According to the Swedish Education Act, schools should support both students' knowledge development and personal development. Students' levels of knowledge are measured and compared through their examination results and formal grades as well as through international comparative studies and other tools. However, students' personal development is…

With the inclusion of school-age educare (SAEC) in the Swedish National curriculum in 2016, the principal's role now includes pedagogical leadership in SAEC. This study consists of reflection responses provided by twenty principals in the project "The Pedagogical task of School Age educare." Findings indicate that a minority of the…

Teachers' professional learning is closely connected to and dependent on different leading practices. Teachers professional learning is regarded as a key factor in successful school development, and development leaders at different levels are assigned to provide for and support such learning. However, the connection between leading and learning…

Objective: The aim of this study was to explore the school principal's role in promoting physical activity for inactive children in school settings. Design: Exploratory qualitative interview study. Setting: The study was conducted in seven elementary schools in central Sweden. Method: Data were collected by means of semi-structured interviews with…

Feelings of shock, a difficult professional socialization process and unrealistic expectations create a challenging career entry phase for teachers. Too many newly qualified teachers feel stressed and leave the profession early, leading to a lingering teacher shortage. Much research in the field and many well-meant support interventions follow a…

Principals in Sweden face leadership challenges as pedagogical leaders of School-age educare Centers (SAECs). This study examines how principals identify both professional development needs as well as challenges they face in supporting the SAEC teachers. The empirical data is based on reflections from 29 principals and vice-principals from four…

Background: Through their leadership, principals have an important, yet typically indirect, effect on pupils' learning. This article focuses attention on principals' influences on teaching and assessment in special education in Sweden: specifically, in special schools for pupils with intellectual disabilities (SID). Whilst SID principals are…

This article deepens the knowledge of practices within school cultures and their dynamics in relation to improvement work. It investigates: Which practices can be identified in school improvement among principals at upper secondary school level? How are these practices shaped? How do they promote or prevent the improvement work of the principals?…

The purpose of the study is to create a deeper understanding of teachers' sense-making of principals' leadership in the context of collaboration within and beyond school. Data were collected over three years, from semi- structured individual and group interviews with teachers, as well as a part of a teacher questionnaire. A qualitative content…

The aim of the article is to explore newly appointed principals' professional identity formation in Sweden. By addressing five specific aspects of principals' professional identity, the article analyses how principals depict their 'knowledge', 'understandings', 'experiences and wisdom', 'values' and 'beliefs' in forming a professional identity.…

Distributed leadership focuses on what teachers and school leaders do together, but also on how the situation mediates that interaction. This paper focuses on the importance and function of the situational dimension of practice. By framing situational aspects in terms of local educational infrastructure, it explores organizational components in…

This article aims to investigate social learning in the Swedish school-age educare (SAEC) from a number of principals' perspectives. An abductive approach has been adopted to analyse the data from individual interviews with seven principals in school-age educare. The results are understood through an interactionist perspective, with…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand, from principals' points of view, how a teacher registration reform is enacted by examining the potential changes in the relationships between principals and newly qualified teachers (NQTs). The reform entailed principals performing an aptitude assessment of new teachers in their probationary…

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to identify the role of the principal in establishing a whole school approach for health and wellbeing. Two questions are asked: (1) What do successful Swedish principals do when they take on a whole school approach? (2) How do these results relate to previous research on successful school leadership?…

School choice is associated with increased educational inequality and across-school segregation. This article documents the organisational practices and logics affecting school segregation and inequality. Through an institutional ethnographic study of principals' responses to school choice within the context of immigration in Malmö, Sweden, I find…