This article focuses on Nordic school leaders and how rural principals experience autonomy and control in current governance regimes using a sample of principals in the very north of Norway and Sweden as a case. An analysis instrument constituting four different schooling domains (educational; social; developmental; administrative) and the ways in…

The aim of this article is to analyze the perceptions on the local school and further education in the local community from a school leader's perspective. Another aim is to explore characteristics of sparsely populated rural areas. Data were derived from a survey on Swedish school leaders (n = 1,270). The results show significant variances between…

In this study French and Swedish teachers' and principals' opinions and everyday uses of the schoolyard is in focus: What do they perceive as desirable and undesirable in the schoolyard, what similarities and differences exist between the two groups of pedagogues, and how can these be understood? The study employs a cross-cultural design and is…

In this study, the spatial structure of primary schools and alternative organizational frameworks are studied in a number of rural municipalities in the northern parts of Norway, Sweden, and Finland. The aim of the study is to investigate how the spatial structure of schools has changed between the years 2008 and 2013 in these municipalities, what…