CLASS - Comparisons of Leadership Autonomy in School districts and Schools

I CLASS-prosjektet studerer vi skolelederes erfaringer og opplevelser med autonomi i Norge, Sverige og Tyskland fra 1990-tallet og frem til i dag. Målet med prosjektet er å utvikle ny kunnskap om forholdet mellom nasjonal og lokal styring og ledernes autonomi i ulike skolekontekster. Skolehverdagen er i dag preget av kompleksitet og involverer et høyt antall aktører på ulike nivåer i skolesystemet, som elever, foreldre, lærere og kommune og andre interessegrupper. Ledere må altså håndtere ulike forventninger, interesser og hensyn, i tillegg til forskjellige typer nasjonal og lokal styring. I CLASS studerer vi skolelederes erfaringer og opplevelser med autonomi under nyere former for styring preget av høye forventninger til lederes profesjonalitet, lederes kompetanse og relasjonell kapasitet i forskjellige utdanningssystemer. I undersøkelsene våre er vi særlig opptatt av skoleledernes autonomi i både skoler og kommuner i deres arbeid med vurdering, inkludering og pandemikrise.

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CLASS is a comparative mixed methods study focusing on the development of professional autonomy of education leaders in schools and districts in Norway, Sweden and Germany from the 1990s until today. The purpose of the study is to develop new knowledge about the suitable balance between national and local governance and autonomy in education leadership. The primary objective is to investigate the autonomy of education leaders in their everyday work framed by national governance and high stakes policy issues. The study will be conducted by looking at new ways of governance universally characterised by high expectations of management skills and relational capacity under varied degrees of decentralisation, centralisation and recentralisation. Leadership autonomy aspects will be studied by zooming in on assessment, inclusion and pandemic crises as three high-stakes government required implementation issues in education. The scope and timing of CLASS give a unique opportunity to study the relationship between autonomy and governance under varied circumstances and dimensions of time, such as long term (inclusion), cyclic (assessment) and acute (pandemic crisis). By comparing different solutions for similar issues, the study investigates how contextual factors impact the emergence of and relations between professional autonomy and organisational structures. Education today is characterised by a high degree of management complexity in terms of being a ‘mass education project’ involving large numbers of students, parents, teachers and stakeholder groups. This complexity is approached by investigating the complementary professional and organisational structures that often place high expectations and responsibilities on educational leaders. The project draws on a well-developed methodological toolbox and robust contextual knowledge, cultural and language proficiency and empirical studies conducted by a highly experienced team of researchers