Furnishing novice school leaders with the knowledge and skills they require to be successful in practice has proved difficult. This paper describes and analyses an attempt to link learning and school leading practices in their education: a three-year learning activity within the Swedish National School Leadership Training Programme intended to…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to increase the knowledge of principals' professional development (PD) by focusing on the arrangements that shape a PD practice initiated to enhance principals' instructional leadership. Design/methodology/approach: The paper draws on findings from a three-year PD initiative in a Swedish school district. The…

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to expand knowledge on Swedish principals' professional development (PD) from the perspectives of superintendents. In particular, the article analyzes how superintendents understand and organize PD for principals. Design/methodology/approach: Empirical data are derived from a strategic sample of ten (n = 10)…

Organizational building is essential if school leaders are to promote school improvement, but it can be difficult to combine with school leaders' requirements to satisfy teachers' personal and relational needs. The the aim of this study is to explore critical aspects when combining organizational building with requirements to satisfy teachers'…

This article explores organisational routines introduced in schools and preschools in a Swedish municipality and analyses the relationship between ostensive and performative aspects of improvement work. We take our theoretical point of departure in organisational psychology and an organisation development (OD) perspective by integrating the…

This article focuses on the interplay between the concepts of 'educational infrastructure' and 'organisational memory'. Using data from collaboration between a Swedish university and a local municipality, the article draws attention to the interplay between three nation-wide improvement programmes and their educational infrastructures, and the…

As the limitations of individual leadership have become evident, distributed leadership has attracted increased interest. Since the early 1980s, school principals in Sweden have distributed responsibility for improving pedagogical practices to teacher leaders, and the legal scope for such delegation has further expanded since 2010. Nevertheless,…

Leadership is considered to be significant for creating a developing and learning school organisation. In Sweden, distributed leadership and teacher teams are an "institutionalised practice"; despite this, sustainable school improvement is difficult to achieve. This article presents findings from a case study of three schools that…