Facilitating school improvement: the problematic relationship between researchers and practitioners

Promoting local development in order to support school improvement is an important aspect of contemporary educational policy in Sweden. Recent state initiatives have sought to combine curriculum and teacher development. A common form of cooperation is facilitation, where academics support groups of teachers in their school projects. This article is based on an interview study on facilitation in the form of meetings between teachers, school managers and university researchers. The results show that several tensions concerning expectations and assumptions about facilitation are present in such meetings. Sometimes the parties’ expectations and conceptions are entirely contradictory. The study reveals that inadequate attention is paid to the need for dialogue and about the purpose and process of the cooperation at the outset of facilitation. Both dialogue and discourse are aspects of the meeting that require further development if this kind of cooperation is to succeed.