New Times, New Practices, New Languages: School Leaders’ Storylines About Supporting Newcomers in Norway

This study explores how school leaders in Norway conceptualize and navigate the challenges of organizing inclusive mathematics education in increasingly superdiverse school environments. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 14 school leaders and informed by positioning theory, monolingual habitus, and superdiversity, the research examines how school leaders’ everyday school leadership discourse frames linguistic and cultural diversity. Findings reveal two dominant storylines: one positioning linguistic diversity as a source of educational difficulty, and another privileging monolingual solutions to multilingual dilemmas. School leaders often face systemic constraints and resource limitations, yet demonstrate awareness of the nuanced needs of multilingual learners. However, their responses frequently default to deficit framings and reinforce the dominant monolingual norm. The study calls for a paradigmatic shift in leadership practice and policy—from reactive, language-as-deficit models to proactive, asset-based frameworks rooted in superdiversity. Emphasizing participatory approaches and the development of a multilingual habitus, the paper argues that school leaders must be empowered to foster equity-oriented pedagogies and inclusive school cultures that respond more effectively to the complexities of contemporary migration and linguistic pluralism.