Leadership in Upper Secondary School: Exploring New Roles When Teachers Are Leaders
In this chapter, we explore the development of a new leadership role in an upper secondary school in Norway: the emergence of a leader role situated between the middle leaders and the teachers, described as a ‘teacher leader’. School leadership is regarde
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Introduction Historically, the teaching profession has a strong tradition of considering teachers as equals within a ‘flat’ organisation, without an internal hierarchy except for principals (Mausethagen et al. 2018; Møller and Skedsmo 2013). As an institution, the teaching profession is characterised by egalitarian relationships, where school leaders act as ‘the first among peers’ and teachers traditionally have responsibility for teaching their subjects, while the principal does not interfere with the teachers’ work (White Paper 31, 2007–2008, p. 45). There has been a weak tradition of both vertical and horizontal mobility, and teachers have had few career paths beyond becoming a principal (Abrahamsen and Aas 2019). Today, there is increased attention to the importance of leadership as a tool for school improvement (Hybertsen et al. 2014; Day et al. 2009; Leithwood et al. 2008). School leaders who engage in teachers’ work appear to have greater influence on student learning (Robinson et al. 2008). Both from a research perspective and a policy perspective, school leaders are expected to involve in teachers’ practices. However, these expectations involve both opportunities and challenges. A fundamental but often forgotten perspective is that it may be complicated to introduce new expectations and new ways of working into a tradition where several schools still have an ‘invisible contract’ between school leaders and teachers that they should not interfere too much in each other’s work (Berg 1999; Karseth et al. 2013). When school leaders are involved in teachers’ work in their classroom, K. Helstad (*) Inland University of Applied Sciences, Lillehammer, Norway e-mail: [email protected] H. Abrahamsen Western University of Applied Sciences, Bergen, Norway © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 L. Moos et al. (eds.), Re-centering the Critical Potential of Nordic School Leadership Research, Educational Governance Research 14, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-55027-1_10
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practices may be improved if teachers and school leaders, based on mutual trust, jointly explore possible adjustments (Helstad and Møller 2013). Meanwhile, this involvement leads to tensions because it challenges teachers’ autonomy. School leaders’ involvement may, thus, generate reactions that involve teachers experiencing that school leaders control their work. Conversely, teachers experience that leaders help motivate them for development (Mausethagen et al. 2018). The Education Act in Norway states that all schools should have a principal, but the law does not predict what leadership is about in practice and who, besides the principal, should have leadership responsibilities. Municipalities and the individual schools therefore organise themselves locally. Traditional ways of managing schools, with the principal as the head of a hierarchical organization, no longer seem to work satisfactorily (Pont et al. 2008). In an increasing
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