Contextual Influence on School Leader Problem Framing: The Role of Perceived Organizational Image and Identity in Making Sense of Policy-Related Problems

ABSTRACT

Problematic aspects of implementing policy are not simply a product of the policy message, but rather are constructed by the actors engaged in the process. This qualitative interview study addresses the role of school leader’s organizational identity beliefs in constructing policy problems and demonstrates how these perceptions seem to play an important role in making sense of a national reform demand in the Swedish school system. My findings show that beliefs regarding the hierarchical position of the managed school program, and conceptions of the program’s construed external image, influence how policy problems and solutions are framed by the school leaders.

Introduction

Questions regarding how educational policy is interpreted and implemented have given rise to plentiful and diverse explanations, with research interests focusing on different actors and procedures within the process (Honig, 2006; McLaughlin, 1987; Spillane et al, 2002a). The relationship between how policy is intended by policymakers and how it is later implemented by local actors is not linear, but the intention still has an influence on the work being performed in the school organization (Rigby et al., 2016). Following this, researchers have adopted a bottom-up perspective to investigate the more contextual and actor-driven aspects of the process (Datnow & Park, 2009). A great deal of this research has investigated the discrepancy between mandated policy goals and local actors’ responses in enacting and reshaping the demands of the educational policy (Coburn, 2005; Lipsky, 2010). What “works” in improving educational practice through reform initiatives is assumed to depend on the interplay between school conditions, content of policy, and actors in the local school context (Honig, 2009). In a line of research using a sensemaking perspective on policy implementation in school contexts, the focus has been directed toward how agents’ prior knowledge, beliefs, and values within their social environment shape their interpretation and enactment of policy messages (Coburn, 2001, 2004; Louis et al., 2005). The school leader has been shown to possess an important role in understanding, shaping, and mediating policy messages within local school practice (Spillane et al, 2002b). By having higher access to policy messages than other local school personnel, school leaders' interpretations assist in strategic decisions affecting their school organization, intensifying some parts of the message while filtering out others (Coburn, 2005). The school leader’s interpretations aids in steering the way for other school actors in shaping school practice as a response to policy (Gawlik, 2015), and can therefore be considered a central actor in the study of educational policy implementation.

An aspect of the interpretive process in implementation that has not been given the same scholarly attention is the act of problem framing (Coburn, 2006). Researchers following this approach define policy problems as agent-driven social constructs that emerge from interaction with the social world, labeling some aspects of the policy intentions as more problematic and giving rise to certain actions instead of others (Coburn, 2006; Sleegers et al., 2009; Weiss, 1989). According to these lines of research, how school leaders frame and make sense of problems connected to implementing policy demands can have a crucial impact on what aspects of the policy are considered problematic and what actions are taken to solve these problems. Understanding what guides and restricts these processes can therefore shed light on important features of how policy can be made sense of and enacted by agents in the local school contexts. In this study, I build on the prior research considering the school leader as a central figure in translating policy content based on their preexisting knowledge structures and contextual conditions. School leaders’ notions of identity and position in the wide and local policy context are considered in this article to be a driving force for constructing policy problems, shaping the content of problem frames, and steering solutions derived from the framing.

The aim of this article is to explore how school leaders frame and make sense of problems in relation to policy demands, with a specific focus on the role of the perceived image and identity of the managed educational program. This was achieved through interviews with school leaders responsible for implementing a policy within the Swedish school system. The Swedish LtC (Leisure-time Center), a complementary educational program connected to the elementary school system, has in recent years been subjected to a series of state policy demands seeking to improve equivalence and teaching quality. The latest is a teacher certification policy, enacted in the summer of 2019, to ensure that employees possess the right qualifications to be tenured and responsible for teaching. School leaders are therefore mandated to make sure that their school has access to qualified personnel and to hire additional teachers if necessary. At the time of the policy enactment, the school system in Sweden was battling a major teacher shortage crisis, with the level of qualified LtC teachers at the very bottom.

Points of departure in theory and prior research

To explore the school leaders’ sensemaking and framing of problems connected to implementing the certification policy, this article draws on two lines of research – sensemaking and problem framing in school settings and the theoretical concepts of organizational identity and image.

School leader sensemaking of educational policy

Sensemaking is the retrospective and ongoing process where individuals seek to understand ambiguous or confusing events (Maitlis & Christianson, 2014). By extracting cues from the environment (Mills et al., 2010) that are embedded in social interactions and situated contexts (Coburn, 2006; Weick, 1995), and by relating this information to preexisting cognitive frameworks (Porac et al., 1989), individuals construct meaning into the ambiguous situation, which in turn guides further action from which additional cues can be drawn (Maitlis, 2005; Weick, 1995). How school leaders make sense of and respond to educational policy is a process that is situated in their multiple contexts and is guided by individual values and beliefs (Spillane et al, 2002b), and school leaders are key actors in assessing and mediating the policy messages that are being forwarded to the teaching staff (Coburn, 2005). Furthermore, they shape the process of enacting policy through a two-way interaction between their own and other actors’ preexisting mental representations and the culture, norms, and traditions of the local school context (Ganon-Shilon & Schechter, 2017).

Research investigating these processes has also recognized that there are various factors influencing how school leaders understand and shape the outcome of policy demands. These studies have illustrated how sensemaking is influenced by school leaders professional biographies and situated contexts (Spillane et al, 2002b), their professional networks (Jennings, 2010), their identities and feelings (Carraway & Young, 2015), the norms and values of their local organization (Liljenberg, 2015), and their professional role identity (Mizrahi-Shtelman, 2019). The prior research highlights the reciprocal influence of school leader identity and situated context in making sense of educational policy, in which the policy is both affecting and being altered by the surrounding context and the school leader as a policy actor (Spillane et al, 2002b).

Framing educational policy problems

In relation to investigating how practitioners make sense of educational policy, framing theory offers a complementary perspective on how school leaders prioritize, rearrange, and construct the policy problems that they seek to make sense of (Park et al., 2013). In addition to the contextual and cognitive focus of the sensemaking perspective on policy research, framing theory also provides a lens to investigate how power relations between different agents affect the shaping of policy meaning-making and outcomes in the local context (Coburn, 2006; Park et al., 2013).

Social movement theorists (Benford & Snow, 2000) have extended the theory of frame analysis (Goffman, 1974) and developed concepts around collective action frames and processes of frame alignment (Snow et al., 1986). These processes comprise the interpretive alignment between individuals’ mental representations (values, beliefs, etc.) and the objectives and ideologies of social movement organizations. The act of framing is a meaning-making part of the process that constructs parts of reality to mobilize others into certain types of action. The process takes place in negotiations of mutual perceptions of problematic instances of the organization that are identified as in need of change. Agents engage in identifying and attributing blame to the sources of the problem, known as diagnostic framing. This focuses on some parts of the problem as more problematic, while ignoring other aspects, and it assigns responsibility for solving the problems to other actors (Coburn, 2006). In the act of finding ways to solve the problem, agents engage in what Benford and Snow (2000) call prognostic framing where possible solutions and goals are proposed. In some instances, the prognostic framing corresponds with the results of the diagnostic framing and represents the conditions under which solutions seem relevant to the one who is engaging in the framing process.

The small number of studies drawing on framing theory in the field of educational policy implementation have shown that actors’ framing and understanding of policy problems is a contested process shaped by relations of authority and power. Framing is in some instances conceptualized as a strategic and persuading tactic from district managers trying to influence local actors’ understanding and sensemaking of reform demands (Park et al., 2013). The process is considered a conscious political act where some frames are valued more highly than others in order to legitimize specific actions, or as a way of re-focusing school leader’s attention to certain aspects of the policy (Woulfin et al., 2016).

At the local school level, problem framing related to reform implementation has been conceived as a process of negotiation between different school actors that is shaped by relations of authority (Coburn, 2006). School leaders have been shown to frame policy-related problems in tactical ways in order to persuade and gain support from other school actors, and by this legitimize certain solutions (and not others) in order to change practice (Coburn, 2006; Park et al., 2013). Frames put forward by school leaders have greater potential to define problems, reshape power relations, and steer solutions than the frames articulated by teachers as long as the content of the frames resonates with, or creates new frameworks for, the school personnel’s preexisting values, beliefs, and knowledge. This has been recognized as a challenge in the case of district leaders’ efforts to shape school leader sensemaking by trying to shift school leaders’ long-held beliefs or values through strategic framing (Park et al., 2013). The content of frames might clash with school leaders’ pre-held mental representations, or (if the frame content is more regulative than normative) it might motivate them to only symbolically comply with policy demands (Woulfin et al., 2016), and by this compromise the upper management’s goals with the policy. Local actors might also use strategic frames to resist and alter mandated changes to school practice, and by this shape policymakers understanding of what is in need of change at the school level (Grossman, 2010).

Organizational identity and image

As policymakers (Coburn, 2006; Spillane et al., 2002a), school leaders engage in their own framing process when confronted with state or district demands. Their individual perceptions and beliefs can therefore be seen as a potential gate-keeper in relation to what aspects of policy demands are interpreted as problematic and what parts of the policy content are enacted in the local school context. The school leaders’ interpretive act, based on the empirical material of this study, is understood as an identity-driven process (Weick, 1995) elicited by the process of making sense of and framing policy problems in their social environment. Social position and processes of constructing and maintaining individual and organizational identity have earlier been shown to be significant in agents’ efforts to make sense of organizational change (Currie & Brown, 2003; Lockett et al., 2014; Thurlow & Mills, 2009). In prior research of organizational behavior, agent’s interpretations of events or problems in their work context have been presumed to be shaped and altered by their perceptions of the image and identity of their organization (Gioia & Thomas, 1996).

Whetten (2006, p. 220) defines identity at the organizational level as “the central and enduring attributes of an organization that distinguish it from other organizations” and that become evident through members’ claims when speaking on behalf of their organization. Identity can also be seen as a conceived notion (Dutton et al., 1994) that is restricted to the beliefs about enduring attributes of the organization in the minds of individual organizational members, and therefore not necessarily in line with the collective identity. The organizational identity and the identity claims made by the organization’s members are in this sense also dependent on their conceptions of how others see and value their organization, which is encapsulated through the concept of organizational image (Frandsen, 2017; Rho et al., 2015). Image has been defined in terms of an organization’s reputation, i.e. external stakeholders’ conceptions and internal creations surrounding the identity of the organization (Hatch & Schultz, 1997). It can also be viewed from a managerial, visionary perspective in how the organization is desired to be seen by both internal and external stakeholders (Scott & Lane, 2000). Dutton et al. (1994) definition of image involves organizational members’ construed assessments and beliefs about external stakeholders’ views of the organization, which also interrelates with and affects members’ notions of identity and identification with the organization. Agents’ perceived notions of the organizational identity and image have in this line of research been conceived to play an important role in constraining and modulating interpretations of problems related to the organization, in shaping which actions and outcomes are being executed to solve them, and in adapting to changes in the organization (Dutton et al., 1994; Gioia et al., 2000; Gioia & Thomas, 1996).

In this article, I utilize the concepts of perceived organizational identity and construed external image, combined with sensemaking and framing theory, to study school leaders’ efforts to make sense of and to frame policy problems. The purpose of employing this framework is to illuminate how individual perceptions of, and beliefs concerning, contextual relations might influence or shape how policy problems are framed and made sense of by school leaders in the process of implementing policy. The framework also assists in demonstrating how these perceptions and beliefs not only guide how problems are diagnostically framed, but also how they enable and restrict possible solutions, which might guide further action and possibly influence the direction of how policy is implemented.

Research context

Schools in Sweden are governed and managed by different layers of authority. Curriculum change and frameworks for managing school organizations is determined by the government and imposed through laws and policy regulations (Skolverket, 2019a). The “director of education” (Rapp, 2011) is responsible for student achievements and policy implementation at the municipal level (in private schools this position belongs to the school board), while the school leader is responsible for personnel, quality, and results at individual school units. The Swedish compulsory school system consists of ten consecutive school years from preschool class to year 9, which is followed by voluntary upper-secondary education for 3 years (Skolverket, 2020b). Students between the age of 6 and 13 can, before and after school activities, attend the school-age educare (Leisure-time Center) when their parents are at work or studying. Attendance is not compulsory, but a majority (57% of children age 6–12 and 84% of children age 6–9) of Swedish students are enrolled in the program (Skolverket, 2019b). The utmost responsibility for managing the day-to-day workings of the LtC is imposed on the school leader (Skolverket, 2020a), often together with deputy school leaders as part of a larger school unit consisting of different compositions of compulsory school grades and the preschool class.

The certification policy for LtC teachers is the latest in a line of recent government-mandated changes to the LtC. The programs main objective, as regulated in the Swedish Education Act and connected to the curriculum of the compulsory school, is to complement and cooperate with the elementary school and pre-school class activities through a situated, group-oriented, and experience-based learning environment (Skolverket, 2018a). The objectives were further regulated in the 2016 revision of the compulsory school curriculum, which included a separate and more detailed section on the LtC´s mission (Skolverket, 2016). The primary aim of the revision was to clarify the LtC’s objective, which in earlier evaluations (Skolinspektionen, 2010) had been criticized for its ambiguity, and to create prerequisites for educational quality and equivalence. The results of the policy implementation were examined through a reform evaluation conducted by the Swedish Agency for Education (Skolverket, 2018b). A prominent conclusion drawn from the evaluation emphasized the problem of implementing curricular policy in the LtC concerning the low level of qualified personnel. Only 39% of the employees held a university degree in any form of educational sciences at the time of the evaluation, and only 24% were qualified to teach at the LtC (Skolverket, 2018b).

According to the Swedish Agency of Education (2018), the lack of adequate qualification and competencies in the personnel made policy implementation and school development through curriculum change difficult for the school leaders to manage. The employees of the LtC had earlier been an exception in the Swedish school system regarding the requirements of teacher certification. This meant that employees without the adequate qualifications could still be tenured and be responsible for educational content and teaching. This exception was removed by legislators (Skolverket, 2019c) in 2019 through the teacher certification policy, with the intention of increasing the status of LtC teachers and making sure that the pedagogical work in the LtC was performed by employees with adequate qualifications. In practice, this meant that only employees with the adequate teacher certification were authorized to be responsible for teaching at the LtC.

Method

This article is the result of the first part of a larger research project on organizational meaning-making connected to the implementation of a teacher certification policy in Swedish LtCs. In order to explore the interpretive processes of the school leaders when translating and framing problems of the policy message in relation to their local school context, the study was designed as a qualitative study based on semi-structured interviews with purposely selected school leader participants.

Participants

In order to study the participants’ responses within similar organizational terms and resources, and explore “average-like” cases (Suri, 2011), the selection was made through a purposeful sampling (Marshall, 1996). A “typical” sample strategy (Patton, 2015) was chosen to explore school leader interpretations within schools that mirrored average circumstances surrounding personnel resources in Swedish LtCs, since this was the main issue for the policy enforcement. The school leaders who were asked to participate in the study were managing LtCs in municipalities where the level of personnel with an educational science backgroundwas within 10% of the Swedish national average of 2018, which was 39% (Skolverket, 2018b). Initial contact was made with executives responsible for education administration at the municipal level in order to request permission to conduct the study and to obtain contact information for potential respondents who met the study’s selection criteria. A letter was sent to all potential respondents with information about the study and a request to participate. The final participants of the study consisted of 11 (deputy and primary) school leaders (see Table 1) with the responsibility for implementing the teacher certification policy in LtCs in seven different municipal school districts in the southern region of Sweden.

Table 1. Participants.

School leader	Role	Educational background	Years Admin	Areas of responsibility	LtC size^a
1	School leader	Preschool teacher	10–15	Preschool class to third grade + LtC	150
2	School leader	Upper secondary teacher	0–2	Preschool class to third grade + LtC	70
3	Deputy school leader	Primary school teacher	0–2	LtC + Preschool class	100
4	Deputy school leader	Leisure and recreation	10	Preschool class to fourth grade + LtC	145
5	School leader	LtC-teacher + Primary school teacher	10–15	Preschool class to sixth grade + LtC	180
6	Deputy school leader	Not school related	3–5	LtC	200
7	School leader	Preschool teacher + Primary school teacher	5–10	Preschool class to sixth grade + LtC	300
8	School leader	Primary school teacher	3–5	Preschool class to sixth grade + LtC	350
9	Deputy school leader	LtC-teacher	0–2	LtC	220
10	Deputy school leader	LtC-teacher + Special education teacher	3–5	LtC	440
11	School leader	Primary school teacher	20+	Preschool to sixth year + LtC	75

^aStudents enrolled for year 2019/20

Data collection

The study was designed as a qualitative interview study. A pilot interview was initially conducted with a school leader meeting the criteria for the purposeful sample. The purpose of this interview was to assist in the formulation of the questions to be used in the semi-structured interview protocol. The interview questions were also inspired by prior research on school leader sensemaking and problem framing in policy implementation. The questions were designed to obtain school leader perceptions of the identity of themselves as leaders, their organization and the educational program (values, tradition, beliefs, and prior knowledge), contextual properties (local school organization, municipal and government agencies), what constituted problems in implementing the policy (how they came to be and who is responsible for them) and the appropriate solutions to the problems. A total of 11 semi-structured interviews, which lasted 45–70 minutes, were then conducted at a location of the respondent’s choosing, which in all cases took place in offices or study rooms at the participant’s workplace. The data collection took place in the fall semester of 2019. The interviews were recorded and then subsequently transcribed and translated from Swedish to English.

Data analysis

The process of data analysis was informed by grounded theory and was carried out using steps included in the constant comparative method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) and strategies used in thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Data analysis took place throughout the research process with basic categories and themes being abstracted from the material as notes or networks (Attride-Stirling, 2001). The categories and themes emerging from the interview transcripts were compared between one another throughout data collection and combined into more organized themes until a sense of theoretical saturation was reached (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). There was recurring instances of peer debriefing (Robson, 2002) in the form of seminars and guidance from senior researchers during data analysis in order to guard against researcher bias. After the final interview, the material underwent a second, more theory-grounded analysis based on the framework of sensemaking and framing theory, which combined with the initial coding procedure gave rise to an elaboration of the concepts of organizational identity and image as part of the process. In the final stage of the analysis, the material was re-read and the preliminary global themes (Attride-Stirling, 2001) were compared to the earlier themes from the analysis to ensure that the relationships between the different stages of analysis were coherent (Braun & Clarke, 2006).

Findings

The school leaders’ understanding of the basic imperative of the policy message was similar across the participants’ responses. They saw the policy as a regulation regarding the scope of undertakings by personnel at the LtC, which required a more explicit view of who is allowed to perform teaching activities and to have responsibility for the educational planning. From this mutual point of departure in understanding of the policy, the analysis of the school leaders’ framings of the problems showed various frame trajectories related to implementing the policy demands. Similarities that arose in the analysis of these trajectories revealed a cohesive problem frame that was formed by conceived aspects regarding recruitment and hiring as a means to meet the policy demands. The focal point of the findings in this article centers around how the school leaders made sense of and framed this mutual problematic aspect of the implementation process. The findings are presented through two linked dispositional parts. First, I present and discuss the school leaders’ diagnostic framing, which involves interpretations of what the problem consists of and how it came to be. Second, I focus on the prognostic framing of the problem and elaborate on the school leaders’ proposed solutions to meet the requirements of the policy. The findings are supported with excerpts from the empirical material.

Framing the problem – an identity-driven process

The most prominent diagnostic frame that emerged from multiple trajectories (Coburn, 2006) within the school leaders’ responses during the interviews was that of recruiting and hiring certified teachers to meet the requirements of the new policy. The need for extensive quantities of educated personnel was, besides the new demands of the policy, motivated by the prior exception in the LtC’s hiring policy, which in the absence of certified alternatives enabled the hiring and retention of unqualified personnel. In recent years, a large and growing number of enrolled students in the LtCs put pressure on many of the school leaders to hire more personnel – even if there were no certified teachers available. The absence of certified alternatives was often attributed to a national shortage of LtC teachers. There was also a fear of not meeting the new requirements if some of the smaller numbers of existing certified personnel were to end their employment. Many of the school leaders connected the different aspects of the hiring problem to what they considered to be a widely held perception of what it means to work at the LtC and what the function of the educational program is. This perceived external image reflected aspects of the hiring process for some of the school leaders.

(School leader 10):

This spring I announced one position and received 3 or 4 qualified applicants, and 40 with no qualification. This says something about what the average person thinks about what teaching at the LtC means. You can apply for that position, anyone! If I were to announce a position in teaching Spanish, English, or mathematics this would have been a whole different story.

(School leader 7):

We have a hard time recruiting teachers to the LtC. You know, I put out an ad, which I think will be attractive (…) The applicants are bus drivers, deliverymen, and that is … yeah.

This diagnostic framing of the hiring problem shared similarities across a majority of the school leaders’ responses, regardless of educational background, position or other individual circumstances. They expressed a notion regarding how related outsiders, e.g., the government, the public, the municipal administration, other school leaders, teachers, and parents, perceive the LtC to be at the bottom of the school system hierarchy and that this in different ways influences the possibilities of recruiting and hiring certified personnel and therefore of living up to the policy demands. In the mind of the school leaders, the perceived imagery of the LtC was partly grounded in historical accounts of the LtC not belonging to the ordinary school system until 1995 and the LtC having ambiguous goals when compared to the elementary school objectives. According to some of the school leaders, this made work at the LtC seem somewhat less valuable when compared to traditional teaching, and therefore counteracted the possibilities of recruiting qualified people to the profession. The perception of the image of the educational program was also upheld through social interactions between the school leaders and municipal administrators, school leader colleagues, parents, and teachers who through different decisions, opinions, and actions reinforced the perceived imagery.

(School leader 1):

Sometimes I think the LtC has been somewhat of a garbage can. We have several relocated employees here who have not been able to manage their previous work duties, whatever they are (…) There have not been the same type of demands aimed at the LtC, so they just shoved them in here.

(School leader 4):

I really think that the parents are satisfied as long as someone is looking after the kids and they have a snack and a good time. (…) The LtC is not very prioritized, from the government level and right down. It does not have the same type of weight as elementary school. Nobody talks about the LtC.

(School leader 10):

I believe that we often wrestle with the misconception of the LtC as a nanny organization.

The image also seemed to reinforce and align with perceived identity claims made by the school leaders about specific and enduring features of the LtC as an educational program. While referring to the problems as being shaped and fueled by negative external images, some of the school leaders simultaneously saw the image as a mirror of what their organization actually had to offer in terms of organizational conditions and resources to prospective workers – even though the poor conditions were considered a product of neglect and marginalization from related outsiders. The identity claims often consisted of historical or tradition-oriented statements, treating the LtC as a collective organizational entity regardless of municipal belonging. School leaders expressed a notion of the LtC´s identity as being an educational program of low priority, neglect, and undervalue from related outsiders. The notions of the perceived image and identity of the LtC seemed to compose a catch-22 scenario in the process of implementing the certification policy. The conditions for successful implementation were, according to the school leaders, not in place due to long-term negligence from related outsiders, which also contributed to the poor external image of the educational program. This in turn seemed to shape how the school leaders perceived the identity of the LtC, thus guiding the process of framing problems associated with implementing the policy.

(School leader 2):

(…) historically the LtC has been somewhat of a storage unit and playground.

(School leader 6):

The LtC has not historically been a part of the ordinary school system. Somewhere along the way, the LtC became connected to the school, and school leaders suddenly had the responsibility for an organization they knew nothing about. (…) It becomes a stepmother relationship, which means that first we handle everything else in the school, then we handle the LtC.

(School leader 11):

There is a hierarchy. You have to be vigilant about the fact that the LtC is lower in this hierarchy in comparison to the elementary school when you talk about what is important.

The highlighted frame involving the notion that recruitment and hiring in the LtC is more difficult due to the externally construed image, and the perceived identity of the educational program, is an example of the school leaders engaging in what Benford and Snow (2000) call frame amplification. This is the process in which particular features of the framed problem are emphasized, while others are ignored, by relating the content of the frame to preexisting events, beliefs, or narratives (Coburn, 2006). The frame, in this case, was amplified through a process in which the implementation problems aligned with the school leaders’ beliefs about the perceived image and identity of the LtC as a program of lower priority and greater neglect. As a process of frame amplification, this was also visible in the school leaders’ act of attributing blame as part of the diagnostic framing (Benford and Snow, 2000; Snow et al., 1986), which was directed toward different actors in the implementation process.

(School leader 4):

I think that the politicians, and my district manager, have limited knowledge when it comes to the LtC. I can´t see that any measures have been taken to meet the new requirements. (…) The municipal board of education has put aside money for implementation purposes, in pre-school, but we never saw any resources directed towards the LtC.

(School leader 1):

They have been focusing on the lack of resources in pre-school and have acknowledged their assignments, but the same attention has not been given to the LtC. They acknowledge the primary goals of elementary school and pre-school, but the LtC is not spoken about.

A couple of the school leaders attributed blame to the government and national policymakers for legislating a policy that does not take the current lack of resources into consideration, and thus ignoring the conditions surrounding the educational program. Others directed blame toward their separate municipal education administrations on the count that the LtC had not been prioritized when compared to the resources given to other school venues facing similar problems. Many of the school leaders, even though they viewed the policy direction as desirable, described the decisions made by the legislators to enhance the quality of the LtC as an example of how the image and identity of the program co-creates difficulties in the implementation process. Current organizational conditions for implementing the policy were, according to the school leaders, not taken into consideration by the government before the legislation, and actions to support the implementation process were poorly funded by municipal resources.

Framing solutions to the problem

In relation to the diagnostic framing of the problem of recruitment and hiring, the school leaders also engaged in different forms of prognostic framing (Benford & Snow, 2000; Coburn, 2006) where possible solutions to the problem were presented. When asked the question of what could potentially solve the described problems, a majority of the school leaders underscored the importance of finding new ways to attract certified personnel. This was partly motivated by policy demands, but primarily the school leaders expressed a belief that it would increase the educational quality at the LtC and strengthen their organizational and professional image. Examples of solutions expressed by the school leaders ranged from tailoring positions to job-seekers’ preferences and offering supervisor assistance to newly examined teachers, to advertising new school buildings and offering free school lunches. The need to find new recruitment tactics was shared across a large portion of the interviewed school leaders, but was often deemed unsuccessful due to lack of resources. Instead, a common prognostic frame articulated by the school leaders involved finding alternative paths to certification for current employees without the proper educational background. This was motivated by the fact that hiring suitable employees was hard enough due to the shortage of certified teachers and tight budgets, but also due to the perceived qualities that the rather large, non-certified group displayed in the workplace. A couple of the school leaders argued that it would bring comfort in knowing what you get and a way of killing two birds with one stone.

(School leader 2):

I put forward a suggestion that the employees we have now, with the qualities we want to keep, should be able to get paid full salary and study half time (…) It is the practical experience that brings this competence. I think it is worth a lot if it could be combined with theoretical knowledge.

(School leader 5):

There should be a path to education for these people. The responsibility should be on the municipality, not the individual school. Work half time, study half time, and get a full paycheck. That could be the way to do it.

(School leader 8):

When there is a discussion about the LtC teacher shortage, I see an advantage. First you shape their professional qualities on site, then you add the university education. This could be the best solution in my opinion.

This prognostic framing of the hiring problem seemed to be guided by the content of the school leaders’ prior diagnostic framing. Because the root of the problem was believed to be a result of long-term neglect from related outsiders, which in turn shaped how the school leaders perceived their organization (and how they perceived it to be seen by others) and made it harder to meet policy goals, the source for solving the problems was attributed to the related outsiders. Resources from the level of district or government, which in the school leaders’ earlier accounts had been administered to other school venues higher up in the hierarchy, was regarded as necessary in order to meet the policy standards and to serve the needs of the LtC. In relation to this, the perceived identity feature of being an educational program of low priority steers the school leaders’ prognostic framing to involve higher sections of the chain of management in order to solve the problem. Finding and accumulating the proper amount of desired personnel to meet the policy standards is, according to the school leaders, not solely an internal organizational issue, but requires a shift in governmental and municipal perception toward a view of the LtC as a prioritized educational program. Furthermore, a couple of the school leaders framed their possible solutions to the problem of hiring and meeting the policy demands in relation to accounts of contradictions in government decision-making. In many cases, these frames consisted of a more protest-oriented prognosis frame (“We will not do anything different”), which was motivated by either feelings of inadequacy, disbelief of policy standards, or views on to what extent the policy standards is reachable.

(School leader 2):

I think it is shameful that the attempts to raise school quality over the last years have only involved changes to control documents. They think that changes to the grading system or curriculum content will create better schools. This is wrong. It is the teachers, and the quality of the teachers, that determines the quality of education for the students.

(School leader 11):

I will say that I did not delve into it because it does not matter. We always look for and try to get as well-educated people as possible. If we do not get them, we must take the next ones in the hierarchy. I have never understood why teacher certification would make a difference.

The similarities between the two more prominent prognostic framing processes in relation to the hiring problem manifests in their connection to the previous diagnostic framing of hiring being more difficult in the LtC due to neglect from legislators and other actors connected to the organization. They are also similar in that solutions to bring about policy goals is a responsibility, or a fault, of the policy actors on the government or municipal level. The school leaders’ orientation toward possible solutions seemed to be navigated by the content of the diagnostic framing and to be guided by the same beliefs about the externally held organizational image and identity. Similar to the diagnostic framing, the image and identity also seemed to act as a mirror to the limitations of the educational program in itself, but in this instance as a catalyst to restraining what policy solutions seemed relevant.

A sense of hierarchy

Parallel to the framing of problems connected to the implementation of the teacher certification policy, these findings also shed light on how this process interrelates to the school leader’s sensemaking of the policy problems. Sensemaking is often triggered when organizational actors encounter confusing or surprising events, which causes a need for explanation (Maitlis & Christianson, 2014). In various ways, a majority of the respondents expressed that the demands of the certification policy constituted a disruption to the ordinary routine of recruiting and hiring of personnel to the LtC.

(School leader 7):

The biggest conflict is within myself as a school leader. How am I supposed to adjust or re-structure my organization to fit the demands of the policy, if there is no one to hire?

The prior experiences, ongoing social interactions, and preexisting beliefs connected to the externally construed image and perceived identity of the educational program seemed to influence how a majority of the school leaders (regardless of differing personal characteristics) diagnostically framed this problematic situation, and appeared to have an impact on what cues were extracted in their organizations. When talking about the problematic aspects of the policy, the school leaders seemed to act as “representatives,” not only for their separate organizations, but for the LtC as an educational program in itself, often referring to “the Ltc,” rather than the local organization.

(School leader 6):

What´s missing is insight from municipal and government decision-makers. They don´t really know, what does the LtC do? What are the goals? It is a lack of knowledge.

This might indicate that the school leaders’ sensemaking was embedded in a situated context defined by characteristics and traditions from a wider organizational identity, inherent to the educational program. The foundation of problematic instances in the individual organization appeared to be ascribed to the hierarchical position of the national educational program. This perceived neglected position off the LtC acted as a plausible reference to the school leaders, and appeared to contribute to the extraction of cues that supported this belief (Mills et al, 2010). By attributing the difficulties of recruitment and hiring (primarily in the form of a limitation of resources) to a sense of hierarchical position, and framing the problems as a product of this position, the school leaders’ ascribed meaning and clarity to the problematic situation. The retrospective process of making sense of the problematic aspects of the policy also seemed to contribute to the authoring of future events (Weick, 1995) through potential actions following solutions articulated through the prognostic framing. Although differing in expressing how to enact prospective changes to meet the policy demands, there were similarities across a large part of the responses in the belief that the main responsibility for change lies higher up in the chain of school management.

Summary and discussion

In this article, I explored how school leaders with the responsibility of managing the Swedish LtC framed and made sense of problems related to demands posed on them by a teacher certification policy. The school leader has been considered a key actor in prior research by mediating and steering the direction of policy based on preexisting knowledge, values, and beliefs accompanied by their contextual influences (Coburn, 2005; Spillane, Diamond, et al., 2002a). Problem-framing activities by local actors are presumed to be a crucial, but not broadly investigated, part of understanding how educational policy is made sense of and enacted (Coburn, 2006). To explore a different aspect of this process, this study had a specific focus on the role of contextual identity influences, i.e. the perceived identity and image of the educational program, on the school leader’s interpretation of the policy, and it presented the results of how these notions might guide and restrict the process. The analysis suggests that school leaders’ framing and sensemaking of problems and solutions associated with implementing the policy were steered by perceptions and beliefs concerning the hierarchical status of the managed educational program. The sense of being, and being conceived as, a neglected and low-prioritized part of the educational system not only assisted in shaping what parts of the policy were considered problematic, but also seemed to influence what actions (or non-actions) seemed appropriate to solve the problems. These results indicate that local policy actors’ beliefs about their perceived belonging within the educational system, externally construed position, and value have consequences for the outcome of policy intentions.

Making sense of and framing policy problems

The school leaders’ narratives of problems connected to implementing the certification policy were to a large extent composed of difficulties surrounding the hiring and recruitment of certified personnel in order to meet the policy standards. In turn, these problems were framed and made sense of on the basis of identity-oriented claims connected to the educational program. The perceived hierarchical position and construed image of the LtC in comparison to other school venues, and the notion of being a program of low priority and neglect by district and government officials, seemed to mold the school leaders’ understanding of how this problem came to be. Research on school leader sensemaking in policy implementation has illustrated how the process often is characterized by a reciprocal influence between school leaders prior knowledge structures and experiences, and the contextual characteristics of their environment (e.g., Carraway & Young, 2015; Coburn, 2005; Spillane et al, 2002b). The prior research has also demonstrated how multiple factors, with varying emphasis on cognitive or social influence, might affect school leaders understanding of policy demands. Building on this line of research, the findings of this study suggest that school leaders might allude to prior beliefs and knowledge concerning organizational identity, image, and position when trying to make sense of problematic instances and occurrences connected to implementing policy. Findings also indicate that this process is highly situated in the school leaders’ contextually defined position as representatives for not only their individual organization, but also for the managed educational program at the national level.

The findings also shed light on how the school leaders’ understanding of policy problems seems to be dependent on how the problematic instances are diagnostically and prognostically framed. In prior research on problem framing in educational policy implementation, the process has been conceptualized as contested and authoritative between actors on different levels of the chain of management. It has been illustrated as a process of negotiation between leadership and personnel within the school organization (Coburn, 2006) or as a process steered by the district’s political motives to shape policy work at the local level (Park et al., 2013). The results of this study indicate that the framing of policy problems can also be conceptualized as a contested and authoritative process between the content of state policy and perceived contextual relationships in the mind of individual school leaders. The school leaders’ amplification of certain diagnostic frames when describing problems of the policy implies that perceptions of being, and being seen as, a lower form of school establishment in comparison to others has an impact on how one responds to policy messages. In a system of finite resources dedicated to school improvement and hiring of qualified personnel, the leaders’ beliefs of how their educational program, historically and in the present, is prioritized and valued by both upper management and related outsiders shapes the interpretation of the policy message and the content of the framed problems.

This contested interpretive process, embedded in identity beliefs, is also visible in how the content of the diagnostic framing relates to the solution-oriented prognostic framing by the school leaders in this study. Park et al. (2013) illustrated the difficulties faced by district leaders in their efforts to frame policy demands to change local school practice. Successful reform implementation is in this sense not just a process of changing practice, but also a process of changing long-held beliefs in local actors.

Implementation at the local level is a process dependent on the content of the policy and the preexisting beliefs of, and the contextual influence on, local actors (Spillane et al, 2002b). When frames or demands put forward by upper management clash with school leaders’ preexisting notions, the outcome of reform demands might not be implemented as intended. It might also trigger local actors to resist and counter-frame policy demands, in attempts to shape policymakers understanding of needs at the local level (Grossman, 2010). The clash between policy intention and school leaders’ prior beliefs became apparent in this study when solutions to the problems where presented. In some cases, the framed solutions proposed by the school leaders seemed to be guided by the combined content of cues extracted from practice and diagnostic problem frames, shifting the responsibility of implementing the policy from themselves to district managers or to the government. In other cases, objections to the policy content, or feelings of inadequacy, guided school leaders toward not taking action to meet the policy standards. The content of, and pressures behind, the frames forwarded by district managers has in prior research been assumed to have consequences for how to reform initiatives are internalized by school leaders (Woulfin et al., 2016). The regulative nature of the certification policy, giving little space for discretion and demanding that school leaders hire qualified personnel even though resources are scarce, combined with the school leaders’ perceptions of a lack of municipal and governmental support for the program, might have contributed to the direction in which solutions where framed by the school leaders of this study. The conceived pressure of these frames on school leaders’ implementation of the policy might, based on the results of this study, not only emanate from strategic actions on the side of district managers or government policy guidelines, but might also emerge from agents’ perceptions of position and value in relation to these actors, in this case leading to reactions where the responsibility for implementing policy demands were pushed back to upper management, or resulting in school leaders resisting, and not taking action to meet policy demands.

Implications for policy and implementation

Earlier research has illustrated how educational improvement through reform demands is a process dependent on policy content, contextual peculiarities of school organizations and the actors involved in the process (Honig, 2009). As central actors in enacting these demands (Coburn, 2005), school leaders perceptions and understandings are significant variables to take into consideration when planning for educational change at the national level. The results of this study suggest that outcomes of reform demands in some cases might be influenced by the way in which school leaders perceive the hierarchical position and identity of their organizations, both at the individual organizational level, and as a part of the identity of the larger educational program. The school leaders of this study described this position as a product of historical neglect from policymakers at the governmental and municipal level, both in terms of resources and appreciation compared to other forms of school practice. Besides some minor strategic efforts, a majority of the school leaders were not able to, or in some cases did not find it necessary to, take extensive action in order to meet the demands of the policy.

From a practical perspective, the findings suggest that policymakers at the higher levels should pay attention to the historical and organizational context surrounding actors involved with the program or school form recognized as in need of change. The identity-driven and hierarchical understanding of the policy expressed by the school leaders of this study indicates that acknowledging the perceived position of local actors might provide valuable information on how demands will be received and implemented at the local level. Both municipal management and government agencies might further reflect on how support and recognition is distributed across managerial work in different school forms and educational programs and take appropriate action in cases where there might be an imbalance, as described by some of the respondents in this study. These measures could be considered in part as a way of reassuring that the policy demands are grounded in pragmatic expectations that can be met by organizational capacities and resources, and as a way of mapping the amount and type of state or municipal support school leaders are in need of in order to implement demands. In order to counteract what many respondents perceived as negligence from upper management, school leaders together with municipal representatives should work toward a mutual, holistic view of needs tied to school improvement and professional development within the LtC-departments. For the purpose of providing school leaders’ with tools to implement this particular policy, there might be a need for governmental support in the form of additional, and perhaps “fast-track,” paths to certification for staff without the proper educational qualifications but with competencies deemed valuable to the work being performed within the LtC. As this was a central theme to the school leaders’ prognostic framing of the problems, a professional development strategy for personnel already in the organization might be a plausible solution. Policymakers at the level of government could therefore consider developing additional continuing education programs dedicated to serving this purpose.

Limitations and further research

This study was conducted in the narrow context of implementing policy in the Swedish education system using a purposeful sample of school leaders. In order to generalize and validate the findings, further investigations with similar approaches should be conducted in other school contexts. Through this, my hope is that the theoretical and empirical results of the study might contribute to future research in which school leader problem framing in policy implementation within various school venues is investigated through the lens of agents’ perceived organizational identity and image. Another limitation is not including perspectives from the referenced-related outsiders, such as municipal or government officials or school leaders managing other school venues. In this explorative study, the focus was aimed at school leaders in particular and their processes of responding to policy demands, therefore excluding other actors. Future research with a focus on both sides of the process could illuminate how the perceived image and actual perception from outsiders align or collide, and might also further investigate how the framing of problems is contested in relation to these perceptions. Lastly, the process of making sense of policy, and framing problems in relation to contextual perceptions, could be studied using additional methods rather than just the qualitative interview approach of this study. Observing how the identity-based problem frames articulated by school leaders are mediated to and negotiated with school personnel might complement the interviews and shed light on other aspects of how the demands of the policy are understood and enacted at the organizational level.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.