Balancing law and curriculum: principals’ discourse on the enactment of governance instruments

The article examines how school leaders enact policy, with a focus on educational law and curricula. Enactment of policy has largely been studied in high-stakes governance systems. This study investigates the enactment of law and policy in a low-stakes and ‘soft’ educational context, namely the Norwegian. The paper examines how legal regulation and the curriculum as the primary instruments for educational policy are enacted by principals in local schools. We examine school leaders’ understanding and experiences through a critical discourse-oriented analysis of semi-structured interviews, drawing on theoretical perspectives of policy enactment, professional discretion and institutional trust. Findings indicate that principals experience substantial professional discretionary leeway and trust; however, when the law is expanded to include more individual rights, the legal system encroaches on professional discretionary reasoning and space. Implications indicate a need to improve principals’ capacity to attend to collective interests while safeguarding the individual rights of students.