School principals as translators – examining Swedish school principals’ translations of the standards-based curriculum

ABSTRACT

This study takes the policy idea of the standards-based curriculum as a point of departure. Drawing on discursive institutionalism and pragmatic institutionalism, the study’s purpose is to critically examine school principals empirically as translators, enacting Sweden’s standards-based curriculum into local schools’ practices. The data were collected through interviews with principals from four compulsory schools in different geographical regions of Sweden, selected through purposive sampling. Røvik’s ‘translator competence’ framework and Schmidt’s ‘sentient agents’ framework were used as analytical tools. In the empirical material, examples of school principals as knowledgeable, creative, patient and strong translators were identified, interpreted as their ‘background ideational abilities’. Discourses on ‘foreground ideational abilities’ also were identified in the principals’ experiences as translators through their critical and deliberative reflections on the standards-based curriculum. By integrating discursive institutionalism and pragmatic institutionalism into the study, ideas and discourse, as well as agency and contextual and normative experiences, were interpreted as important aspects of policy translation. This provided opportunities for a broader understanding of school principals’ translations of the standards-based curriculum, which hopefully also can help develop the theoretical and methodological discursive institutional approach within education research.

KEYWORDS:

• school principals
• standards-based curriculum
• discursive institutionalism
• pragmatic institutionalism
• translator competence

Introduction

International organizations, e.g. the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and European Union (EU), are important policy players that influence education policies in many Western countries (Hall et al., 2017, Rizvi & Lingard, 2010, Sundberg & Wahlström, 2012, Wahlström & Sundberg, 2018a, 2018b). In the global arena, ‘a coherent set of policy themes and processes has emerged’ (Ozga & Jones, 2006, p. 2). Being mobile and transnational, ‘with seemingly universalistic ambitions’ (Hall et al., 2017, p. 311), these policies ‘travel’ across national boundaries (Ozga & Jones, 2006) as ‘travelling ideas’ (Bacchi, 2009). Some of these travelling policy ideas attain status as ‘master ideas’ (Czarniawska & Joerges, 1996, Røvik & Pettersen, 2014), which, among other things, are characterized by being flexible and catalysts for reform. Such ideas also can be conceptualized as ‘successful ideas’ (Schmidt, 2008). Masterideas are characterized further by conceptual ambiguity and ‘interpretative viability’ (Benders & Van Veen, 2001), which provide high degrees of freedom for local adaptations in different contexts. These mechanisms contribute to geographical differentiation, as well as different versions of the ideas in different organizations (Røvik & Pettersen, 2014). In this article, I argue that the standards-based curriculum reform movement, as a global phenomenon (Waldow, 2015), can be viewed as a ‘masteridea’ (Czarniawska & Joerges, 1996, Røvik & Pettersen, 2014) and a ‘successful idea’ (Schmidt, 2008), legitimized as a powerful tool for school improvement (Chatterji, 2002).

The latest Swedish curriculum for compulsory school, Lgr 11, can be viewed as an example of the transnational standards-based reform movement (Sundberg & Wahlström, 2012, Wahlström & Sundberg, 2018b), which also makes it interesting from an international research perspective. Within school organizations, school leaders are expected to act as translators of the curriculum, and through school principals’ curriculum work, the policy idea of the standards-based curriculum is transformed before dissemination throughout local school organizations (Uljens & Ylimaki, 2015). Drawing on Røvik (2008, 2016), it can be argued that school principals, as key actors in this policy process, need ‘translator competence’ to execute ‘good translations’ (Øygarden & Mikkelsen, 2020) of the standards-based curriculum’s intended policy ideas and contribute to ‘ideational success’ (Schmidt, 2008).

In this study, the Swedish standards-based curriculum for compulsory school, the aforementioned Lgr 11 (NAE Swedish National Agency for Education, 2011), is the object of translation, i.e. answering the question of what ideas will be translated. The focus is directed specifically towards school principals’ translations of the curriculum in the local policy arena (Wahlström & Sundberg, 2018a), which aims to answer the question of who the actor is, acting as translator, and where the translations are occurring. With an emphasis on not only policy ideas, but also discourse, as well as agency as organizational members’ lived experiences, this study draws on discursive institutionalism (DI) (Schmidt, 2008, 2010, 2015) and pragmatic institutionalism (PI) (Beaton et al., 2021). Starting from Røvik’s (2008, 2016) theoretical framework of ‘translator competence’, i.e. the ideal of how to translate successfully, the aim is to critically examine and analyse school principals empirically as translators, enacting the standards-based curriculum into local schools’ practices. For that purpose, discursive institutionalism is used as the main framework, combined with pragmatic institutionalism. In combination, they will offer a richer analytical lens for the empirical analysis of the data in this study.

Schmidt’s (2010, 2011, 2015) framework of ‘sentient agents’ has been used as a methodology to analyse not only school principals’ ‘background ideational abilities’, interpreted as what to do, but also their ‘foreground ideational abilities’, i.e. to analyse their critical and deliberative experiences when translating the standards-based curriculum. Thus, the following questions guided this study:

1. What background ideational abilities can be identified in the school principals’ experiences about how to translate the standards-based curriculum?

2. What discourses of foreground ideational abilities emerge in the school principals’ experiences when translating the standards-based curriculum?

The article is structured as follows: In the first section, the theoretical and methodological contextualization of the study is outlined. As a background, the complexity of policy translation is introduced, followed by a presentation of the policyidea of standards-based curriculum, as the object of translation, and school principals as the actors of translations. Then, the theoretical and methodological framework underpinning the analysis is presented in more detail. In the next section, the empirical data and method is presented, followed by a presentation of the findings. Finally, the article ends with a concluding discussion.

Theoretical and methodological contextualization

Global policies do not affect all education systems identically (Ganon-Shilon & Schechter, 2019), but instead are filtered, recontextualised and remodelled through national and local political and cultural traditions, as well as social relations (Ozga & Jones, 2006, Rizvi & Lingard, 2010). When a ‘transnational’ (Wahlström & Sundberg, 2018a) policy idea ‘touches down’ (Adhikary & Lingard, 2018) in national contexts, it is translated and recontextualised using processes that can be described as a transformation of ‘globalized localism’ into ‘localized globalism’ (Santos, 2002). With these processes, attention must be paid ‘to the local setting in which the ideas and accompanying instruments are received, translated, mediated and adapted into new practices’ (Hall et al., 2017, p. 312). Thus, translation is a context-sensitive process.

Within organizations lie different translation agents trying to reinterpret, redefine and reshape existing ideas and practices (Nielsen, 2019). As local translation agents, they ‘interpret policy directives in ways that transform their prior desires into the wishes of policy makers’ (Baier et al., 1986, p. 201), but they also try to make sense of what these policy ideas entail in terms of concrete action. Furthermore, from their experiences outside of the institutions, they may scrutinize and criticize these policies as well (Schmidt, 2008, 2010). However, even if curriculum implementation processes in a fantasy world are expected to be enacted as the designers have planned and intended, this is almost never the case. What policy makers design often does not match what is enacted; therefore, variability in curriculum policy implementation can be viewed as a rule, rather than an exception (Supovitz & Weinbaum, 2008). Schmidt (2011) described the difficulties of enacting policy reforms, e.g. the standards-based curriculum, as follows: ‘When ideas are put into practice, many possible disconnects can emerge between the original ideas in the policy programme and the actions taken in its name, which may be very different from that intended’ (p. 110). Therefore, enacting a rational and linear top-down model of standards-based curriculum construction locally, in accordance with policy makers’ intentions, would seem to be problematic, considering that various contextual factors affect how the curriculum is understood, interpreted and translated into different education leadership and teaching practices (Wahlström & Sundberg, 2018a).

Translations are processes in which ideas and practices travel, transform and adapt to new local contexts. The objects of translation can be new management concepts in the form of recommendations of ‘best practice’, new regulations, strategic ideas or practices, while the translators are human actors who receive, interpret, negotiate and adapt these new ideas and practices into local contexts (Øygarden & Mikkelsen, 2020). When ideas or practices move through time and space, they are translated into concrete actions, in specific locations, by specific actors and influenced by specific contextual factors. The ideas and practices then will be absorbed, modified and adapted in a new organizational context linked to the new location and time, with the purpose of increasing their suitability to complete specific tasks (Nielsen, 2019, Røvik, 2008, Sahlin-Andersson, 1996). Translations are important aspects of policy implementation processes, particularly because policies are characterized by ambiguity. However, rational notions about what specific recipes and recommendations on ‘what works’ (Møller, 2017)—which can be picked out relatively easily and transferred successfully, then ‘installed’ in other organizations with a probable reproducible success—are challenged by translation theory (Nielsen, 2019, Røvik, 2008). However, ‘best practices’, transmitted as more or less general ideas, need to be translated and adapted before they can be used locally in other organizations and in other contexts (Røvik, 2008).

The ‘masteridea’ of the standards-based curriculum

Since the beginning of the latter part of the 20th century, standards-based education has been viewed as a powerful tool and strategy for improving schools in many countries (Chatterji, 2002, Hamilton et al., 2012). Standards-based curriculum reform rests on ideals and future goals under the premise that by making schooling more effective and manageable, the curriculum can improve performance and outcomes. Another core goal is to reduce variations and increase equity (Sundberg, 2018, Sundberg & Wahlström, 2018). Drawing on Sundberg and Wahlström (2012), the Swedish standards-based curriculum is part of an international policy discourse, shaped by two powerful global influences: a technical-instrumental discourse and a neo-conservative discourse, which emphasize the form, structure and function of the curriculum and curriculum content as a given and uncontested body of knowledge.

The origin of the standards-based curriculum reform is considered by many to be the publication of the document A Nation at Risk (National Commission on Excellence in Education, 1983 (Hamilton et al., 2012, Waldow, 2015). In this document, the state of education in the United States was described in dramatic terms. The report called for efforts to raise achievement in American schools and led to policy debates about the need to monitor student achievement in a systematic way. As a response, states and districts introduced standards-based reforms. In this context, the term standards-based reforms referred to the ways in which the states and districts responded to the push for higher standards and school accountability (Chatterji, 2002).

This wave of standards-based reforms in the United States came to serve as inspiration for standards-based reforms in many other countries, becoming a global phenomenon. Since the 1980s, organizations like the OECD and the EU have become important policy actors, by emphasizing the ‘standards-based curriculum policy framework’ (Sundberg & Wahlström, 2012). In the international context, the Swedish case is particularly interesting, as a country that went especially far in implementing educational standards (Waldow, 2015). Sundberg and Wahlström (2012) argue for three key reasons why standards-based curriculum reforms have emerged and spread. The first reason relates to economy, where the governance of inputs (students, resources, etc.) is considered far too expensive and does not work effectively. Another aspect concerns the fast-changing high-technology society that requires a restructuring of the educational systems. The third reason is the emergence and establishment of a global knowledge economy.

Today, no universally accepted definition of the core content of standards-based reform exists, but most often, the following components are emphasized to varying degrees: i) academic expectations placed on students; ii) alignment of key elements in the education system; iii) assessments of student achievement; iv) support and technical assistance; v) accountability; and vi) school governance structures that give schools autonomy on how to organize instructional programmes to achieve high student performance standards at the local level (Chatterji, 2002, Hamilton et al., 2012). Based on the final characteristic, school principals are supposed to have strong autonomy as managers of their local schools. In the local context and practice, and as a consequences of principals’ agency, school leaders then can make different curriculum choices (Ståhlkrantz, 2022).

The Swedish standards-based curriculum, Lgr 11

The Lgr 11 curriculum reform was introduced with the aim to strengthening national governance and provide a clearer focus on knowledge (Government Bill 2008/09:87). There are three constitutive elements of Lgr 11: aim, core content and knowledge requirements, which all have been influenced by standards-based curriculum reforms (Sundberg & Wahlström, 2012). Such examples are the influence of standards, which can be noticed in the focus on results and achievement and performance of formulated knowledge content; alignment, which can be identified in the way that the main parts of Lgr 11 (aim, core content, and knowledge requirements) are aligned; assessment, for example through specified levels of requirements; guidelines, such as more detailed guidelines for the assessment of knowledge. Less obvious influence by standards-based curriculum reforms can also be identified. Such examples are decentralization, since Lgr 11 has not been accompanied by increased decentralized responsibility for decisions on local curriculum planning and curriculum work, and accountability in terms of rewards and sanctions based on results achieved (Sundberg & Wahlström, 2012).

School principals as policy translators

Every local school responds to policy ideas in its own specific way, and school principals play an important role in translating these ideas into local institutional practices. Therefore, school leadership has been singled out as a crucial strategic factor in local enactment of transnational and national education reforms (Gunter, 2011, Sivesind & Wahlström, 2017, Uljens & Ylimaki, 2015). Honig and Hatch (2004) used the term crafting coherence to describe policy enactment as an ongoing, dynamic process of negotiation in which school leaders continuously craft a fit between external policy demands and their schools’ own goals and strategies. Singh et al. (2013) conceptualized the policy process that school principals undertake as a multidimensional and value-laden activity that exists in context. While school principals experience and enact reform demands, they add new meaning to their leadership practices by going through a ‘sense-making process’ (Ganon-Shilon & Schechter, 2019), in which they translate new ideas into new education practices using their leadership discretion to adjust the ideas to their schools’ specific contexts while striving to interpret reforms in accordance with their own pedagogical visions. Considering that social context and personal factors—e.g. professional experience, beliefs and values—seem to hold great significance for school principals’ sense-making of national reforms, these reforms will be carried out differently in local contexts. However, institutional factors will mediate how these policies are interpreted and enacted (Ball et al., 2012). Considering that principals exert strong influence over education reform implementation, they need to understand not only the demands and expectations of reform, but also the local contexts into which the reform is set to be enacted. School leaders then are expected to execute ‘good translations’ (Øygarden & Mikkelsen, 2020) using translator skills (Røvik, 2008, 2016), facilitating intended policy ideas’ success (Schmidt, 2008).

Discursive institutionalism

Discursive institutionalism (DI) is an analytical framework and ‘an umbrella concept’ for approaches concerned with ideas’ substantive content and the interactive discourse processes in institutional contexts (Schmidt, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2015). As a framework that takes ‘both ideas and discourse seriously’ (Schmidt, 2008), DI is characterized by setting ideas and discourse in an institutional context, putting ideas in their ‘meaning context’ and taking a dynamic view of change (Schmidt, 2008). The ‘institutionalism’ in DI addresses the institutional context’s importance, in which ideas are communicated through discourse by different agents, leading to action (Schmidt, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2015). As an analytical framework, DI seeks to account for complexity ‘by teasing out the ideas behind the action, as well as the discourse’ (Schmidt, 2011, p. 116).

Taking ideas and discourse seriously

In DI, a distinction is made between ‘idea’ and ‘discourse’, with ideas conceptualized as ‘the substantive content of discourse’, and discourse as ‘the interactive process of conveying ideas’ (Schmidt, 2008, p. 303). By using DI, ‘the content of ideas and the interactive processes that are reflected through discourses in institutional contexts’ can be examined (Sivesind & Wahlström, 2017, p. 446). According to Schmidt (2008, 2010, 2011, 2015), ideas can be categorized into two types—cognitive and normative—which can be found on three levels of generality: policies; programmes; and philosophies. Cognitive ideas explain ‘what is and what to do’, while normative ideas provide guidance for ‘what is good or bad about what is’, i.e. ‘what one ought to do’ (Schmidt, 2008, p. 306). Policy ideas occur at the first and most immediate level as policy solutions that policy makers propose. At the second level lie programmatic ideas, which concern more general agendas that underpin policy ideas. At the third level, philosophical ideas encompass the deepest level of ideas. As wide concepts, covering normative values and moral principles, philosophical ideas are anchored in the political sphere to a greater extent than in the policy sphere. In terms of the pace of ideational change, policy ideas change more rapidly than programmatic ideas. Philosophical ideas are the slowest to evolve and, therefore, have the most longevity. Considering that policy ideas and programmatic ideas are discussed and debated on a regular basis, they can be viewed as the foreground, while philosophical ideas ‘generally sit in the background as underlying assumptions that are rarely contested except in times of crisis’ (Schmidt, 2008, p. 306).

In the Swedish case, school principals’ translations of the standards-based curriculum take place at the ‘local policy solution level’ (Wahlström & Sundberg, 2018a), in which school principals are responsible for education in accordance with national state goals and regulations. This ideational policy level concerns background ideas about historical and cultural education traditions (normative ideas) and a societal understanding of education (cognitive ideas). Foreground ideas at this level concern normative ideas about local school traditions, and cognitive ideas concern the enacted curriculum (Wahlström & Sundberg, 2018a).

The importance of viewing ideas and discourse in institutional contexts encompasses not only formal (or informal) institutional contexts, but also ‘meaning contexts’ (Schmidt, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2015). Discourse is conceptualized by Schmidt (2008) as ‘a more versatile and overarching concept than ideas’ (p. 310), simultaneously covering both ‘the substantive content of ideas’ and ‘the interactive processes by which ideas are conveyed’ (p. 305). Therefore, discourse is ‘not just ideas or “text” (what is said), but also context (where, when, how and why it was said)’ (Schmidt, 2008, p. 305). Discourse will promote or hinder ideas’ success, among other attributes, because various types of discourse may be emphasized in different institutional settings (Schmidt, 2008).

Human actors as ‘sentient agents’

Within DI, ideas are viewed as being ‘carried by’ agents (Schmidt, 2011). When these agents communicate their ideas through discourse, they can be defined as ‘sentient agents’ (Schmidt, 2010, 2011, 2015). As thinking and speaking humans, sentient agents may ‘generate and deliberate about ideas through discursive interactions that lead to collective action’ (Schmidt, 2011, p. 115). If we view school principals as sentient agents and drivers of change, institutional context will matter. The principals’ ideas (what they think about what to do) and discourse (what they say about what to do) will function as change tools. The institutional context then will be ‘the setting within which their ideas have meaning, their discourses have communicative force and their collective actions make a difference (if they do what they say they think about what to do)’ (Schmidt, 2011, p. 119). Institutions are internal to sentient agents, ‘serving both as structures (of thinking and acting) that constrain action and as constructs (of thinking and acting) created and changed by those actors’ (Schmidt, 2010, p. 14). Background ideational abilities support our ability to make sense in a given meaning context, and to get things right in terms of ideational rules or a given discursive institutional setting’s rationality (Schmidt, 2010). However, foreground ideational abilities enable agents to think ‘outside’ the institutions in which they act, and to communicate about them in a critical and deliberate way (Schmidt, 2010, 2011, 2015). To sum up, DI strongly emphasizes actor agency (Nordin & Sundberg, 2018), in which a strong focus is directed towards humans as thinking, speaking and acting agents, as well as their experiences with the world around them. DI also takes into consideration the normative aspects of institutional change.

Translator competence—an analytical framework

An important prerequisite for a successful transfer of ideas is to be successful in the translation process, i.e. executing ‘good translations’ (Øygarden & Mikkelsen, 2020). To be a successful translator, you need advanced translator skills. Drawing on translation theory, which concerns how ideas change as they circulate from one context to another and what organizations can do with these ideas (Nielsen, 2019), Røvik (2008, 2016) developed a framework of ‘translator competence’. This framework, which includes four essential translation skills, has been used as analytical tool in the study.

According to Røvik, a skilled translator must master and combine knowledge, creativity, patience and strength as a set of abilities, or virtues. The knowledgeable, multi-contextual translator must have in-depth knowledge not only of what needs to be translated, but also of the translation processes and both the ‘delivering’ and ‘receiving’ contexts. When school principals act as curriculum translators, they need a deep understanding of the curriculum’s core content and principles, as well as its built-in conflicts, compromises and ambiguities. Knowledge about the contexts into which the curriculum will be translated includes local history, school actors, organizational structures and routines, and institutionalized norms, rules and regulations. The brave and creative translator must be able to combine consideration for what will be transferred and translated, while simultaneously considering the context from which the idea derives, so that it all fits, makes sense and can be used in a new context. With courage and creativity, skilled translators verbalize and visualize ideas into new concepts, metaphors and images, as well as challenge prevailing perceptions. Considering that change processes take time, patience is a crucial translator competency as well. The patient translator can be a prerequisite of an idea, which at first only leads to ‘talk’ within an organization, but in the long term can be institutionalized in sustainable routines and practices. Translation and implementation of organizational ideas also often takes place in a context characterized by conflicts and resistance to change. This requires the translator to be able to ‘read’ and familiarize themselves with the conflict and interest dimensions within the organization, as well as ability to deal with resistance. The strong translator needs to have in-depth knowledge of the field or fields of practice into which the idea is to be translated, implemented and used, as well as authority. Although the translator competence framework claims to communicate an ideal of how to translate the standards-based curriculum successfully, in this study principals’ translator competences are intended to be considered as an expression of their ‘background ideational abilities’ (Schmidt, 2010, 2011, 2015). By integrating Røvik’s (2008) framework and a PI approach, with DI, the aim is to providing opportunities for a broader and richer analysis of school principals’ translations of the standards-based curriculum.

Pragmatic institutionalism

Røvik (2008) referred to this translator competence framework as a pragmatic institutionalism (PI) approach, i.e. a theory about supply, transfer and reception of ideas based on and contributing to empirical observations’ structure, which can appear to be tangled and ambiguous. PI, as a theoretical approach, draws on John Dewey´s pragmatism. Pragmatism refers to actions and practical engagement with the world. As an extension of this reasoning, education is viewed as ‘a thoroughly human practice in which questions about ‘how’ are inseparable from questions about ‘why’ and ‘what for’ (Biesta & Burbules, 2003, p. 22). The pragmatic perspective further enables an understanding of action as not simply a technical and rational enterprise. As humans, we always are socially and historically situated, i.e. placed ‘within’ situations; thus, the intentions behind our actions apply only in this actual context and ‘as a result of reflection on the emerging constraints in the practical world that always precede action’ (Bergh & Wahlström, 2018, p. 137).

For Dewey, the concept of experience was fundamental. Dewey’s theory of experience (Dewey, 1997) is based on the interaction between humans and the world: ‘These interactions are what human organisms experience’ (Garrison, 1994, p. 9). The term experience refers to the transactions between humans and the environment, and it can be conceptualized as how humans interact with their environment (Garrison, 1994). PI focusses attention on organization members’ lived experiences (e.g. school principals). These experiences also speak to the pluralism present in institutional life, as well as the agency resulting from individuals’ ‘simultaneous immersion in multiple institutions and institutional roles’ (Beaton et al., 2021, p. 1475). Organizational members are recognized further as complex and knowledgeable, ‘with agency to interpret and define the social world through moral choices that reflect their values’ (Beaton et al., 2021, p. 1474). The concept of agency is embedded in Dewey’s pragmatism, with an understanding of the individual ‘as an agent of change, with responsibility for both individual and collective development’ (Bergh & Wahlström, 2018, p. 138). Pragmatic institutionalists view knowledge as that which is useful in practice and propose that what people find useful is good and true (Beaton et al., 2021, Røvik, 2008).

Practical problems and consequences are important matters for PI researchers, but because different organizational members may find different ideas useful, there will be ‘a plurality of sound ways to meaningfully construct the world’ (Beaton et al., 2021, p. 1474). Therefore, within the pragmatism framework, utility and successful work are discussed in the plural. PI is characterized by an effort to bring out the fundamental ambiguity that characterizes many phenomena, as well as a clear empirical focus (Røvik, 2008). PI research further directs attention to people’s behaviour within organizations simultaneously, as well as their responses to the environment (Beaton et al., 2021).

Data and method

The empirical data underlying the present study were collected through interviews. School principals from four compulsory schools in different geographical regions of Sweden, selected through purposive sampling (Etikan et al., 2016), were interviewed. The principals represented both high- and low-performing schools, based on performance data (grades) from the Swedish National Agency for Education (NAE, 2021) and their databases, SIRIS and SALSA. The interviewers followed a semi-structured interview guide (Freebody, 2003) comprising questions about teaching policy at the local schools. The interviews were recorded and transcribed, conducted in accordance with the general requirements for research ethics (Swedish Research Council, 2017) regarding information, consent, confidentiality and use of data. The schools were given fictitious names to protect their identities. As a first step in the analysis, the transcribed interviews were read through several times to ensure familiarization with the texts and to detect various themes. During the second step, an in-depth and structured text analysis was conducted. Røvik (2008, 2016) analytical framework of ‘translator competence’ was used to analyse the school principals’ ‘background ideational abilities’ (Schmidt, 2010, 2011, 2015) when translating the standards-based curriculum. During the third and final step, critical and deliberative discourses on the school principals’ narratives were analysed, interpreted as their ‘foreground ideational abilities’ (Schmidt, 2010, 2011, 2015).

Results

School principals translating the standards-based curriculum using their background ideational abilities

Various examples of the school principals’ ‘translator competence’ (Røvik, 2008, 2016), interpreted as their ‘background ideational abilities’ (Schmidt, 2010, 2011, 2015), were detected during the interviews.

School principals as knowledgeable and multi-contextual translators

The empirical material contains various examples of the principals’ in-depth knowledge of the standards-based curriculum’s core content and principles. All the principals seemed to have solid knowledge of the curriculum’s overall values and objectives, as well as the syllabus. Reflecting on the syllabus, the principals provided examples of the importance of giving every student the opportunities to meet each subject’s standards. Pine Tree’s principal exemplifies how all teachers continuously analyse students’ learning, then try to find ways to improve teaching. To meet higher standards in mathematics, teaching is organized with two qualified teachers for each lesson. Furthermore, at Pine Tree School, a native speaker teaches students English starting in preschool (i.e. at 6 years old). Larch Tree’s principal emphasizes the importance of continuous assessment and follow-up, where teaching monitored continuously through various control systems to ensure that students meet standards as much as possible. Larch Tree’s principal also explicitly provides several examples of having good knowledge about how to manage the curriculum to secure a tight alignment of curriculum, instruction, assessment and accountability. Pine Tree’s principal has clear and well-implemented strategies on how to align the curriculum’s various elements more tightly. When analysing the interviews, the principals seem to vary in degree and methods, having well-thought-out and implemented strategies on how to obtain tight alignment of the curriculum, instruction, assessment and accountability. These different curriculum leadership strategies can be viewed as examples of strong autonomy regarding how to organize instructional programmes to achieve high standards of student performance as managers of local schools.

All the principals reflected on how the standards-based curriculum affects which areas they focus on more closely in their leadership activities. For example, Oak Tree’s principal exemplified how digitalization is a prioritized area in this year’s school improvement plan. The Swedish school’s inspectorate strongly influences what to prioritize in school leadership as well. Another example is mandatory national tests that the Swedish Education Authority distributes. These tests govern large blocks of the year’s calendar and teachers’ planning, Birch Tree’s principal said.

As knowledgeable and multi-contextual translators, an important aspect for the principals is to have a deep understanding of the built-in conflicts, compromises and ambiguities in the standards-based curriculum. One such aspect concerns finding a balance between high expectations placed on academic standards, and norms and values. The principals also must compromise between keeping a tight alignment of curriculum, instruction, assessment and accountability on one hand, and teachers’ professional autonomy on the other hand. While Larch Tree and Pine Tree’s principals manage the curriculum through well-thought-out control systems, Birch Tree and Oak Tree’s principals emphasize trust in the professionals. Regarding high academic expectations placed on students, this aspect of the standards-based curriculum reveals compromises and ambiguities. Oak Tree’s principal highlighted the importance of students reaching the minimal standards for entering upper secondary school. However, Larch Tree and Pine Tree’s principals focused on paving the way for students to achieve as much as possible while improving their academic skills.

Having good knowledge about the context into which the standards-based curriculum will be translated includes in-depth knowledge about the individual school’s history, actors, organizational structures and routines, and institutional aspects, e.g. norms, rules and regulations. All interviewees have worked as principals at their schools for several years and possess in-depth knowledge about the contexts into which the curriculum is translated, as well as their schools’ history and various local school actors. Pine Tree’s principal noted that for several years, the school has had a joint idea on how teaching should be carried out, a so-called ‘pedagogical platform’. When Pine Tree School was launched 20 years ago, the pedagogical platform was designed, and the present principal has continued to work on this pedagogical idea.

Larch Tree and Pine Tree are high-performing schools characterized by a stable group of teachers, most of whom have worked at these schools for a long time. A large proportion of teachers also is qualified to teach their respective subjects. Another characteristic of these two high-performing schools’ students is that they have acquired almost all of their education at these schools, creating continuity and other good conditions for them to achieve solid academic results.

The two high-performing schools contain many students from various ethnic backgrounds. For example, Pine Tree’s principal noted that a quarter of the school’s students are from different ethnic backgrounds. Larch Tree’s principal added that 40 different languages are spoken among the school’s students. Furthermore, the parents of the students at these two schools have higher education. Even at Oak Tree School, a large proportion of the students are multilingual, but what distinguishes these students at the two high-performing schools is their lower socioeconomic status.

School principals as brave and creative translators

A significant part of being a brave and creative translator of the standards-based curriculum is making sense of its core ideas so that they can fit in and be used in the local school context. Translator skills needed for this include being competent to verbalize and visualize ideas into new concepts, metaphors and images. Furthermore, a brave and creative translator also needs to be skilled at challenging prevailing perceptions. Larch Tree’s principal described using the ‘key metaphor’ to visualize the importance of meeting each subject’s standards, referring to academic knowledge as ‘keys that can open doors later in life’. Pine Tree’s principal stressed the alignment of curriculum, instruction, assessment and accountability as the school’s ‘pedagogical platform’. Similarly, Larch Tree’s principal visualized this alignment as akin to everything being woven together through ‘the school’s wallpaper’. Using the metaphor ‘mind the gap’, referring to the London Underground, Larch Tree’s principal verbalizes and visualizes the school’s mission, always tightly preparing students for the next education step:

When it comes to teaching, I think we should prepare them for the next step. That is our assignment. We need to understand what they are expected to do in the next step. And then we talk about a concept called ‘Mind the gap’. When you are in the London Underground, you must think about the distance between the platform and the train when you get off. I’ve heard it a few times. (Principal, Larch Tree School)

Both Birch Tree and Oak Tree’s principals reflected on the importance of bringing the outside world into their teaching to make learning interesting and meaningful. For example, to create an interesting learning environment for students at Birch Tree School, the principal encourages teachers to go outside their safety zones and try new teaching methods. The principal used the metaphor ‘go outside the box’ when describing the ideal teacher becoming creative.

Pine Tree’s principal provides examples of being a brave translator who challenges prevailing perceptions: The school’s students have no traditional compulsory homework; teachers do not use traditional teaching books—only the curriculum—and students exert great influence on both teaching content and form, placing high demands on the teachers. Putting aside textbooks and just letting things happen through interactions with students in the classroom stimulates creativity for both students and teachers, but require feeling safe and take time to learn, the principal stated. Nevertheless, some job-seeking teachers found the school’s methods overly challenging and difficult, and refused to apply for jobs at the school. In another example of being a brave and creative translator, Pine Tree’s principal referred to national legal requirements and the importance of finding creative ways to handle them. For example, the principal reflected on how to balance national regulations on time devoted to subjects with the school’s interdisciplinary way of teaching, which requires a great deal of creativity:

It is very difficult to do interdisciplinary work when we have to ensure the number of hours and it has to be reported in statistics and so on. When you do the schedule, you must do almost like a fake schedule because we have to prove that we have had all the Swedish minutes, all the math minutes, all the craft minutes. (Principal, Pine Tree School)

School principals as patient and strong translators

Larch Tree and Pine Tree’s principals, as empirical examples, patiently translated the standards-based curriculum into institutionalized and sustainable routines and practices. It has been a long-term project comprising constant refinement of routines. At Pine Tree, the joint pedagogical idea was visible in deeply institutionalized routines and practices even before the current principal started working at the school more than five years ago: ‘Much of what school is today, it was before I came’, the principal stated during the interview, then emphasized having a clear communication strategy:

Eighty percent of the time, you communicate, either in small talk or in big talk or in written talk. I’m pretty clear about what I want in all the conversations we have, and I use my communicative skills. […] I have maybe 10, 15 different written plans that are not shelf heaters. Instead, they show who we are. (Principal, Pine Tree School)

This is an example of how curriculum management starts with talking about its ideas within the organization and thereafter through clear communication strategies, so that the curriculum over time gets institutionalized within the local school’s routines and practices.

Oak Tree’s principal over the years continuously has struggled to hold on to what the principal referred to as ‘the school’s professional assignment that all should be done to benefit the students’ learning progress’:

If we can keep focusing on our mission, then you can turn the ship. You need to be stubborn, and I am stubborn. It takes a lot that I hold on even though you sometimes feel like you cannot bear it. I must be strong and hold on. (Principal, Oak Tree School)

Examples of conflicts and resistance to change, and how to handle these kinds of issues were rare during the interviews. The examples provided mainly concerned standing up to parents in defending the school’s pedagogical ideas, but examples also can be found of clear expectations being placed on teachers. To prevent conflicts and opposition to parents when students start school, Pine Tree’s principal invites all parents to a meeting and tells them about the school’s pedagogical ideas and that the students, among other things, will not receive any homework. Both Pine Tree and Oak Tree’s principals strongly emphasize principals and teachers’ authority as professionals.

The interviews contained various reflections about difficulties with parents’ cooperation. For example, Larch Tree’s principal described difficulties getting parents involved in education matters, e.g. some teachers opposed devoting so much time to try and interact with parents. The principal then must exert authority to convince the teachers to persevere:

Yes, you must convince your staff to call homes. We have chosen to build relationships with the parents and build trust, and you do not build trust by saying: ‘Log in to our Internet and read about your child!’ You build trust in a meeting or a conversation. (Principal, Larch Tree School)

Larch Tree’s principal further noted that all teachers know well about the expectations placed on them: ‘Yes, you see, in several different ways, all teachers know my expectations’. However, these expectations are not only about building relations with parents, but also primarily about motivating students to learn:

You must know that you must motivate the students; otherwise, the students do not want to learn anything. That’s it. Almost a waste of time. The teachers know from the introductory training we give them that they must motivate the students – and they must motivate the students by varying the teaching and assessment methods. (Principal, Larch Tree School)

To sum up, the interview responses contained various examples of how the principals, as strong translators, have authority and in-depth knowledge of the practices into which the curriculum will be translated, implemented and put into use. All principals have worked at their particular schools for several years and have extensive experience working as school leaders, giving them authority.

School principals as critical and deliberative sentient agents: using their foreground ideational abilities

Finding ways to handle legal requirements by using principal agency

During the interviews, the principals reflected critically about how to balance legal requirements with professional autonomy. For example, the Swedish Education Act (SFS 2010:800) stipulated that teachers must be qualified to teach each subject. A teacher who is not qualified, among other things, cannot be responsible for grading. The principals at the two low-performing schools struggled mightily to recruit qualified teachers. While not being able to recruit qualified teachers in each subject, Oak Tree and Birch Tree’s principals needed to find creative ways to handle this situation. For example, at Birch Tree, the principal emphasized the importance of collaboration between teachers and co-assessment as important strategies.

Pine Tree’s principal found the curriculum and the school excessive and concluded that it was impossible to handle everything simultaneously. However, under external pressure, e.g. a school inspection report, the principal learned to adapt:

I have read the inspection report and tried to compare where it concerns us. […] I want to follow curriculum and school law, but it is other inputs that influence what it is I focus on. (Principal, Pine Tree School)

During the interviews, the principals criticized school inspections. Oak Tree’s principal described how, as a principal, you always must be aware of whether an inspection is in progress, then you must have your documentation in order: Because I know that there are schools that have a lot of documents, everything is in place, and the Swedish Schools Inspectorate is super happy. But then maybe the job is not always the best, but this is not what the inspectorate is looking at.

Each year, Sweden’s national education authority administers mandatory national tests in mathematics, Swedish and English, among other subjects. Lots of time must be spent organizing and administering these tests—time that could be spent on more important tasks that could benefit students’ learning better, according to Birch Tree’s principal:

In general, and as national tests have increased in number, it must be said that a great deal of time is spent […]. I can be critical of that in relation to what you get out of the result […]. If you put everything that is put into the tests on teaching, you could work more with reading and writing. (Principal, Birch Tree School)

Closing gaps between the school and parents

As for working with parents, the principals made it clear that the school and parents have different roles and responsibilities, so they’re not always in agreement. Principals expect parents to create conditions that help students succeed in school, while school professionals are responsible for actual teaching. During the interviews, various examples surfaced of parents who engaged by commenting on the school’s professional work:

I think parents are the biggest problem we have […]. Parents who want to get involved in it. Or who do not think it is good enough with an E because it is the lowest grade. I think it’s a societal trend, that you go into arenas that you do not understand […]. Parents think that they should influence in a way that is not favourable […]. We are professionals and work in school, and we know what we should do. (Principal, Pine Tree School)

Birch Tree’s principal argued further that ‘the school seems to be a kind of general right, where everyone can tell what we should do’, and that ‘everyone has the right to think what they want and give their opinions of school’.

The interviews also elicited instances of parents who do not have the capacity to support their children’s schooling. As Oak Tree’s principal put it, ‘I see that the students around whom a lot happens, it is always the parenting skills that are missing’. The empirical material contains examples of the lack of trust in the school as well:

Today, more responsibility and guilt are placed on the school. The number of registrations increase, and parents do not have as much energy to be parents, and the problems are transferred to the school. It’s a shame for young people when parenthood fails. (Principal, Birch Tree School)

At Larch Tree School, the principals expect parents to follow up on their children’s learning outcomes continuously, but the principal reflected on how parents do not meet these expectations:

I do not know if we have different parents now than 10 years ago, but it’s hard to meet them, hard to get them to call back. They do not log in to our website very often. I send out emails very often, with links to grading information, about social media, how they can help and support their children and things like that. (Principal, Larch Tree School)

Absent parents, in turn, create insecure children, Birch Tree’s principal noted: ‘This is one of the most urgent challenges for not only the school, but for the whole society’. The school does not seem to be as important as a social institution anymore:

I think it is very frightening how absent the parents are from the young people’s education. That they no longer think that school has a particularly important role. They view it as a form of storage. (Principal, Birch Tree School)

The principals further reflected on how schools and society have changed over time. Schools today are not the same as when the students’ parents were students. Birch Tree’s principal problematizes how parents refer to their own schooling and how this ‘becomes a burden in discussions’. Digitalization is an example of a core aspect that has changed both education content and teaching practices. Digitalization also carries implications for communication. Instead of meeting in person or through phone calls, communication between schools and students’ parents now mainly is done through digital tools, e.g. email, SMS and Facebook. This places new demands on principals and teachers. Among other factors, this makes it easier to report on and criticize school districts and national authorities, thereby putting principals under more pressure.

Balancing high standards with schools’ contextual prerequisites

The schools’ mission to compensate for, among other things, students’ disabilities and social conditions, is woven throughout the principals’ narratives. When referring to high academic standards and expectations placed on students, the principals problematized contextual aspects that affect achievement of these goals. Oak Tree’s principal noted that many of the school’s students are socioeconomically vulnerable, and the school cannot solve all problems on its own. Thus, society at large must help:

Here, society has an important role. I wish there was a meeting place here that really targeted the citizens of the area with active help with this: Do you have an interpreter? Do you need to get something translated? Need help? Another example is that not everyone has computers. (Principal, Oak Tree School)

The principals also reflected on how all students should expect to be ‘included’ in teaching practice. Birch Tree School’s principal referred to teachers being in the crossfire of improving students’ academic outcomes, legal requirements in grading, expectations that all students be included in the classroom and students with different types of learning difficulties:

As an educator, you struggle today with having to follow all the legal requirements, to think about the grades and how to assess. It is perhaps even more scattered in classrooms today. Some … do not know the language so well, among other difficulties. In the inclusive world we have, everyone should be in the classroom, and this places much higher demands on teachers than it did some years ago. (Principal, Birch Tree School)

At Larch Tree, the principal referred to a group of students who are not motivated to learn and wind up ruining their classmates’ learning experience and wasting teachers’ time:

There are 10, 20 percent who do not take up the teaching, who do not focus, who do not go ‘all in’ and really try as much as they can. And these students can sometimes disrupt the whole class […]. We waste teachers’ resources chasing such students. (Principal, Larch Tree School)

Students have different prerequisites when they start school, and Oak Tree’s principal highlights that the school has a challenging mission to compensate for these. However, policy makers seem to have little understanding that schools in Sweden have various possibilities to compensate for these inequalities, Oak Tree’s principal argued, noting that some students ‘will never catch up’.

Problematising equity

When talking about equity, the principals do not believe that students at different schools receive equal opportunities: ‘A school for everyone, it no longer exists in Sweden, I think’, Birch Tree School’s principal said. This is due to a variety of factors, the principals noted, including neighbourhood segregation:

Most schools require their students attend based on where they live, and it is clear that students on the other side of town, where house prices are twice as high as they are here, they get a different kind of students, from a different kind of family background. (Principal, Larch Tree School)

Another factor is the national shortage of teachers, and that the difficulties in recruiting qualified teachers are greater for some schools and regions than others:

Without a doubt, we do not have an equal education here in Sweden, and you can see that in many various ways. At first, it can be stated that not all schools have qualified teachers. (Principal, Larch Tree School)

On a national level, Larch Tree’s principal noted that teacher education quality varies nationwide, leading to inequality in teachers’ competencies:

The quality of teacher education varies qualitatively across the country. And what you get from different universities varies greatly. […] And it is clear that it affects the teaching. How can it not affect the teaching (Principal, Larch Tree School)?

School leadership is also important in terms of equality. Not all school principals receive enough leadership training, and high school leader turnover also will affect equality negatively, the principals said. The principals further criticized national initiatives aimed at increasing equality, i.e. ensuring that all schools function identically. One such example is national grants and incentives for teaching assistants:

What I want is to get better at seeing that equality does not mean that we should do the same things […]. I do not like what the state does when they come and say that now it should be invested in teaching assistants or now it should be invested on this or that. And then you spend a lot of money on something we do not want. (Principal, Oak Tree School)

Concluding discussion

In this study, school principals’ translations of the Swedish standards-based curriculum have been examined and analysed using Røvik’s (2008; 2016) theoretical framework of ‘translator competence’. In the empirical material, various examples of the school principals’ ‘translator competence’ as knowledgeable, creative, patient and strong translators were identified. These translator skills can be conceptualized further as ‘background ideational abilities’ (Schmidt, 2010, 2011, 2015) that support the school principals’ contextual sense-making processes in executing successful translations. The PI perspective that undergirds Røvik’s (2008, 2016) framework of ‘translator competence’, emphasizes not only the usefulness of ideas in practice, but also moral agency (Beaton et al., 2021). For Røvik (2008), the main purpose of translating ideas is to translate them into practice, i.e. the ideas should materialize and create certain intended effects within the organization that uses them. Ideational translations’ success then would depend on to what extent the translators have the necessary translator skills and use their agency to exercise them (Røvik, 2008, 2016).

Drawing on PI and notions about that practical utility and moral agency, it is then necessary to return to Biesta and Burbules (2003), who argued that questions about ‘how’ cannot be separated from questions about ’why’ and ’what for’, which is an insight often addressed to clarify the complexity of the curriculum and Didaktik. Considering that Røvik’s (2008, 2016) ‘translator competence framework’ can be viewed as an ideal of what skills are needed to execute good translations of ideas, in accordance with policy makers’ intentions, the following question also will be important to ask: Useful and successful for whom, where and when? Moral agency then invites raising questions about what is desired as useful, good and true, as well as from whose perspective. The principals’ experiences reflect the inbuilt contradiction between the standards-based policy and local school’s professional autonomy. On one hand, the standards-based reform framework emphasizes decentralized responsibility for local schools on how to organize instructional programmes (Chatterji, 2002, Hamilton et al., 2012). On the other hand, previous research (Sundberg & Wahlström, 2012) has found that the Lgr 11 reform has not been accompanied by increased decentralized responsibility for decisions on local curriculum planning and curriculum work, concerning the ‘why’, ‘what’, and ‘how’ of teaching. The kind of translator competence the empirical data reflects, still comprises examples of principals’ professional autonomy when translating the standards-based curriculum in various ways in various contexts. But the empirical data also reflects the aims and criteria for what is counted as ‘successful’ translations, such as making the schools operational culture more efficient and raising expectations on teachers and students. The underlying assumptions behind the standards-based curriculum as a ‘masteridea’, reflected in school principals’ translations, implicate however a narrow understanding of principals’ professional autonomy. As a core aspect of standards-based reforms, accountability did not also prove to have gained much influence in the Swedish standards-based curriculum. As an example, specific regulations on poor achievements and results or rewards for good results is not included in Lgr 11 (Sundberg & Wahlström, 2012). The school principals in this study nevertheless critically reflect on accountability placed on them by the Swedish School Inspectorate, through its extended mandate for external quality audit and control.

The PI perspective helps draw attention to the plurality of experience, i.e. the variation in translations of different institutional practices. School principals will find different ideas useful, with variety evident in their translations of one and the same idea. Using a PI approach then makes it possible to examine the utility and success of school leadership and principal agency in the plural, emphasizing their experiences and translations of the standards-based curriculum as complex and pluralistic (Beaton et al., 2021, Ståhlkrantz, 2022). Supovitz and Weinbaum (2008) even asked the question of whether, or to what extent, translation fidelity is necessary, or even desirable, for implementation processes to be successful. They argued that variations from an intended policy reform may be necessary to fit its intentions into local situations and contexts.

The integration of PI and DI, which has provided opportunities for a broader understanding of school principals’ translations of the standards-based curriculum, hopefully can help develop the theoretical and methodological DI approach within education research. By integrating DI and PI as an overall theoretical framework, this study has spotlighted ideas and discourse, as well as agency and contextual and normative experience, as important aspects of policy translation. Following Schmidt (2011), ‘once things happen and actors act, they do develop ideas and discourse about what happened and what they did, which forms the basis of their explanations’ (p. 108). As empirical material, the interviews in this study were analysed as the school principals’ experiences of their translations of the Swedish standards-based curriculum. School principals’ ‘translator competence’ (Røvik, 2008, 2016) and ‘background ideational abilities’ (Schmidt, 2010, 2011, 2015) will help them make sense of ideas in the standards-based curriculum in different meaning contexts and get things right. The study’s aim was not to take a position on whether the object of translation, i.e. the standards-based curriculum, is good or bad, per se. However, the study did assume a critical perspective concerning notions of interviewees’ normative assumptions. By viewing school principals as ‘sentient agents’ and analysing their ‘foreground ideational abilities’ (Schmidt, 2010, 2011, 2015), their critical and deliberative experiences have received attention. Various discourses on foreground ideational abilities have been made visible in the school principals’ translation experiences. The principals argue critically and deliberatively about the difficulties of balancing legal requirements and professional autonomy, problems working with parents and the challenge of meeting high standards. The principals also problematized equity and the compensatory assignment of schooling. As Wahlström (2022) argued, the meaning of equity in education is multifaceted and contingent. A clear distinction can be made between the concepts of equality and equity. While equality concerns ‘offering the same resources and opportunities for all individuals across a school system’ (Wahlström, 2022, p. 30), equity refers to a school system that compensates for inequalities and enhances each student’s chances of having the same opportunities to reach their social and intellectual potential. In Sweden, the international meaning of equity has been replaced by the concept of equivalence (Wahlström, 2022). Another trend entails interpreting the concept of equivalence in terms of uniformity. Drawing on Wahlström (2022), such a focus may risk constraining school leaders’ professional agency and weakening public trust in schooling.

As ‘carriers of ideas’, Sweden’s school principals articulated and communicated their ideas about the standards-based curriculum in institutional contexts. Drawing on Uljens and Ylimaki (2015), school leadership concerns pedagogical influence. Urgent questions to pose include what influence is addressed, why, what for and for whom? Addressing principals as ‘sentient’ agents in discursive interactions in the translation processes of policy ideas enables them, as school leaders, to communicate critically and deliberately about the standards-based curriculum and take action to implement change.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Vetenskapsrådet [2017-03501].