This paper explores school leaders' and teachers' ideas about drivers of improvement at local level in the decentralised Swedish school system. An institutional perspective is applied to investigate how institutional logics at macro level are played out at micro level in improvement processes. The paper draws on a three-year collaborative research…

This study addresses a fundamental but neglected aspect of efforts to ensure quality and improvement in a decentralised school system: the relationship between the local education authority (LEA) and local school principals. Empirically, it is based on analysis of relevant documents and interviews with key actors in a Swedish LEA (a municipality),…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of Swedish school leaders' relational and management work orientation, in terms of both techno and socio structure dimensions. The background is the neoliberal policy regime, underpinned by OECD and PISA, and an increased focus on school leaders' management work.…

This article focuses on the interplay between the concepts of 'educational infrastructure' and 'organisational memory'. Using data from collaboration between a Swedish university and a local municipality, the article draws attention to the interplay between three nation-wide improvement programmes and their educational infrastructures, and the…