Charisma, claimocracy and education policy in England and Norway

ABSTRACT

Education reform internationally has focused on school principals as corporate transformational leaders. Our research in England and Norway has identified the problematics of this model, where we have recognised an education reform claimocracy that has committed policy violence through this imposed identity. We explain the meaning and evidence for a claimocracy, and we show convergences in reform design and intentions. We then examine the divergences, and show how the political system and the ideological views of those who occupy roles and institutions matter, and this is used to explain how corporate transformational leadership has been variously adopted, resisted and developed within the two systems. We argue that the field of critical educational leadership needs to give attention not only to the problematics of this model, but to examine how the political system and the policy practices of its occupants need to be examined historically in regard to assertions about the good school leader.

KEYWORDS:

• Claimocracy
• transformational leadership
• education policy
• school leadership
• charisma

Introduction

School leadership is a globalised reform process, where the interplay between statements of codified standards with distillations of the contextual abilities necessary to deliver high-quality student output data is high profile in reform agendas (e.g. AITSL 2011; Gov.UK 2020; Ministry of Education of People's Republic of China 2013; NPBEA 2015; see Schleicher 2012). The significance of school leadership is espoused by those in government (e.g. Pyne 2014); researchers (e.g. Robinson 2010), charities (e.g. Ambition Institute 2020), consultancies (e.g. Strategy& 2017), businesses (e.g. School Leaders Training 2023), unions (e.g. Cooke, Bush, and Malek 2015), supranational organisations (e.g. Barber and Mourshed 2007; Pont, Nusche, and Moorman 2008a, 2008b), and collaborations that cut across organisational and national boundaries (e.g. Mekki Education et al. 2006). A common theme is the training and enculturation of the school principal¹ as an especial corporate transformational leader who can command followership from stakeholders. Exchange relationships are designed to build enthusiastic compliance to organisational change in contradistinction to transactional maintenance encounters, with various hybrid dynamics labelled as ‘distributed’, ‘instructional’ and ‘system’ (Gunter 2016). Huge financial, intellectual and symbolic resources continue to be invested into strong charismatic school principals (Møller 1996; 2017), and this is enabled through an education reform claimocracy (ERC) that impacts as a form of policy violence. Policy is violent through the imposition of performative standards and outcomes in ways that secure compliance with data production rather than with educational relationality. Jobs for teachers, and school places for parents, are all at risk. High stakes competitiveness is enabled through seemingly benign simplifications of problems and solutions, fictional narratives about approved/disapproved of professionals, and the mimicry of corporate cultures and practices (Gunter 2023).

In this article, we present a strategic analysis of the existence, operation and outcomes of this claimocracy from a range of independent primary research projects that we have undertaken over a combined time period of 65 years. These projects include the study of primary sources (e.g. government White Papers), interviews with ministers, professionals and consultants at national, local and school levels, and observations in real-time work situations (e.g. classrooms, meetings) (see Gunter 2016; 2023; Karseth and Møller 2020; Møller 1996; 2009; Møller 2021).² England and Norway are valid sites for studying the ERC because school leadership is viewed as the starting point for the transformation of low-performing and disadvantaged schools (Gunnulfsen and Møller 2021; Gunter 2012; Møller 2017). However, while policy violence is globalised our research shows that England and Norway display contrasting trajectories in both education policy and education practice. Neo-liberal reforms of education have been adopted to varying degrees and represent marked contrasts in this respect due to historical and macro-economic conditions. The two systems have followed distinctive paths in building and reforming their public education and have developed differently according to the public administrative traditions and rationales. Furthermore, the countries have different electoral systems. Importantly, while we are a part of a vibrant field of critical education leadership and policy studies (see Gunter 2016), and we have analysed the relationship between knowledge production for school leadership and the political context in which it is located (e.g. Gunter 2012; Møller 2016), so far the field and ourselves have not examined the globalised convergences/divergences regarding the purposes and practices of school leadership, and so in this article we focus on how the dynamics of the claimocracy are related to systemic histories and espoused values articulated by those who occupy state institutions.

Claimocracy and charismatic school leadership

A claimocracy is rule by assertion, where declarations are made orally and in writing by those who occupy significant knowledge production roles in national and global organisations such as government, businesses, consultancies, supranational organisations, and universities. For example:

England: the UK government proactively invested in school leadership in England between 1997 and 2010 based on a combination of personal beliefs of those in government (e.g. Adonis 2012), interplayed with selected and trusted researchers (e.g. Barber 1996), professionals (e.g. Astle and Ryan 2008), and consultants who brought a modern image, a dynamic combination of wishful evidence with normative futuring of the successful school (e.g. DfES/PwC 2007). This is evident in speeches (e.g. BBC 2002), texts (e.g. DfEE 1998), reports (e.g. Day et al. 2009), and enactments (e.g. the setting up of a National College for School Leadership, see Gunter 2012).

Norway: towards the end of 1980s the Norwegian government invested in school leadership through the introduction of Management by Objectives (MBO). The 2001 PISA report where Norway was listed among the ‘lower-performing’ countries boosted the claims for strong school leaders within a performance-oriented culture (Gunnulfsen and Møller 2021; Møller and Skedsmo 2013). This was argued within speeches (e.g. Ramnefjell 2001), texts (e.g. White Paper 30; 2003–2004) and enacted (e.g. setting up the Directorate of Education and Training in 2004, establishing a National Quality Assessment System (NQAS), and joining the OECD’s project Improving School Leadership in 2006, see Møller 2021; Møller and Rönnberg 2021).

A claimocracy works on the basis of content and style that creates and controls what is espoused as legitimate, authoritative and intelligent truths: legitimacy is based on the legality of public policy underpinned by validated expertise and is therefore authoritative as an official and smartly intelligent resource (or spokesperson) (e.g. DfE 2022; WP 21; 2016–2017). However, the ERC may claim liberation but in reality, it does a brutal job of policy violence whereby professionals are exhorted, and sometimes threatened to adopt the asserted new freedoms but in reality regulation intensifies, debate is silenced, and contract renewal is threatened.

Entrepreneurial professors and professionals have worked within and for the ERC by constructing and packaging narratives and approaches to being a leader and doing leading and leadership in ways that are compelling for those handling complex change in adverse local circumstances (e.g. Caldwell and Spinks 1992). Underpinning such work are projects that examine charisma (e.g. Crawford 2002; Ishaq, Hamzeh, and Tabieh 2023), in ways that can be variously relabelled and reworked as attributes (e.g. Carrington et al. 2022; Goolamally and Ahmad 2014; Mosley, Boscardin, and Wells 2014; Zhang 1994), competencies (e.g. Handford and Leithwood 2013; Welch and Hodge 2018), and capabilities (e.g. Chen, Berkovich, and Eyal 2021; James and Vince 2001; Robinson 2010). Notably, the importation of models and thinking from non-educational national and organisational contexts has led to the identification of charisma as important (see the 1978 work of McGregor Burns 2010), where it is argued that:

Charismatic leadership is central to the transformational leadership process. Charismatic leaders have a great referent power and influence. Followers want to identify with them and to emulate them. Followers develop intense feelings about them, and above all have trust and confidence in them. (Bass 1985, 39)

Named people from history and contemporary life are presented as ‘exceptional’, ‘great’ and ‘heroic’, where followership is a form of amenable ‘surrender’ because ‘charismatic leaders are spellbinders who command fanatical support’ (Allen 2004, 107). Achievements are attributed to traits that people are born with and are used in ways that cause an emotional connection: ‘ … this kind of leadership transforms the needs, values, preferences, desires and aspirations of followers from their individual interests to collective interests, so that followers become highly committed to the mission of the leader and are prepared to make sacrifices in the interest of the mission’ (Steyner 1998, 807–808). Traits such as courage, decisiveness, and intelligence produce approved of behaviours that are ‘are not accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as of divine origin or as exemplary’ (Weber 1968, 241).

Courtney (2021) argues that charisma is a ‘shape-shifter’ and so is re-framed and re-articulated through contextualised distinctions, and so ‘charisma influences differentially; not everybody in the social group succumbs in the same way’ (383–384). We argue that this is because charisma is engaged with by the ERC in ways that can be contradictory. As Weber (1968) argued, charisma is a natural form of domination by the especial person who ‘enjoys loyalty and authority by virtue of a mission believed to be embodied in him (sic)’ (1117), and so in times of crisis natural leaders emerge and followers deploy their devotion. However, the solutions to the predicament of educational standards are located in secular performative technologies where charisma has to be ‘routinized’ and work delegated in order to deliver approved of numbers (1119), and so ‘people try to transform a unique gift of grace into a permanent possession of everyday life’ (Allen 2004, 108). The resulting contradictions within regulated-exceptionality along with distributed-delivery is handled by the claimocracy through simplifications, fictions and mimicry.

Simplifications are evident in normative truths that make thinking otherwise about problems and solutions unthinkable (and publicly unsayable). For example, corporate transformational leadership has been characterised by four ‘I’s:

• Idealised Influence: followers are affected by a persuasive vision that builds a sense of belonging.

• Intellectual Stimulation: followers are encouraged to generate ideas to deliver the vision.

• Inspirational Motivation: followers work harder because they are committed to the vision and trust the leader.

• Individualised Consideration: followers are listened to and are mentored by the leader (Bass and Avolio 1990).

Such simplifications are evident in the rebranding of roles and practices as the correct response to the crises in public education. The UK government stated:

All the evidence shows that heads are the key to a school’s success. All schools need a leader who creates a sense of purpose and direction, sets high expectations of staff and pupils, focuses on improving teaching and learning, monitors performance and motivates the staff to give of their best. The best heads are as good at leadership as the best leaders in any other sector, including business. The challenge is to create the rewards, training and support to attract, retain and develop many more heads of this calibre. (DfEE 1998, 22)

The Norwegian government stated:

There are several international studies, which demonstrate what we know about successful school leadership in improving schools. They are well informed and pay great attention to the teachers’ work with the students, and they contribute a great deal to the improvement of the teachers’ practice. They focus on student learning, shared leadership, and they create a climate where teachers are encouraged to experiment with new ideas as a way of promoting professional growth. […]. School leaders at improving schools manage to build learning organizations (WP 30; 2003–2004, 29).

Such claims have dominated government policy, research, training and professional practice (e.g. Camphuijsen, Møller, and Skedsmo 2021; Gunnulfsen and Møller 2021; Gunter 2012; 2016; 2018; Møller 2017, 2021). In England, the 1998 publication of national standards were published for headteachers uses ‘attributes’ of charisma:

Headteachers draw upon the attributes possessed and displayed by all successful and effective teachers in the context of their leadership and management roles, including:

I. Personal impact and presence;

II. Adaptability to changing circumstances and new ideas;

III. Energy, vigour and perseverance;

IV. Self-confidence;

V. Enthusiasm;

VI. Intellectual ability;

VII. Reliability and integrity;

VIII. Commitment. (TTA 1998, 8)

In Norway, the focus is on the demonstration of ‘competencies’ within five main areas: students’ learning environment; professional community and collaboration; governing and administration; school development and change; and the principal's role (WP 21; 2016–2017, 36; UDIR 2019). In outlining the education programme for school leaders the Directorate for Education and Training emphasises that: ‘The requirements and expectations for a principal that we have discussed here are to be considered an ideal image of a principal. In practice, no individual can be equally good in all areas’ (UDIR 2019, 8).

Simplifications use fictional narratives (and even lies) to create images and understandings. For example, an enduring fiction is the promotion of a causal link between a school principal and student outcomes. In England, the focus is on a victory-defeat binary:

The vision for learning set out in this white paper will demand the highest qualities of leadership and management from headteachers. The quality of the head often makes the difference between the success or failure of a school. Good heads can transform a school; poor heads can block progress and achievement. It is essential that we have measures in place to strengthen the skills of all new and serving heads. (DfEE 1997, 46)

People located in a range of vantage points from within the UK government make the same claims over time, where named headteachers are identified and lauded by Ministers (see Gove 2009; 2011). For example, a UK Secretary of State for Education:

Excellent leaders create excellent schools. Secondary schools need strong leaders at all levels, enabling them to provide a rich and diverse curriculum taught by professionals committed to success for every learner. (Clarke 2004, 25)

The UK government department:

Good leadership is at the heart of every good school. A strong headteacher, backed by an able leadership team and governing body, is vital for success. (DfES 2005, 99)

A UK government agency:

The most successful schools invariably are well led and managed … (and) … The most important test of good leadership is its impact on the quality of teaching and learning. (Ofsted 1998, 33)

Underpinning this is the conceptualisation of corporate leadership as the means for securing compliance. For example, teachers have been positioned as the problem, where school leaders have to secure high performance or terminate a teacher’s contract (Courtney and Gunter 2015). Reforms have been made to teacher workload, but the teacher-as-problem endures, where in response to evidence about long working hours and teacher’s leaving the profession, it has been argued that teachers overwork in ways that obstructs modernisation (Blunkett 2001).

In Norway, the Conservative Minister of Education and Research (2001–2005), Kristin Clemet, took office only six weeks before the PISA-findings were published, and following the publication of the first PISA report, she made a statement which was reported by all major Norwegian newspapers and television: ‘This is disappointing, almost like coming home from a Winter Olympics without a single Norwegian medal’ (Ramnefjell 2001). The self-image of being ‘the best school in the world’ had been challenged, Norwegians felt humiliated, and this became a turning point in public debates in which learning outcomes as the main indicator of education quality dominated. The perceived learning crisis also provided a strategic opportunity for the conservative-led coalition government to launch a policy reform (Camphuijsen, Møller, and Skedsmo 2021), where the arguments put forward in WP 30 (2003–2004) related to challenges in the global world to which the education system must respond. Two forms of leadership were contrasted by The Ministry of Education and Research: the first one was a concern about ‘principals who are compliant rather than ambitious’, and so were: ‘reluctant to initiate dialogues with the teachers about how the education could be improved’ (WP, 30; 2003–2004, 28) and by contrast the aim was to promote how ‘learning organisations require strong and powerful leadership’ (27). In later policy documents, this is emphasised:

School leaders influence the students’ learning by helping to develop the teachers’ work, organizing the school's work in a good way, and establishing good relationships with parents and the community around the school. (WP 21; 2016–2017, 26)

The leader’s responsibility is, in principle, all-encompassing. The principal must ensure that everything is taken care of, but there must be many people who contribute to this. All leaders must adapt their leadership role to their own personality, their own assumptions and their own strengths and weaknesses. (UDIR 2019, 8)

The words ‘successful’ or ‘good’ are used instead of charisma but the notion of corporate transformational leadership is underpinning the claims (WP 21; 2016–2017, 25). As a result of the PISA reports in 2001 and 2004, the focus was on improving student outcomes, and so teacher followership has been developed through the promotion of schools as learning organisations, where there is a need for professionals to take responsibility for learning outcomes.

Narratives depend on mimicry where policymakers and professionals ventriloquise simplifications and fictions, and can impersonate corporate roles and people as integral to branded school improvement and effectiveness. For reformers in both England and Norway the issue is whether parental choice operates to turn schools into businesses or to ensure efficiency and effectiveness within the public system. In England, the first one dominates through the training and accreditation of headteachers as corporate CEOs in a system structured through segregated exclusivity in the provision of and access to school places (and other public services, see Gunter 2012; 2023). In Norway, the second one dominates where successive governments have been reluctant to allow private providers to play a significant role in delivering education services, and teacher professionalism and promoting democracy are emphasised in the Education Act and in the national curriculum launched in 2020.

The use of simplifications, fictions and mimicry means that ERC assertions are not secure. Policy texts often lack evidence (e.g. DfEE 1998) or are selective in the evidence that is referenced (e.g. NOU 2015, 8), where policy statements and requirements are open to serious challenges through localised policymaking (e.g. Rayner and Gunter 2020) and independent primary research (e.g. Coffield 2012).³ For example, a major research review stated:

The idea that powerful and visionary heads enhance the school’s effectiveness … is thus a continuing belief in the research and the teacher profession generally. Yet beyond this assertion surprisingly little else is known … Although the centrality of the head is widely acknowledged, it has not been examined in very much depth. (Hall and Southworth 1997, 164–165)

In addition, a major UK seminar series in the late 1990s reported that ‘school leaders achieve effects on their schools indirectly’ (Hallinger and Heck 1999, 185), and the UK government’s own commissioned research accepted and framed this as: ‘school leadership is second only to classroom teaching as an influence on pupil learning’ (Leithwood et al. 2006, 3). Importantly, the claimocracy presented a simplified interpretation of the evidence in order to focus on the principal for major investment, even though classroom teachers had been identified as having a direct causal link with outcomes. Similar arguments are found in recent policy documents in Norway, though, tensions between different viewpoints can be identified within and across different documents (see Aasen and Prøitz 2023; Larsen, Møller, and Jensen 2022).

Claimocracy and educational reform in England and Norway

We have studied the globalisation of what Thomson, Blackmore, and Gunter (2014) have identified as a ‘transnational leadership package’ during our research careers, where in the mid-1990s we both separately engaged with concerns about charismatic corporate transformational leadership: Møller (1996) challenged this model in regard to the Norwegian commitment to democratic values and practices, where she concludes that it ‘obscures the connection between school and society, privatises the school's problems and contributes in an indirect way to maintaining masculine values as something overarching and general’ (Møller 1996, 11); Gunter (1997) examined how such a model was being imported into public education in England in ways that denied history, research and professional knowledge, and so was turning schools into theme parks where she uses Crichton’s Jurassic Park novel to illuminate the popularisation of ‘Jurassic Management’ as the requirement for the professional as practitioner to implement rather that critically engage with business models. Nearly thirty years later we recognise that the claimocracy that we were beginning to engage with in these two outputs continues to promote the very model that we demonstrated was inappropriate at that time and continues to be so. The globalised hegemony of heroic forms of leadership enabled reforms to professional identities, skills and knowledge in England and Norway that show a remarkable convergence, and importantly the same people and projects have been used by both governments to support their investments into transformational leadership (e.g. Barber and Mourshed 2007; Hattie 2009; Leithwood et al. 2006).

While there are continuities and similarities there is a need to examine the dynamics in the claimocracy since the mid-1990s, where there are important distinctive aspects to how the simplifications, fictions and mimicry have interplayed as policy violence within the two systems. An example of this is the rapid growth of distributed leadership: first, functional approaches that promote delegation technologies and rationales (e.g. Harris 2008); second, realistic approaches that examine the habits and relationships of those who work together (e.g. Gronn 2000); and third, socially critical approaches that work for equitable changes to power relationships (e.g. Hatcher 2005) (see Gunter, Hall, and Bragg 2013). However, while field knowledge production has remained plural, it is the functional forms of distributed leadership that populated and dominated the claimocracy in England, and the realist and socially critical forms that to some degree have resisted functionality in Norway.

England: a hybridisation of transformational leadership developed in the 2000s through a form of functional distributed leadership. While the charismatic headteacher remained the core conceptualisation of reform delivery, with major investments into ‘super’ and ‘executive’ headteachers who ‘turn around’ schools (Gunter 2012), there was a growing realisation that teams mattered. Distributed leadership entered the lexicon where the conceptualisation was the preservation of the prime leader with the delegation of activities to other leaders in the school hierarchy. For example, the National College for School Leadership (NCSL) was set up by the UK government from 2000 in order to train aspiring and serving headteachers to deliver government reforms (Gunter 2012), and in doing so commissioned projects that articulated the functionality of control and responsibility (e.g. Bennett et al. 2003). The centralisation of the reform process with direct Ministerial control over the purposes and activities of the NCSL illustrates how even in a democratic system hegemonic power can determine where debate about and for educational professionals is located and conducted (Gunter 2023). Consequently, while transformational change dominates the discourse, in reality the fundamental changes to power structures necessary to secure equity in regard to class, gender, race, disability and sexuality are more likely to operate at the level of rhetorical intention as ‘corporatised fabrications’ than actually be delivered (Courtney and Gunter 2020).

Norway: while the pre-eminence of the school leader had been a strong focus of attention for educational reformers, the reform agenda took on board expectations of democratic leadership as integral to developing professionalism. Democracy has long held a leading position in Norwegian educational policy documents and shaped the meaning of other words, but in policy documents of 2004, learning was introduced as the overall concept. When the Red-Green Coalition government took office in October 2005, the discourse changed where the principal as a teacher working with teachers was given prominence: ‘successful work within the learning environment requires that leaders and teachers agree upon what rules for behaviour that are present in the school’ (WP 31; 2007–2008, 76), and cooperation between leaders and teachers in a community became a significant principle:

The teacher does not stand alone in his/her work but is part of school community led by the principals. The challenges in the school cannot be faced by skilled individuals alone. It demands a common engagement from the whole school anchored in the formal school leadership to succeed. (WP 31; 2007–2008, 44)

Importantly, leadership was also constructed explicitly to teachers’ leadership in the classroom (WP 19 2009–2010, 18). The Ministry of Education and Research declared a willingness to follow up on the OECD’s proposal for leadership training, and the new programme, supported by perspectives on transformational leadership, was launched in 2009. Although the approach to distributed leadership is one that recognises functionality of the learning organisation the focus on democratic rights and values means that social justice issues are in evidence. As such, the focus on strong leaders as vehicles for improving education creates discursive tensions between education for democracy and expectations of using performance data to ensure quality standards and improve student achievements. However, introducing a language of performance expectations has permitted the reinterpretation of what it means to be a professional educator. In addition, individual rights are increasingly given prominence over collective rights, and principals are held more explicitly responsible for the fulfilment of students’ rights. (WP 21; 2016–2017)

These different approaches in England and Norway to the notion and realities of how school leadership is understood and practiced in schools means that while the corporate transformational leadership claimocracy has endured as a form of policy violence, it was and remains variously accepted, challenged, resisted and reworked differently in England and Norway. Our research demonstrates that explanations for this require an understanding of the dominance of government and governing in regard to the varying impact of policy violence (Gunter 2023; Møller 2017; 2022). Hence while context matters regarding which leadership theory is in the ascendance (Hartley 2007) and how that theory is reworked (Courtney 2021), we argue that the state remains the significant certainty. Charting the composition and the interests of those who occupy state institutions is significant, and this enables recognition of the vital differences in how the claimocracy is developed and engaged with in England and Norway. Importantly there is a fundamental difference in how the purposes of education are conceptualised, articulate and enacted.

In England education is conceptualised and structured in order to secure and maintain social, economic, political and cultural segregation, where class, race and gender combined with eugenicist beliefs enable elite private interests to dominate the provision of and access to school places (Gunter 2023). Consequently, the headteacher is historically understood as the custodian and instructor of moral standards since Victorian times, and this singularity has been reworked in post-war England as the CEO of a corporate enterprise vending high-status school attendance and accreditation as a private ambition and gain (Grace 1995).

In Norway, through the core curriculum, which is a legally binding text, schools are mandated to follow one of the main principles in education: nurturing future citizens to collectively contribute to upholding democratic norms and values in society. The purposes of education are emphasising the core values:

that unite the Norwegian society. These values, the foundation of our democracy, shall help us to live, learn and work together in a complex world and with an uncertain future. The core values are based on Christian and humanist heritage and traditions. They are also expressed in different religions and worldviews and are rooted in human rights. (MER 2017, 6)

It is emphasised that:

the values must have impact on the way the school and teachers interact with the student and the home. What is in the best interests of the student must always be a fundamental consideration. There will always be tensions between different interests and views. Teachers must therefore use their professional judgment so that each student is given the best possible care within the school environment. (MER 2017, 6)

To support the school, the Directorate of Education and Training has developed additional digital materials. However, through these resources, the Directorate emerges as an authoritative interpreter of issues that traditionally reside with the profession and these resources may play an important role in defining what to include or not to include in the local work of the curriculum. Hence, while the national curriculum represents a rather open text embedded in the values defined in the Educational Act, the digital ‘platform evolves as a strong provider of ‘correct’ ideas rather than providing the teachers with room for discretion based on professional knowledge’ (Karseth 2023, 138–139). The guidance may appear rather instrumental. In addition, expectations of public reporting and external accountability have in many ways created challenges for school leaders, and processes of juridification have resulted in a more detailed national regulation and a tendency to frame conflicts in legal terms (Andenæs and Møller 2016; Karseth and Møller 2020).

These distinctive purposes are engaged with differently in England and Norway. Policy violence is located in the political culture of UK government policymaking for and in England, where hierarchy is normalised, and where those ‘in power’ have ‘power over’ those who know their place, and being in power is determined by birth (traditionally male, white colonial legacies), elite education (private school and Oxbridge) and social networks (family, business) that dominates the composition of both elected and appointed public offices. The UK does not have a codified constitution, where the first-past-the-post electoral system usually produces majority single-party governments elected on less than 50% of the popular vote who claim a mandate to govern, and where the operationalisation of traditional conventions by ministers relies on the good conduct of those who hold office. Consequently, ideological based reforms can be enacted centrally and bring about swift radical change (e.g. the 1988 Education Reform Act); major reforms by one government can be terminated by another one, where the National College set up in 2000 was closed in 2018; and major reforms by a government can be launched and then rescinded (e.g. withdrawal of Schools Bill in December 2022; Morris 2022). This is evident in the ‘chopping and changing’ in the dismantling of public education structures, ethos and professionalism. A significant trend in both Conservative and Labour majority governments has been the depoliticisation of education decision-making from public arenas (e.g. Parliament) to private locations in families. Notably regulation is controlled through the Secretary of State who can make decisions through statutory instruments, and the relocation of decisions to consultants (Gunter and Mills 2017), and to agencies such as the National College, means that local government is in the process of being replaced (Gunter 2023).

One of the ways in which this has been undertaken is through the promotion of a particular form of school autonomy, where elite interests in the form of faith, business philanthropists and resourceful parents have been able to take over the provision of and access to school places in the ‘public’ system. From 1988 UK governments have: first, established business roles and cultures as vital for the efficient and effective delivery of performance outputs, and this is evident in Local Management of Schools; and second, schools within the local democratic system could leave and be established as Grant Maintained Status with direct funding from the UK government. Governments of both the right (Conservatives) and left (New Labour) also allowed new entrants to the market, with new schools directly funded and controlled by the UK government – City Technology Colleges from 1986, Academies from 2000, Free Schools and University Technical Colleges from 2010 (See Courtney 2015). While forms of autonomous schools may be closed/fail (e.g. CTCs) the idea of publicly funded forms of autonomy has remained resilient. This can be illustrated by the changes to the National Curriculum. The 1988 National Curriculum removed professional decision-making regarding pedagogy, core knowledge (subjects) and assessment (standards) and used the law to frame national requirements. Academies set up from 2000 must have a broad and balanced curriculum but no longer have to adhere to the National Curriculum. This is meant to allow freedom for teachers to innovate locally (see Gove 2013), but the continued dominance of performance data (with league tables, and Ofsted inspections) means that most schools follow what is required, and schools in areas of high deprivation have found it difficult to innovate as they have had to focus on data production.

By contrast, counties and local municipalities in Norway play a strong role in school governing and they receive a block grant from the state, and where leadership responsibility at the municipal level is shared between professional administrators and elected politicians. Through this linkage, education is related to broader community affairs. Municipalities finance the schools and perform a key role in providing in-service education. All counties and municipalities are required by law to establish a system for evaluating and following up on schools’ quality of education and student performance (Education Act 1998, Sec. 13-3e). While there appears to be a strong system of national control, schools are still mainly in control of their quality assurance and resilient unions have historically played essential roles in framing legitimate professional teaching in schools. On the one hand, schools and principals do not experience severe consequences for low performance on national tests, and leadership and teaching for democracy are still an integral part of the mission of Norwegian educational professionals (Trujillo et al. 2021). On the other hand, the use of new evaluation technologies by principals and managers to monitor outcomes represents a shift towards ‘organisational professionalism’ (Evetts 2009).

The development of the comprehensive school system in Norway is connected to the historical tradition of consensus-seeking politics in education. Even though it is possible to identify policy differences between right and left-wing parties, both agree on Bildung as a key aspect of the philosophy of education and a need for professional teachers as educators (Fjeldavli 2023). Both the right and left-wing parties have sought compromises and agreements on educational reforms. It does not mean the absence of conflicts, but there has traditionally been a political will in Norway to ground decisions in education on consensus (Møller, 2021). For example, Management by Objectives was introduced in WP 37 (1990–1991), and the Norwegian government expressed a need for a national evaluation system. During the 1990s, there were debates among union representatives, bureaucrats, and politicians about the potential dangers of a strong evaluation system. The curriculum-making tradition follows a state-based process where certain political institutions and arrangements are the main players, indicating a long democratic process consistent with institutional practices. Both teachers, unions, and other interest groups are involved in these processes. However, while the core curriculum in the new millennium still reflects a national identity based on inclusiveness, democratic values, and consensus, an analysis of curriculum documents over time shows significant changes in the period from the 1990s to the 2020s (Karseth 2023). In policy documents developed by the Conservative Coalition government, it is argued that competition and parental choice will promote democracy, and the boundary between the public and private sectors is fading through partnerships between public institutions and private enterprises. In contrast, the Red-Green coalition government which took office in October 2021, has recently announced a ‘reform of trust’ for public sector that includes a reduction in reporting requirements, and stronger opportunities for involvement for employee organisations in decision-making processes, and increase leeway for municipal and county authorities. The Minister of Education and Research has invited researchers, teachers, teacher unions, and other interest groups to provide an analysis of a reported increase of mistrust in education and discuss how a ‘reform of trust’ can be developed and enacted (Brenna 2023). Whether it is possible to reverse the performance-oriented and evidence-based policy which has for long been influential depends on how far the government continues to frame a claimocracy based on globalised ideas of education as human capital.

Summary

A critical review of our research data and theorisations over our careers has afforded the opportunity to examine the design and delivery of corporate transformational leadership in two systems: England and Norway. Our work in the 1980s and 1990s recognised the vibrancy of the ERC as a form of policy violence through the globalisation of the charismatic school leader as CEO of a school as a small business, and how this was rapidly implemented for the profession in England but subject to ongoing democratic and professional debate in Norway. Decades later we have project data regarding detailed research into knowledge production for the field and the realities of professional practice that demonstrates the endurance of this approach to school leadership within the ERC. Assertions regarding the modern school principal enabled through the promotion of various hybrids (such as functional distributed leadership) remain dynamically influential in both England and Norway. The ERC has done policy violence to the profession and the education system in both countries, but the degree and endurance of impact do differ: in England, the violence of removing and denying power from the profession as a form of liberation has been swift and dramatic, where only those who adopt corporate transformational leadership are recognised as authentic and committed professionals; in Norway, the potential violence of privatised liberation has been mitigated by the codified requirements for education to be the site of democratic values and practices, and so professionals are still able to retain their participation in reform enactment through being actively involved in curriculum design and by taking an educative role in developing children as citizens. Our judgement is that while the convergences in the ERC in England and Norway demonstrate the role of globalised knowledge production in travelling the globe and entering discourses and activities, the divergences demonstrate that the national political system in which education is located matters. Little research has been done historically in education leadership projects about who occupies government roles and institutions, and how the governing system can be used to make changes to public education in ways that are legitimate, authoritative and intelligent but can speedily impose ideological requirements not only to reform but to dismantle access and opportunity. Successive UK governments have sought to use corporate transformational leadership to turn professionals into enthusiastic protectors of a segregated system, whereas successive Norwegian governments have recognised the need for principals as teachers who work with teachers to ensure democratic values and practices are protected and used in order to develop the student experience and outcomes. The field of critical educational leadership needs to give attention not only to the problematics of corporate transformational leadership but to how and why the ERC is central to how it is adopted/rejected and imposed/resisted within the context and over time, and how the constitutional arrangements within a national system matter in regard to how those in government can and do take action.

Acknowledgments

Helen Gunter would like to acknowledge ESRC project funding that supported this article. This project is: The Knowledge Production in Educational Leadership Project RES-000-23-1192.

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Helen M. Gunter

Helen M. Gunter is Professor Emerita in The Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester, UK. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, and recipient of the BELMAS Distinguished Service Award 2016. Her research focuses on the political sociology of knowledge production in the field of education policy. Her most recent book is: A Political Sociology of Education Policy (2023, Policy Press), and her research has been the focus of a festschrift: Fitzgerald, T. and Courtney, S.J. (Eds.) (2023) Critical Education Policy and Leadership Studies: The Intellectual Contributions of Helen M. Gunter. Cham, Switzerland: Springer.

Jorunn Møller

Jorunn Møller is Professor Emerita of Education at the University of Oslo, Department of Teacher Education and School Research. Her professional interests are in the areas of educational leadership and governance, reform policies and school accountability, and she has published her work in a wide range of books and journal articles. She has been a manager of several research projects examining the enactment of school reform and accountability, the interplay of legal standards and professional discretion in schools, successful school leadership and leadership identities in a Norwegian context and across countries.

Notes

1 We use school principal when discussing the school systems in England and Norway. When discussing them separately we use principal for Norway, and headteacher for England.

2 Norwegian documents have been translated into English by Jorunn Møller

3 We note that there is research evidence about effective challenges to the ERC in a range of nation states. See Courtney et al. 2021.