School leadership and micro-policymaking in schools - time use and the collective care for the self

ABSTRACT

Studies have shown how school professionals deal with large quantities of student test data and accountability policies in different ways. However, the subtle ways in which school leaders and teachers use their time, their power and their talk when dealing with external policy demands in daily practice is understudied. Using data from interviews with formal school leaders and video observations of leadership teams and teaching teams, this paper investigates how school leaders and teachers deal with external testing policy demands in a fairly new policy context of national testing in Norway. The study aims to explore micro-political aspects of the issue, by applying a theoretical framework on leadership, micro-policy actors and ideas about time. The paper contributes to the field of education policy and reform by introducing the role that time plays in micro-politics in general and how time issues contribute to the shaping of stakeholders’ understanding of and relationship to external policy demands. Findings surrounding middle leaders as crucial in the micro-policy construction of time and space, suggesting a need for research aimed at understanding school leaders’ and teachers’ sharing experiences of time and the care for the collective self.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1. In a Norwegian context, the 420 municipalities act as local educational authorities. They all have official web-sites with school information.

2. All names are anonymized.

3. In this study, the title middle leader is given to those with formal responsibilities associated with the former assistant principal role. The middle leaders are currently responsible for managing subject matters and human resources in‘their’ grade levels, including responsibility for parts of the school’s budget.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Ann Elisabeth Gunnulfsen

Ann Elisabeth Gunnulfsen is an associate professor at the Department of Teacher Education and School Research at the University of Oslo. Her research interest and expertise are in the fields of Educational Leadership, Governing, Accountability, Organizational Theory, Education policy, Qualitative Methods, Mixed Methods, Education Law.