Taking a step back for a leap forward: policy formation for the digitalisation of schools from the views of Swedish national policymakers

ABSTRACT

The modest impact of national policy efforts on school digitalisation relates to a gap between views among policy-makers and practitioners, giving rise to complexity in translating policy into action. Acknowledging changes in governing through alternative policy formation-processes, and Ward and Parr’s (2011) arguing for the importance of strategic- and operational policy coherence, the focus of this paper is the forming of a national plan of action for the digitalisation of schools in Sweden (#skolDigiplan). Within this interview study, the views on policy work and challenges of digitalisation of schools are explored among an exclusive management group of non-traditional Swedish policy-makers appointed to produce the #skolDigiplan. Based on the findings, I conclude that national policy making regarding the digitalisation of schools may be conducted through a collective process, with several educational stakeholders contributing. Furthermore, I suggest that non-traditional national policy-makers, arguing a lack of digital competence knowledge concerning schools at the governing or authority level, may consider taking a step back in the policy-formation process as a supportive action. Teacher training programmes, despite being portrayed as important for the policy outcome, were declared distant in this policy process.

KEYWORDS:

• Digital technology
• educational policy
• national action plan
• policy formation
• sweden

Acknowledgments

I wish to express my thanks to the participating group members for contributing to the study with valuable information.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ulrika Gustafsson

Ulrika Gustafsson is a PhD student in education at the Department of Applied Educational Science, Umeå University. Her main research interest is in the field of the digitalisation of the K-12 school, with a special interest in digital competence and policy.