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Norway: Researching Norwegian Principals

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A Decade of Research on School Principals

Part of the book series: Studies in Educational Leadership ((SIEL,volume 21))

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to provide a review of research on principals’ roles, work, and leadership conducted in a Norwegian context and how these studies may offer insight into the work of school principals more broadly.

Research on school leadership is recent in Norway, with the first studies on educational leadership taking place in the 1990s. However, the research interest intensified after the new millennium when new governance structures affected the roles and responsibilities of school principals.

Among the unique contributions of the many studies included in this review is a greater sensitivity to variations in organizational context and a greater focus on the identity and role of leadership. Most studies have qualitative designs that add to the knowledge base, but the studies are often guided by perspectives that are not revisited in subsequent studies, and as such, to some degree the research tends to be less cumulative. The international literature is, however, used to inform the research on school leadership in Norway, to create the warrant for the study in question, and to identify the contribution that the study will make.

So far, the empirical evidence of different forms of leadership remains limited, and a few studies have explored the effects of leadership on school and student outcomes and applied a quantitative approach. In addition, relatively few case studies are part of a bigger international research design or include mixed methods approaches.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The 430 municipalities in Norway are responsible for the 10 years of compulsory education at the primary and lower secondary school levels. The municipalities vary in size as well as in the level of welfare.

  2. 2.

    Currently, there are 15 ongoing Ph.D. projects that will be finalized within the next couple of years, all written in English. They are all within the format of an article-based dissertation, a format that has become more common during the last 5 years. It is argued that Ph.D. students should be encouraged to publish their findings in peer-reviewed journals as a strategy for increased internationalization of research conducted in the Norwegian context. An extended abstract will summarize and create unity based on the articles in the thesis. Five published papers that are rooted in these projects are included in this review.

  3. 3.

    There are commissioned reports that are of importance to understanding how Norwegian principals perceive and frame their roles. The Nordic Institute for Studies in Innovation (NIFU) has, for example, been commissioned by the Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training during the last 4 years to map school leaders’ opinions of specific themes where evidence can support the formulation and monitoring of policy (Vibe and Hovdhaugen 2012). However, even though these reports indicate some trends in principals’ understanding of responsibilities and challenges, they are mainly descriptive statistics and do not include more theoretical analysis of the findings.

  4. 4.

    The Norwegian team could not select schools based on their academic performance and had to use a different set of criteria for selecting the cases because there were no public test results or inspection reports to base choices of successful principals when this project started in 2003.

  5. 5.

    The data was collected for two periods, from 2007 to 2008 and 2010–2011.

  6. 6.

    A project funded by the Research Council of Norway, focusing on legal standards and the professional judgment of school leaders (2012–2016), will add to this knowledge base in the future.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Teacher Education and School Research, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

    Jorunn Møller

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  1. Jorunn Møller
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Correspondence to Jorunn Møller .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Principal Development, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden

    Helene Ärlestig

  2. Centre for Research on Educational Leadership and Management, School of Education, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom

    Christopher Day

  3. Centre for Principal Development, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden

    Olof Johansson

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Møller, J. (2016). Norway: Researching Norwegian Principals. In: Ärlestig, H., Day, C., Johansson, O. (eds) A Decade of Research on School Principals. Studies in Educational Leadership, vol 21. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23027-6_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23027-6_5

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