi: En analys av den svenska legitimationsreformen som argument för lärares (re)professionalisering. [Doktorsavhandling, Åbo Akademi]. En bättre skola genom mer attraktiva skolprofessioner. (Dir. 2016:76). Regeringskansliet. Holloway, J., & Larsen Hedegaard, M. L. (2021). Democracy and teachers: the im/possibilities for pluralisation in evidence-based practice. Journal of Education Policy, 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680939.2021.2014571 Lingard, B., Martino, W., & Rezai-Rashti, G. (2013). Testing regimes, accountabilities and education policy: Commensurate global and national developments. Journal of Education Policy, 28(5), 539–556. Møller, J. (2009). School leadership in an age of accountability: Tensions between managerial and professional accountability. Journal of Educational change, 10, 37-46. Nordin, A. (2014). Crisis as a discursive legitimation strategy in educational reforms: A critical policy analysis. Education Inquiry, 5(1), 24047. OECD (2015). Improving Schools in Sweden: An OECD Perspective. https://www.oecd.org/education/school/Improving-Schools-in-Sweden.pdf Rizvi, F., & Lingard, B. (2009). Globalizing education policy. Routledge. Med undervisningsskicklighet i centrum – ett ramverk för lärares och rektorers professionella utveckling. Slutbetänkande av Utredningen om en bättre skola genom mer attraktiva skolprofessioner (SOU 2018:17). Utbildningsdepartementet. Prop. 2022/23:54. Nationellt professionsprogram för rektorer, lärare och förskollärare. Utbildningsdepartementet. Pettersson, D. (2008). Internationell kunskapsbedömning som inslag i nationell styrning av skolan. (Uppsala Studies in Education, 120). Doktorsavhandling, Uppsala: Uppsala universitet Ringarp, J., & Waldow, F. (2016). From ‘silent borrowing’ to the international argument–Legitimating Swedish educational policy from 1945 to the present day. Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy, 2016(1), 29583. Schleicher, A. (2016). Teaching excellence through professional learning and policy reform: Lessons from around the world, International summit on the teaching profession, OECD. Staten får inte abdikera - om kommunaliseringen av den svenska skolan. Betänkande av Utredningen om skolans kommunalisering (SOU 2014:5). Utbildningsdepartementet. 2015 års skolkommission (U 2015:03). Utbildningsdepartementet. Utbildningsutskottets betänkande (2022/23:UbU13). Nationellt professionsprogram för rektorer, lärare och förskollärare. Utbildningsdepartementet.

Based on the shared interest of two academics with leadership responsibilitiesin the UK and Sweden our ambition was to better understand student learner expectations of leadership as Higher Education leaders operate within the relatively new context of what is being defined as ‘Responsible Leadership’. A search using Google Scholar, to give international reach, was carried out in late 2020 on four key themes pertinent to our research endeavour. The four themes, namely: Generation Z in Higher Education, Student Voice, Responsible Leadership and VUCA (Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity) were searched using a metric which included articles presenting with a generic focus and written in the last 5 years (2017–2021). Texts were excluded if, in the abstract, they contained specific reference to subject discipline, teaching method, learner ability or any other locator which gave the text a specificity of subject rather than the generality sought here. In applying a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) methodology the ambition was to achieve summarised results to identify the debate and emerging evidence concerning our fields of interest. The research findings reveal challenging times ahead for the university sector with questions emerging about the function and purpose of Higher Education.

We study whether business incubator management collaboration with R&D milieus affects incubated entrepreneurs to also collaborate with R&D milieus in different regional contexts. Empirically, we analyse 281 Norwegian entrepreneurs in 32 different business incubators. Incubator collaboration with R&D milieus increases entrepreneur collaboration with R&D milieus in sparsely but not densely populated regions. Also, education level increases collaboration with R&D milieus (plus investor milieus and international customers). Entrepreneur collaboration with R&D milieus is positively associated with market orientation and perceptual performance but tends to delay enterprise development.

The sharp outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has had a severe economic impact across the globe. It has affected human and business life and specifically led to drastic changes that how businesses and individuals behave. Therefore, this study aims first, to explore the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on informal businesswomen; and second, to know the attitude of these businesswomen toward following the pandemic SOPs (standard operating procedures). Primary data were collected from 400 respondents randomly in district Mardan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Chi-square test analysis was performed to see the differences between rural-urban locations. The results of six products showed that pandemic increased the sales of both urban and rural informal businesses, i.e., cloth, cosmetics, tailoring, and grocery. However, dairy products and beautician businesses were affected adversely. Mix results were obtained about the respondents' attitudes toward pandemic SOPs. We recommend emerging rethinking for policymakers to promote these women businesses as it has played a role in maintaining family livelihood during the pandemic.

Vem styr och leder egentligen svensk skola och hur går det till? I den här antologin analyseras skolchefens roll och vilka möjligheter skolchefer har att utöva ett ansvarsfullt ledarskap. Författarna belyser även vilka utmaningar, spänningsfält och konflikter som kan uppstå i relationerna mellan de aktörer som har i uppdrag att styra och leda skolan mot ökad likvärdighet och rättvisa. 

Vad påverkar skolchefer i deras arbete och vilken roll kan skolchefer själva ta för att påverka verksamheten? Med utgångspunkt i empiriska studier fördjupas och problematiseras möjligheter och svårigheter med att ansvarsfullt leda och utveckla skolan. 

Villkoren för styrning, ledning och organisation av skola och utbildning har förändrats under de senaste decennierna. Bokens innehåll visar hur viktig styrning och ledning av skolan är i en värld som kännetecknas av utmaningar som ökande sociala och ekonomiska skillnader, fattigdom, segregation, epidemier och klimatförändringar.