Schools and Leadership in Transition: the case of Scandinavia

This article will set the context of democratic leadership in Scandinavian countries. This concept will be discussed in a dual perspective. On the one hand there are pressures to transform the governing of the schools towards a more ‘rigorous’ form of New Public Management (NPM) with models of leadership/management from the world of business and industry. This trend is affected by a new wave of economical and cultural globalisation, while the discourse of NPM is exerting a strong influence on how municipalities organize and govern the schools in Scandinavia (Moos, 2000; Peters et al., 2000). On the other hand there is a growing consciousness of the need for sustaining trust and loyalty in the school as an organisation. This may be seen as an effect of European/Scandinavian societies becoming increasingly complex. These societies are often called hyper complex societies with no one single centre from which government can be exercised. The governing of the public sectors therefore has largely to rest on trust and communication (Kirkeby, 1998; Giddens, 1991; Thyssen, 2001). This article will discuss how Scandinavian school leaders try to cope with this dual pressure while maintaining distinctive aspects of Scandinavian educational culture. This is one of many dilemmas being faced by school leaders coming to terms with notions of accountability. As an illustration we will refer to some findings from an international research project in which Danish and Norwegian school leaders participated (Biott et al., 2001; Sugrue, 2003, forthcoming).