Norwegian Superintendents as Mediators of Change Initiatives

Abstract

The underlying theoretical argument in this article views municipal school superintendents in the Nordic context as middle managers in organizational theory terminology. Empirical support for this discussion emerges from national data collected among Norwegian school superintendents in 2009. Findings show that the actual work and leadership functions of Norwegian school superintendents match theoretical properties of middle managers fairly well. Findings also suggest school superintendents actively mediate tensions embedded in the current Norwegian educational policy stream. Specifically, central aims derived from accountability discourse are filtered out and translated into traditional school-development and pedagogical-leadership discourse at the local managerial level.