Policy pressure on partnerships: intentions, expectations and legitimisation of Norwegian educational reform policy

ABSTRACT

Internationally, the emphasis on school reforms is increasing, and school leaders play a key role in realising reform initiatives for school development and change. Often, the formation of partnerships between researchers and practitioners for school improvement is promoted to facilitate professional development and enhance student learning. However, limited attention has been directed towards the underlying ideas, values and beliefs in government-initiated strategies for partnership in the policy context of educational reform. This paper examines how partnerships between schools and higher education institutions are conceptualised and legitimised in Norwegian reform policy documents. We analyse three government white papers, each coupled with an executive partnership strategy document. The analysis applies a discourse analytical approach to policy as text and transmission. Our findings show a shift in the official national discourse on partnerships in education, underscoring new tensions regarding the power to define focus areas in the local reform work.

KEYWORDS:

• Educational governance
• education policy
• educational reform policy
• partnerships in education
• school reform work

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to knowledge about the policy intentions of partnership between schools and higher education institutions (HEIs). The policy intention of school-university partnerships has intensified over the past four decades ‘within the broader context of demands for the reform of the educational systems’ (Tsui, Edwards, and Lopez-Real 2009, 4). Policy documents are the primary sources for understanding how organisations are expected to form reality on policy governance and signals (Coffey 2014). Therefore, we have examined how partnership is conceptualised and legitimised in recent Norwegian reform policy documents.¹

The policy intention of collaboration between schools and HEIs has taken many forms over the past four decades, often involving partnerships with teacher education to support newly qualified teachers (Beck and Kosnik 2002; Edwards and Mutton 2007; Tsui, Edwards, and Lopez-Real 2009). Partnerships between researchers and practitioners such as school leaders and teachers, is also a common governing strategy to support school improvement and professional development (Coburn and Penuel 2016; Smith and O’Leary 2015). They are assumed to be mutually beneficial, producing original analyses of local problems (Coburn, Penuel, and Geil 2013; Griffiths, Vidovich, and Chapman 2009) and contributing to solving problems in both schools and HEIs based on their complementary needs (Nilsson 2008). Research–practice partnerships are characterised by long-term collaboration with a focus on educational improvement in which engaging with research is an important activity (Farrell et al. 2021). There is also an increased expectation that professional practice in schools should be based on evidence of what works, understood as scientifically validated or best practices (Biesta 2010; Davies 1999; Simonsen et al. 2008; Slavin 2002). Empirical studies employing design-based and experimental approaches indicate that interventions in partnerships can have a positive influence on teacher learning and student outcomes (Booth et al. 2015; Fishman et al. 2003; Harris et al. 2015). While partnering has been described as a mode of governance and ‘a sign of the times’ (Dahlstedt 2009, 797), few studies have examined the political dimensions of partnerships (see Coburn and Penuel 2016), such as the policy intentions and expectations behind government arrangements² for a nationwide partnership between schools and HEIs or how such arrangements are legitimised.

We apply a discourse analytical approach towards policy as text and transmission to examine intentions within an institutionalised setting. To this end, we analysed three government white papers (WPs), each coupled with an executive partnership strategy document. These six documents represent an official discourse on reform work and partnerships in Norway. The following research questions guided our study:

1. Which intentions about school reform are presented in central Norwegian policy documents?

2. What expectations about partnership and school leadership can be unravelled in the policy documents?

3. How is partnership between schools and HEIs legitimised and connected to reform policy intentions in the documents and what tensions can be identified?

The terms intentions and expectations are closely linked semantically. By applying both terms we aim to capture the subtle nuances between aims and ideals (intentions) and directions concerning how these aims should be reached (expectations). In the following sections, we first characterise the education policy context in Norway. Second, we present and discuss our theoretical framework. We then introduce the main tenets of our selected documents, followed by the methodological approach of our study. Fourth, we present our analyses and findings, followed by a discussion of intentions and tensions in the documents. We conclude by highlighting some limitations of our study and suggesting areas for further research.

The Norwegian education policy context

In this article, the Norwegian case serves as an example of how partnerships between schools and HEIs are legitimised and connected to reform policy intentions. In Norway, the growth of government-sponsored partnerships has accumulated over the past two decades to forming part of a new incremental curriculum reform. There is a long tradition of public and comprehensive basic education in Norway, including strong ties between schools, HEIs and local trades and businesses (e.g. to support vocational training in upper secondary and further education for school professionals).

The new millennium represented a shift in Norwegian educational policy, as ‘The Knowledge Promotion Curriculum Reform 2006’ [Utdanningsdirektoratet, n.d.] (KP06) introduced competence aims, standardised testing, increased monitoring of results and expectations of evidence-based practices in schools. At the same time, the National Quality Assessment System (NQAS) was launched comprising standardised national and mapping tests, stakeholder surveys and final student results. These ambitions and measures were sustained in the latest reform (effective from 2020).

Theoretical framework

This study is anchored in an institutional perspective on policy as text and policy transmission (Ball, Maguire, and Braun 2012; Lawrence, Suddaby, and Leca 2009). This research perspective illuminates governmental expectations of institutional work in schools and HEIs as ‘the practices of individual and collective actors aimed at creating, maintaining, and disrupting institutions’ (Lawrence, Suddaby, and Leca 2011, 52). In this study, we understand disrupting as part of the processes and possible challenges of organisational change in relation to collaborative work between local schools and HEIs.

Policy as text

Studies on policy implementation often take for granted the meaning of policy as governmental problem-solving (Ball, Maguire, and Braun 2012). Policy texts cannot be implemented straightforwardly; they must be translated from text to action, put into practice and considered in relation to history and context (Ball, Maguire, and Braun 2012). When school professionals, such as school leaders, superintendents or representatives from HEIs, read policy documents on school reform, they may learn what, why and when new policies are meant to be enacted. Policy documents convey expectations of institutional work in schools, but they rarely tell school professionals exactly how the reform work, including partnership practices, should happen. Therefore, it is necessary to acknowledge that policy intentions may contain ambiguities, uncertainties and errors that provide and/or prevent opportunities for reform work in schools (Ball, Maguire, and Braun 2012). The national policy demand for school reform and partnership is ambiguous because the values and ideas of, for example, equal opportunities for all, quality assessment, and accountability are complex and may be understood differently in various contexts. Consequently, this article focuses on government intentions of policy rather than policy implementation.

Policy transmission as expectations towards institutional work

Policy has become even more important for running educational systems in the context of globalisation (Rizvi and Lingard 2010). We understand the work of school leaders and teachers as a fundamentally political process involving major trade-offs between values. Public education policies have to simultaneously deal with a range of issues, such as equality, excellence, autonomy, accountability and efficiency. Governance does not merely represent party politics or ideology but forms part of the broad global shift in public service discourses regarding ideas, organisations and practices involving performance control and competition (Ball 2008). Perspectives on this global shift are vital for investigating national policy reform intentions. Global policy transmission represents a top-down or ‘outside-in’ context of educational leadership.

Theories that represent institutional work (Lawrence, Suddaby, and Leca 2009; 2011) connect institutions with intention. Institutional work is a future-oriented activity in which stakeholders act intentionally and strategically to change practice. In this study, activities and purposes emerged through formulations in policy documents. When examining policy intentions, we move into a theoretical field that is often linked to leadership and management. We use the terms strategy and arrangement frequently in this paper. Although it is difficult to define the term strategy (Mintzberg 1987), strategies have traditionally been seen as something used by leaders and organisations to achieve outcomes (cf. Whittington 2006). We use the term arrangement as a translation of the term [ordning] found in Norwegian policy documents, as the level on which policy documents describe these might be more general than that found in a concrete and operationalised plan or strategy.

Educational leadership

At the local school level, leadership is considered the key to school improvement and reform work (Aas 2013; Berg 2000; Sarason 1996). It includes involving HEIs to enhance academic achievement and educational practices. The term school leadership refers to the work of principals, senior leaders and middle-level leaders, whereas educational leadership is directly linked to educational purposes and practices in which trained educational professionals work to develop the school’s pedagogy and curriculum to improve student learning and achievement (Gunter 2016). Arranging for partnership activities encompasses leadership practices e.g. how school leaders think of and talk about what needs to be changed in the school regarding collaboration, as policy texts rarely describe exactly how policy intentions work (Ball, Maguire, and Braun 2012).

Methodology: a discourse analytical approach

In this section, we present and justify our document selection. Then we describe the process of analysing the Norwegian reform policy documents conceptualised as three readings. The three readings represent three phases of analysis inspired by a discourse analytical approach (Fairclough 2003). Our simplified approach to discourse analysis functioned as a tool to explore how the policy intention of partnership between schools and HEIs is conceptualised. We critically examined the policy documents. Of concern was how the policy intentions and expectations about partnership, school leadership and school reform work were connected to different policy discourses. The researchers met between each reading to discuss the coding and categorisation of the documents as part of the analytical process.

Selection criteria and presentation of the policy documents

The standard model of bureaucracy is institutionalised in the Norwegian national policy context (Steiner-Khamsi, Karseth, and Baek 2020). Prior to issuing a reform, the government nominates commissions that recommend further action in organisational and societal practices. Government WPs, written by bureaucrats based on the recommendations of the Norwegian Official Commissions or NOUs [Norges offentlige utredninger], often form a foundation for later propositions and serve as reference points for contemporary government discourse (Neumann 2001). In this article, these later propositions are executive strategy documents that recommend partnership arrangements directed towards change and development at the school level. Our selection of documents stems from the era after KP06. They introduce comprehensive partnerships that are not limited to particular school subjects, such as language or mathematics, or limited areas of teaching and learning, such as assessment practices. Furthermore, the announced arrangements are explicitly aimed at supporting schools in realising curriculum reform intentions and/or contents.

Document 1: WP16 (2006–2007): … and none left behind

Described as illustrative of ‘equity through equality’ (Haugen 2010, 370), WP16 (Ministry of Education and Research [MER] 2007) was mainly concerned with creating equal learning opportunities and stressed the importance of early intervention to prevent attrition from upper secondary education. WP16 signalled a new comprehensive partnership arrangement called The Knowledge Promotion Reform – from Word to Deed (2006–2010), which replaced and extended the existing Programme for School Improvement (2005–2009) initiated by a former government. The new arrangement focused more specifically on supporting schools in realising KP06 and requested cooperation between schools, local education authorities and various competence providers (HEIs, but also private consultants).

Document 2 on the knowledge promotion reform – from word to deed arrangement

WP16 stated that the Knowledge Promotion Reform – from Word to Deed would be organised in the same way as the Programme for School Improvement. Therefore, we selected the description from the original programme for our analysis (Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training (NDET) n.d.). To receive funding, school improvement projects had to last 2–2.5 years and include cooperation between schools, local education authorities and competence providers. The purpose was to increase the competence and capacity for development at the school level by analysing the present situation and identifying problem areas.

Document 3: WP22 (2010–2011): motivation – mastering – possibilities

WP22 (MER 2011) targeted the lower secondary school level and prioritised areas for improvement. MER called for more practical, varied and relevant teaching with a focus on developing students’ literacy and numeracy and teachers’ classroom management to motivate and prepare students for upper secondary education.

Document 4 on development at the lower secondary level arrangement

WP22 was followed by an executive strategy document called ‘Motivation and Mastering for Improved Learning’ (NDET 2015), which involved reform engagement in every school subject in all lower secondary schools in Norway. In this new partnership arrangement, researchers from HEIs and national centres of expertise collaborated with national and local education authorities to develop measures that support school-based work on literacy, numeracy and classroom management.

Document 5: WP21 (2016–2017) eager to learn – early intervention and quality in schools

Focusing on early intervention, WP21 (MER 2017) introduced the expression ‘being eager to learn’ and provided a decentralised and lasting arrangement for development and reform work in schools and kindergartens in collaboration with local HEIs. The model incorporates a general partnership arrangement called Decentralised Competence Development and includes a mentoring system for municipalities with poor school quality results and an innovation programme designed to support interventional and classroom research.

Document 6 on the decentralised competence development arrangement

Although the Decentralised Competence Development (2017–) arrangement was introduced as a follow-up to WP21, there is no comprehensive document describing this arrangement. The NDET (2021) published online guidelines, which are also formulated as legal regulations for project funding (Retningslinjer for tilskuddsordning for lokal kompetanseutvikling i barnehage og grunnopplæring [Guidelines for subvention for local competence development in kindergartens, primary and secondary education], n.d.). The regulations of these two texts, which represent the sixth document in our selection, have since been extended to include the entire sector of teaching and learning, from kindergarten to upper secondary education. Table 1 provides an overview of the documents and partnership arrangements included in our study and the main focus areas of each.

Table 1. Overview of the selected policy documents, partnership arrangements and focus areas.

Doc. no.	Policy documents	Partnership arrangement	Focus areas
1	WP16 (2006–2007):  … And None Left Behind. Early Intervention for Lifelong Learning	The Knowledge Promotion Reform – From Word to Deed (2006–2010). This replaced the Programme for School Improvement (2005–2009) using the same executive document.	Equity/equal learning opportunities Retaining students in upper secondary education Early intervention Cooperation between schools, local education authorities and competence providers
2	Executive document: Programme for School Improvement. Programme description 2005–2008.
3	WP22 (2010–2011) Motivation – Mastering – Possibilities	Development at the lower secondary level (2012–2017)	Relevant, varied and practical teaching Increased student motivation Increase the rate of upper secondary completion Improved students’ results and mastering of basic skills Improved classroom management
4	Executive document: Motivation and mastering for improved learning: Common effort towards classroom management, calculation, reading and writing.
5	WP21 (2016–2017) Eager to Learn – Early Intervention and Quality in Schools	Decentralised Competence Development (2017–)	Increased student motivation Motivation to learn Early intervention Decentralised and collective school-based competence development Differentiated arrangements/measures Collaboration with local HEIs
6	Executive document: Subvention for Local Competence Development in Kindergartens, Primary and Secondary Education (NDET 2021)

The first Reading: obtaining an overview of the documents

The first reading proceeded by deductive and inductive qualitative content analysis. We sought to obtain an overview of the structure, themes, important terms, explicit reform intentions and how partnerships are described in relation to school reform work. We coded the documents distinguishing between the intended outcomes, measures supposed to lead to the intended outcomes, explicit ideas and conceptualisations, and an open category that included informative and narrative text for a closer inspection related to our research questions. We also performed data reduction by writing inductively categorised thematical summaries of the documents. Although our first content assessment and analysis were mainly qualitative, we also noted frequently recurring words and phrases. In order to focus our reading, we posed empirical questions to the documents, e.g. how are partnerships described in the documents? We undertook this reading as a preliminary step for interpreting patterns of discourse and discursive shifts (Jørgensen and Phillips 2002). We regard policy documents as communicative events (Fairclough 1995) and focus on the textual dimension of the policy documents as such events. Table 1 presents an overview of the themes and intentions.

The second Reading: identifying expectations

In the second reading, we sought to identify the expectations concerning the outcomes of reform policy and the expectations about partnerships in the documents. We understand expectations as more directive than intentions. Therefore, we looked specifically for modal verbs expressing obligation or recommendation, e.g. ‘Upgrading the lower secondary level shall make students more capable of completing upper secondary education’ (MER 2011, 7). Expectations can also be expressed implicitly when stated as facts, e.g. ‘[M]unicipalities and counties are responsible for school improvement work’ (MER 2007, 66). We interpreted the explicit and implicit expectations towards partnership and school leadership considering the central reform policy ideas identified in the first reading. To that end, we applied a discourse analytical approach to understand how the documents construct realities with language (Jørgensen and Phillips 2002; Neumann and Øverland 2004).

In line with critical discourse analytical approaches, we acknowledge discourse as ‘a form of social practice which both constitutes and is constituted by other social practices’ (Jørgensen and Phillips 2002, 61). Hence, we looked for exogenous expectations, such as references to OECD reports commenting on the situation in Norway. Examples of empirical questions which we posed to the documents in this phase were: What expectations are expressed in the documents regarding partnership, school leadership and reform work in schools?; and: What aims and purposes can be identified regarding expectations of enactment at the school level? As our analysis was limited to the documents, we reserved the term discourse for language ‘as an element of social life which is dialectically related to other elements’ (Fairclough 2003, 214–215). Thus, the second reading focused on policy documents as a discursive practice in which the ‘authors of texts draw on already existing discourses’ (Jørgensen and Phillips 2002, 69).

The third Reading: identifying discourses of legitimisation

The third reading aimed at identifying and reconstructing argumentation to connect the policy ideas and expectations identified in the first and second readings with the idea of partnerships between schools and HEIs. We applied a critical approach inspired by Fairclough (2003) and legitimisation as a strategic function (Chilton and Schäffner 2011) to discuss how partnership arrangements are legitimised in the policy documents, concentrating on reform work, school leadership and school-HEI partnerships as social practices. In line with a post-Foucauldian perspective on discourse, we looked for the structure of the regime(s) of knowledge, or discourses, on which these justifications are based, and how the documents construct ‘effects of truth’ (Jørgensen and Phillips 2002, 14). Examples of empirical questions which we posed to the documents in this phase were: What arguments and justifications are presented in the documents regarding partnerships between schools and HEIs in a reform context? We see our selected documents as links in an intertextual chain (Fairclough 1995), as we analyse six documents that are linked in terms of policy area, genre and temporality. Our analysis is critical ‘in the sense that it aims to reveal the role of discursive practice in the maintenance of the social world’ (Jørgensen and Phillips 2002, 63). The demand for evidence-based practice serves as an example of the justification and legitimisation of a regime of discourse. The analysis was guided by empirical and interchangeable questions in three different phases. The three pairs of documents have distinct positions in their respective time periods and legitimise the policy quest for partnership differently and progressively. Consequently, we found it essential to present the findings chronologically in correspondence with the main findings in each pair. Table 2 summarises the steps used to analyse the six policy documents.

Table 2. Document analysis steps.

	Aim	Strategies of analysis	Examples of empirical questions
1st reading: Text and interpretation	Obtain an overview of the structure, themes, important terms and reform intentions in the documents Identify central ideas	Deductive and inductive qualitative content analysis Word count	What intentions about school reform can be identified in the policy documents? How are partnerships described in the documents?
2nd reading: Text and interpretation	Identify expectations about reform policy and practice	Discourse analytical approach searching for thematic areas which represent different policy discourses on partnership, school leadership and school reform work	What expectations are expressed in the documents regarding partnership, school leadership and reform work in schools? What aims and purposes can be identified regarding expectations of enactment at the school level?
3rd reading: Text in context (national and international)	Identify the argumentation (values and beliefs) connecting the policy ideas and expectations with partnership.	Critical analysis of the identified thematic areas and how they are connected to policy discourses	What arguments and justifications are presented in the documents regarding partnerships between schools and HEIs in a reform context?

Analysis and findings

Next, we present our findings from the three WPs, coupled with each ensuing executive strategy document. We focus on the partnership arrangements initiated in these documents. Three main themes emerged from each pair of documents. The first pair focused on equity, early intervention and the quest for documented effects. The second pair highlighted centralised problem areas, wide diffusion and HEIs as providers. The third pair accentuated decentralisation, differentiation and ‘umbrella thinking’. The following section presents the findings, exemplified by excerpts from the documents.

Documents 1 and 2: equity, early intervention and the quest for documented effects

The Knowledge Promotion – from Word to Deed arrangement, introduced in WP16, aimed to improve equal learning opportunities through early intervention. The government’s aim was that the educational system should not ‘continue or fortify social inequality’ (MER 2007, 8).³ There is also a clear focus on aiding children with special needs and children with a minority or multilingual background. This explicit intention implies a discrepancy between what is structurally possible and what is actually realised in the education system: ‘Although there is a high level of formal equality of participation in the educational system, there is still a great social unfairness regarding participation, outcomes and choices in education’ (MER 2007, 12).

When problematising the differences in students’ learning outcomes, MER places the responsibility for change at the local level. This includes expectations to utilise the NQAS, which includes extensive mapping and testing, to identify children and students with language and learning difficulties: ‘The leadership level … plays a key role in initiating and being responsible for the execution of larger development work’ (MER 2007, 66). The government places the responsibility for school improvement programmes at the level of the local education authorities, known as the ‘school owners’ in Norway: ‘The programme takes as a point of departure that municipalities and counties are responsible for school improvement work … [which] has to be anchored at the school ownership level and carried out at each individual school’ (MER 2007, 66).

The government acknowledges that knowledge about teaching and learning is based on both experience and research (MER 2007, 65). However, they intend this work to become more research-based, especially regarding tools for supporting social equity:

In order to succeed in including all children, young people and adults in good learning and development processes, the work must to the greatest possible extent be based on that which has a positive influence on cognitive and social development, and on practices which promote learning and development. (MER 2007, 65)

Although this statement from MER provides direction towards more evidence-based approaches, there is an absence of pronouns. ‘The work’ is given the function of subject in a passive clause, but the statement says nothing about ‘work by or for whom’. The discourse on evidence-based practices is clear when MER states that it wants to ‘contribute to developing tools which have a documented effect, and by promoting more knowledge-based development work, improve practices in schools and kindergartens’ (MER 2007, 66). This statement mirrors the ‘what works’ agenda. Furthermore, MER underscored the importance of having a whole-school approach to school improvement projects: ‘Research shows that systematic work in which the whole organisation is involved, and which is based on knowledge of what works, gives results’ (MER 2007, 66).

The proposed partnership arrangement is only one of several measures mentioned in WP16, and it is named only twice in the document’s 212 pages. However, it is described as an important part of the government’s future support for school improvement and is linked to reform ideas in general and to the KP06 reform in particular.

MER (2007, 66) stated, ‘Too few development projects, both in kindergartens and in schools, take as a point of departure research and knowledge of that which has an effect’. Overall, research is highly important in this document, as it is given a syntactic subject function with the expression ‘research shows that’ around a dozen times. This legitimises arguments as strategic functions in the document (Chilton and Schäffner 2011). Notably, the former Programme for School Improvement did not demand that external partners have formal researcher competence (NDET n.d.). In the quest for education to be more research informed, the government identified a problem and voiced clear expectations for solutions to HEIs:

There is a challenge in securing that new knowledge is actually used by the sectors. Teacher and preschool teacher education institutions will, through basic, continuing and further education, spread new knowledge … Knowledge must be communicated in a manner which is relevant and experience-near. (MER 2007, 67)

Therefore, in WP16, the government indicated a shift in school policy discourse, which has traditionally focused on the allocation of resources and school structure (MER 2007, 71). In recent years, the results and quality of schooling have also been debated, placing new demands on schools following the implementation of the NQAS, including the generation of data through student and stakeholder surveys and the systematic collection of school data, including students’ learning results. These demands are a point of departure for concrete school improvement processes (MER 2007, 71). Apart from this, and the overall aim of supporting the implementation of the new curriculum reform, early intervention, retaining students in upper secondary school and developing schools as ‘learning organisations’ (NDET n.d.), there is no explicit, centralised topical focus for the proposed partnership arrangement.

To acquire funding for projects within the Knowledge Promotion – from Word to Deed arrangement, schools had to identify their strengths and challenges. Local education authorities were responsible for applying on behalf of the schools. Around 100 projects received funding between 2006 and 2011, thus leaving the choice to participate to the local municipal or school leaders. As collaborators in partnerships, the government highlighted teacher education institutions, but they also promoted involving business consultants who were deemed more knowledgeable about organisational development in general, as opposed to a more subject-oriented approach (NDET n.d.).

Documents 3 and 4: centralised problem areas, wide diffusion and HEIs as providers

The Development at the Lower Secondary Level arrangement, introduced in WP22, was designed exclusively for schools with students aged 13–16 years. It focused on creating more practical, varied and relevant teaching. The arrangement specified four prioritised areas for improvement: reading, writing, numeracy and classroom management. The overall aim was to increase student motivation and prepare students for further education: ‘Upgrading the lower secondary level shall make students more capable of completing upper secondary education’ (MER 2011, 7).

WP22 began optimistically, stating that national and international test results indicated a high level of well-being, good teacher–student relationships in schools, less disturbance in classrooms and improved learning outcomes. The Norwegian school system is described as inclusive and important for students, both socially and in terms of subject learning; it is less influenced by social differences than in most other countries. Nevertheless, the Norwegian school system reproduces social inequality and is characterised by wide variations in school size and demography. Following up on the initiatives for early intervention from WP16, the government wanted to improve the educational system as a tool for equity. MER was particularly concerned with the learning differences between boys and girls, seeing that girls scored better in all school subjects except sports. Truth claims expressed as a need for change were supported by national test and exam results, the national annual student survey, various boards and panels involving sector stakeholders, and research and OECD reports. Students’ reporting that school is theoretical and boring carries a lot of weight in arguing for more practical and varied teaching and thus creates new challenges for teachers who are expected to facilitate new types of learning activities, which legitimises the need to focus on classroom management.

The Development at the Lower Secondary Level arrangement aimed at involving all school subjects (NDET 2015), creating more comprehensive expectations for participation than the previous Knowledge Promotion – from Word to Deed. WP22 also announced structural changes in the lower secondary school curriculum in Norway, reintroducing and extending several practical and elective courses. The government acknowledged that the changes suggested in WP22 would ‘demand a lot from teachers and principals’ (MER 2011, 8):

The teacher in lower secondary must be a proficient leader of the class and have good subject and subject didactic competence in the subjects she/he teaches. This is a foundation for varying the teaching by using different working methods and a broad repertoire of teaching instruments. (MER 2011, 88)

The expectation of good subject competence was followed by legal regulations extending the demands on teachers’ formal education in the subjects they taught. Furthermore, school leaders are expected to facilitate teachers’ work, which represents a discursive shift in the national ideas of school leadership. Whereas earlier WPs contrasted the idea of the ‘docile’ and the explicit principal (MER 2004), the word facilitate signifies new expectations of school leadership. Additionally, the term ‘principal’ is replaced with ‘school leadership’, which refers to a group of people in formal leadership positions. The following excerpt from WP22 illustrates the government’s position: ‘The school leadership gives scope and direction to the school, creating coherence and facilitating the work of the individual teacher through coordination and division of labour’ (MER 2011, 88). This statement underlines the administrative and coordinative tasks of school leaders. This expectation is rendered as a fact, not in a directive mode, thereby using words to create reality.

School leaders were expected to participate in partnership arrangements with researchers from HEIs and national centres of expertise, who are supposed to collaborate with national education authorities to develop measures to support school-based work on literacy, numeracy and classroom management. In the arrangement’s strategy document, we find the following expectation of HEIs: ‘The primary task of teacher education institutions, within this strategy, is as providers of school-based competence development within the prioritised areas’ (NDET 2015, 13). Specifically:

It is expected that universities and university colleges develop and offer school-based competence development within the scope of this strategy; contribute to developing and communicating knowledge about good practice in classroom management, calculation, reading and writing; facilitate that students in training are challenged to develop more practical and varied teaching; and participate in school improvement projects. (NDET 2015, 13)

The formulated expectations of HEIs resemble a supply-and-demand relationship. The government expects HEIs to develop, offer, facilitate and communicate with local schools. The request to break down and communicate scientifically validated knowledge is justified because lower secondary school teachers do not have time to study research reports (MER 2011). This request is also linked to the discourse on evidence-based practices in NDET’s interest in good practice. Nevertheless, there is a focus on developing good practices, not only on communicating what works. This is supported by stating that teachers are expected to utilise professional discretion, experience and research of good practices to develop their teaching skills (NDET 2015). WP22 also promotes the sharing of experiences in networks across schools and/or municipalities (MER 2011).

Documents 5 and 6: decentralisation, differentiation and ‘Umbrella thinking’

WP21 follows up on the concerns from WP16 and WP22 regarding the reproduction of inequality in Norwegian schools. However, it seems to be more concerned with differences within schools than between schools and underscores the importance of having a whole-school approach towards school improvement. WP21 also addresses the reader directly, targeting students as readers of the document in the preface: ‘It will be your own effort and talents – not your family background or place of residence – which decide your opportunities in life’ (MER 2017, 5). WP21 introduces new concepts linked to reform intentions, such as ‘being eager to learn’, in which the systems thinking has expanded to include everyone from teachers to politicians. It also claims that ‘the knowledge school is the government’s most important project’ (MER 2017, 6). The concept of the knowledge school is only mentioned once in WP21 and is not clearly defined, but may be linked to the increased demands on teachers’ formal subject competence in WP22.

The Decentralised Competence Development arrangement exerts increased demands on municipalities and counties for systematic improvement of school environment and learning outcomes, and decentralisation is justified through experience: ‘At the same time, all experience indicates that problems have to be locally owned’ (MER 2017, 6). Arguing from experience alone is an unexpected turn in light of the focus on research in WP16 and WP22. However, it may also be influenced by evaluation reports conducted during and after the two previous arrangements. For example, in their evaluation of the Knowledge Promotion from Word to Deed arrangement, Blossing et al. (2010) found that development projects were met with resistance in some schools due to a lack of anchoring at the operative level.

The new model for school improvement presented in WP22 is an umbrella in the sense that it incorporates three elements: The first is a comprehensive school-based competence development partnership. The second is a mentoring system for municipalities and counties, which, over time, present poor results on central quality assessment areas of education, defined as student results and learning environment. The third element is an innovation programme targeting HEIs to develop more research-based knowledge about schools by requesting interventional designs to establish measured effects: ‘Preferably, effects should be measured via so-called randomised controlled trials, in which some will implement the measure, while others will be a control group’ (MER 2017, 97). The belief in the truth of such experiments is sufficient to have an impact on future legislation: ‘The evaluation of effects will form the basis for making decisions about implementing the measure on a larger scale, for example, by changing education regulations or developing competence development propositions’ (MER 2017, 97).

The use of research results was modified in WP21. While WP16 and WP22 often stated ‘research shows that’, WP21 has more variation in modality, and employs the more moderate phrase, ‘research suggests that’, several times. WP21 also promotes the sharing of experiences in networks across schools and municipalities.

In the executive strategy document, partnership is defined as follows: ‘A partnership is an equal and mutually binding collaboration that has competence development as its aim. The collaboration will contribute to improving practices in kindergartens and schools. At the same time, it may improve teacher education’ (NDET 2021). The definition is also linked to legitimising partnerships by pointing towards HEIs’ responsibility for educating future teachers.

Summary of findings

Our analysis demonstrated relative stability regarding reform intentions, such as realising equal learning opportunities and retaining students in upper-secondary education. HEIs as developers and providers of evidence-based practices and schools as users of such practices are persistent intentions of partnership arrangements. However, we found a shift away from highly centralised partnership arrangements towards a stronger focus on identifying problem areas locally. Rhetorically, it has also become increasingly difficult for schools to opt out of partnership arrangements, as partnerships have become highly integrated with curriculum reform and increasing school quality. These shifts may create new tensions in local reform work regarding, for example, responsibility and power and what is to be accepted and valued as knowledge.

Discussion

In this section, we discuss our findings in relation to previous research on reform policy and partnerships in education and our theoretical framework. We follow up on the research questions regarding the intentions about school reform, which are presented in central Norwegian policy documents; the expectations about partnership and school leadership, which can be unravelled in the policy documents; and how partnerships between schools and HEIs are legitimised and connected to reform policy intentions and what tensions can be identified.

Intentions: stability and trade-offs

The policy documents reveal relative stability regarding reform intentions in Norwegian educational discourse over the past 15 years. The intentions of realising equal learning opportunities by way of early intervention and retaining students in upper secondary education are ongoing issues in all the selected documents. Regarding professional development, the importance of exploring and espousing evidence-based practices is an intentional cornerstone throughout the documents, and there is an intention that HEIs act as problem solvers by helping teachers in their busy everyday lives, as teachers do not have time to read research reports. HEIs’ role in this case is to provide evidence of what works and to facilitate and communicate best practices. Tension occurs in legitimising what can be understood as a double intention. On the one hand, HEIs are expected to develop, offer and facilitate evidence-based practices. On the other hand, school leaders are responsible for developing professional learning among their staff. There is also tension between leadership and power relations and the direction of responsibility and accountability for the school’s quality and student results. Ultimately, HEIs are not held accountable for the school’s results, but there will always be pressure on school leaders to strive for higher quality and achieve better student results. Ball, Maguire, and Braun (2012) recognised this tension in their acknowledgement that policy intentions contain ambiguities. Stability in the national policy reforms’ intentions for equal learning opportunities may represent certainty for school professionals in upholding the core values of education. However, uncertainty regarding quality assessment and accountability remains unresolved. It may prove impossible to measure whether students realise their full potential. To unify the idea of letting every student realise their potential, which is assumed to be inherent in the Norwegian education system and the intention of delivering improved results as a quality measure, we see a shift in focusing on outcomes that are more easily measured, leaving schools and students as winners or losers in the process. The trade-offs between values (Rizvi and Lingard 2010) will occur in the ways in which superintendents, school leaders and teachers think and talk about the policy intentions, and how the NQAS requires reports on the enactment of policy intentions in daily practice. School leaders and teachers, together with personnel from HEIs, must deal collectively with a range of values, such as equality, excellence, autonomy, accountability and efficiency (Rizvi and Lingard 2010, 3). The (long-term) stability of the policy intention to contribute to equal opportunities may be subject to trade-offs against the (short-term) demand for delivering improved student results. This illuminates the conflicting aspects of values and interests in organisational practices (Ball, Maguire, and Braun 2012). A strong focus on short-term demands may lead to practices implicitly aimed at disrupting institutions (Lawrence, Suddaby, and Leca 2011). These trade-offs and possible disruptions are also linked to the responsibilities for school improvement given to municipalities.

Tensions in legitimising the expectations of partnerships as an arrangement for improving schools

While the reform intentions regarding enhancing equity and retaining students in upper secondary education seem stable in our selected documents, a shift has occurred in the national discourse on expectations and the legitimisation of partnerships between schools and HEIs. This may result in new tensions in the quest to improve student results and school quality.

First, there has been a discursive shift away from highly centralised partnership arrangements targeting specific areas to a decentralised model, which is expected to meet the specific needs of municipalities and schools in line with the broadly formulated goals of the education sector. This may entail more tailored school-based support based on trust and mutual commitment but also a stronger client–provider relationship between the schools and HEIs involved in the partnerships. In the documents, we found clear indications of a client–provider relationship between schools, municipalities and counties, on the one hand, and HEIs on the other. At the same time, the provider is given the ‘upper hand’ when the government focuses on establishing effects and improving student results. The tensions in legitimising the expectations of partnerships as a strategy for improving schools and giving the ‘upper hand’ to HEIs are illuminated in the policy documents through the call to measure the effects via randomised controlled trials. As strategies have traditionally been regarded as something used by leaders and organisations (Whittington 2006), the policy strategy indicates that HEIs are considered part of the school organisation or even part of educational leadership. Educational leadership is directly linked to educational purposes and practices to develop the school’s pedagogy and curriculum to improve student learning and achievement (Gunter 2016). Consequently, the expectations connected to the partnership arrangement can be regarded as a policy strategy that may contribute to messy power relations. The responsibility for improving schools is placed on the municipal/county level, on the school leaders and teachers, and not on the external providers of interventions, collaboration, evidence and research, such as HEIs. However, the policy intentions and expectations towards partnership put HEIs in a secondary position if the intention is to measure improvement (MER 2017, 97), and the partnership is legitimised through the expectation of schools to develop and perform.

Second, there is the question of where the power lies to decide what areas the schools should focus on and what methods they should use to address those issues. The municipal level is given the power to define focus areas, but in finding solutions, they are also subject to what HEIs have to offer. Researchers from HEIs may be placed in a marketised position of competition, ‘peddling’ their evidence-based contributions while also trying to establish relationships with the teachers who will actually perform the work in their daily practice. We also found a shift from a high degree of voluntary participation in partnership arrangements at the municipal and school levels to an expectation of involving all municipalities and as many schools as possible. Furthermore, the final arrangement in our selection is extended to include the entire range of teaching and learning, from kindergartens to upper secondary education, in addition to HEIs. The inclusion of the entire sector may entail a strengthening of the bonds and transitions between different educational levels, potentially bridging gaps between research and practice and increasing mutual learning. However, the pressure on schools and HEIs to participate in partnership arrangements may also cause difficulties relating to trust, capacity-building and prioritising of key areas at each type of institution. Such difficulties might prove disruptive (Lawrence, Suddaby, and Leca 2011) in the long run. The new decentralised model also involves a national mentoring system offered to schools that deliver poor results over time, and there is a question of whether it is legitimately possible to opt out of such a system for municipalities in the target group. Furthermore, it is not possible to opt out of national reform work, and the most recent partnership arrangement is closely tied to a new reform initiative called the Curriculum Renewal. This may signify governmental expectations of institutional work in schools and HEIs to create and maintain partnerships as an institution (see Lawrence, Suddaby, and Leca 2011). Overall, the findings confirm that the partnership intention has been embraced by the national policy level as an influential discourse.

Regarding expectations, we also found that HEIs are increasingly called upon as gatekeepers and purveyors of scientifically validated practices. Thus, they are assigned a role as contributors to the discourse on evidence-based practices. An increase in government calls for more research-based practice in schools may devalue the importance of experience-based knowledge generation in the field of practice. Additionally, the seductive idea of a programme’s documented effects may serve as a defensive shield for schools and school authorities when confronted with deteriorating student results. Taking shelter under a school improvement programme may give the impression that one is actually acting on inadequate results. If the results do not improve, blame may be placed on scientifically validated measures.

The six documents considered the role of research as evidence-based practices. Developing and using evidence-based practices is an intention in all three partnership arrangements and serves as a rationale for establishing collaborative efforts between schools. Furthermore, there is an expectation that teachers will base their practice more on research (on behalf of experience), while researchers from HEIs are expected to develop such practices in interventional designs. Research connected to a school effectiveness tradition is valued, while more critical research is marginalised. As such, it seems that evidence, in the form of research reports, is used to legitimise policy directions.

Conclusions

In our investigation of how partnerships between schools and HEIs are conceptualised and legitimised in national reform policy documents, we found that the conceptualisation of partnership, as opposed to a client-provider relationship, needs to be clarified to meet the national policy intentions of improved reported school quality while safeguarding the values and interests in the core purpose of schooling. The findings show that more critical debate is needed about what is accepted as knowledge or scientifically validated practices and the extent to which superintendents, school leaders and teachers have the power to set the agenda for shaping reform initiatives in their local schools. It is possible to understand decentralisation in this context more rhetorically than as an explicit intention. Consequently, the conceptualisation of partnership runs parallel to shifts in the framing of school leadership. School leadership has increasingly been given the role of HEI partners/researchers in the intentions of decentralised and collective school-based competence development. A policy document is only text until it meets and is transformed into a field of practice. Moreover, school leaders might perceive policy intention as an expectation of prioritising educational and contextual arbitrators when enacting partnerships between schools and HEIs. It is necessary to further investigate how reform work intentions are translated and enacted by actors at all levels and how the reform work is led locally in empirical settings. Moreover, more knowledge is needed about the implications of different forms of partnerships. A limitation of our study was our choice of materials for analysis. As public policy documents reflect policy intentions, they do not reflect the often contradictory process characterised by disagreements involved in their formation. Therefore, further research is needed in this area.

Co-author declaration

In correspondence with the Vancouver convention of defining authorship, we declare the following:

• Kjersti Løken Ødegaard was the first and corresponding author of this article. She made substantial contributions to the conception of the article, shaping the research design, and acquiring and interpreting the data. She wrote the majority of the article and carried out the majority of revisions. She has approved the final version and has agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work’s integrity.

• Ann Elisabeth Gunnulfsen was the second author. She made substantial contributions to the design and theoretical framing of the work and was involved in all phases of the data analysis. She also contributed to the structuring of the article. She carried out the revisions with the first author, approved the final version, and has agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work’s integrity.

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank our colleagues in the research group Curriculum Studies, Leadership and Educational Governance (CLEG) at the University of Oslo, who have commented on our drafts and analyses and supported our work.

This study forms part of the research and innovation project ChangeLead funded by the Research Council of Norway.

Data availability statement

All but one of the policy documents analysed in this study are available to the public from the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research and/or the Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training.

• Ministry of Education and Research. 2007 … og ingen sto igjen. Tidlig innsats for livslang læring. (St. meld. nr. 16 (2006–2007)) [White paper No. 16.  …  and none left behind: Early intervention for lifelong learning]. https://www.regjeringen.no/no/dokumenter/stmeld-nr-16-2006-2007-/id441395/

• Ministry of Education and Research. 2011. Motivasjon – mestring – muligheter. ungdomstrinnet. (Meld. St. 22 (2010–2011)) [White Paper No. 22. Motivation – mastering – possibilities. The lower secondary level]. https://www.regjeringen.no/no/dokumenter/meld-st-22-2010–2011/id641251/

• Ministry of Education and Research. 2017. Lærelyst – tidlig innsats og kvalitet i skolen (Meld. St. 21 (2016–2017)) [White paper No. 21. Eager to learn – early intervention and quality in schools]. https://www.regjeringen.no/no/dokumenter/meld.-st.-21-20162017/id2544344/

• Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training. 2015. Motivasjon og mestring for bedre læring. Felles satsing på klasseledelse, regning, lesing og skriving. Strategi for ungdomstrinnet [Motivation and mastering for improved learning. A joint effort for classroom management, calculation, reading and writing. A strategy for the lower secondary level]. https://www.regjeringen.no/globalassets/upload/kd/vedlegg/grunnskole/strategiplaner/f_4276_b_web.pdf

• Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training. 2021. Tilskuddsordning for lokal kompetanseutvikling i barnehage og grunnopplæring [Subvention for local competence development in kindergartens, primary and secondary education]. https://www.udir.no/kvalitet-og-kompetanse/lokal-kompetanseutvikling/tilskuddsordningene-for-lokal-kompetanseutvikling-i-barnehage-og-grunnopplaring/

• Retningslinjer for tilskuddsordning for lokal kompetanseutvikling i barnehage og grunnopplæring [Guidelines for subvention for local competence development in kindergartens, primary and secondary education], Pub. L. No. FOR-2021-01-26-230. https://lovdata.no/dokument/INS/forskrift/2021-01-26-230

One of the executive documents is not available online, but may be obtained from the authors:

• Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training. n.d. Program for skoleutvikling – Programbeskrivelse 2005–2009 [Programme for school improvement – Programme description 2005–2009].

Additional information

Funding

The first author of this article is employed as a doctoral research fellow at the University of Oslo. The position is funded by the Research Council of Norway (Norges Forskningsråd) and forms part of an overarching research and innovation project, called ChangeLead (project number 309728). The second author is the first author’s supervisor and plays an important part in the ChangeLead project. Please refer to the Research Council of Norway’s webpage for more information about the project and funding: https://prosjektbanken.forskningsradet.no/en/project/FORISS/309728?Kilde=FORISS&distribution=Ar&chart=bar&calcType=funding&Sprak=no&sortBy=score&sortOrder=desc&resultCount=30&offset=0&Fritekst=changelead

Notes on contributors

Kjersti Løken Ødegaard

Kjersti Løken Ødegaard is a Doctoral Research Fellow with the Department of Teacher Education and School Research at the University of Oslo. Her PhD project investigates school-university partnerships as a tool in leading reform work in upper secondary schools. Her research interests include educational leadership, partnerships in education, school reform work, organisational learning, tools and mediation and formative interventions.

Ann Elisabeth Gunnulfsen

Ann Elisabeth is an Associate Professor with the Department of Teacher Education and School Research at the University of Oslo. Her main research interests are educational leadership, educational policy and change, governance and accountability. She is involved in a series of national and international research-projects and collaborative leadership developing programs with schools.

Notes

1 We define conceptualisation and legitimisation as ways of formulating intentions and promoting ideas as reasonable and acceptable.

2 We apply the term ‘arrangement’ to signify a plan or preparation for a future event.

3 All translations from the Norwegian policy documents were done by the authors.