Conference Agenda

The idea that educational systems and schools must be adaptive in order to keep pace with the changing social and cultural realities is certainly not new. Yet, the particularly disruptive characteristics of the present disorienting age (Wergin, 2019), in which everything is in flux or in what some complexity theorists have called a 'continuous disequilibrium' (Uhl‐Bien & Marion, 2009), have made adaptivity an imperative for organizations and social systems. Informed by developments in complexity theory and adaptive learning theories (Heifetz, 1994), primarily in the fields of organizational leadership (Marion & Uhl-Bien, 2009), 'adaptivity' has gradually gained currency in educational discourse and has become a conceptual lens for thinking about school transformation (Hung et al, 2014), school improvement (Harris, 2005), learning processes and pedagogy (Schwartz et al, 2005). There is a growing understanding that 'adaptivity' must be accounted for so that schools remain effective and relevant for students in the present knowledge society and global economy. Notions such as the 'adaptive school' (Gramston and Wellman, 2016; Kershner and McQuillan, 2016), adaptive learning (Wergin, 2019), adaptive expertise (Schwartz et al, 2005), adaptive teacher expertise (Anthony, Hunter, and Hunter, 2015), and adaptive leadership (Harris, 2005; Linsky and Lawrence, 2011) are becoming more central in attempts by educational thinkers, policy makers and teacher educators to envisage how to transform schools for the 21st century. At its core, adaptability discourse is essentially about the attempt to bridge the gap or tension between innovation (creativity) and effectiveness (stability). It is the possibility of holding the two competing skills together that characterizes adaptive organization or complex adaptive systems and individuals. Together with 21st century skills discourse, policy papers are now centering on adaptivity as one of the core attributes of future-oriented education, which effectively responds to the complexities and dilemmas characterizing a volatile, complex and ambiguous world (OECD, 2018).

Parallel to the above discourse, in the past few years the notion of social justice has been proliferating in educational leadership discourse and has gained international recognition (Author, 2021; Bogotch & Sheilds, 2014; Gümüş, Arar & Oplatka, 2021). The increased attention to social justice issues can itself be considered as a kind of adaptive endeavor to changing social circumstances: Given changing school demographics, heightening achievements gaps, and student immigration and mobility, school leaders are facing pressing issues of individual and group marginalization and discrimination. While multiple meanings of social justice are found in the literature, “a common understanding among many leadership scholars is that social justice focuses on the experiences of marginalized groups and inequities in educational opportunities and outcomes” (Furman, 2012, p. 194). Social justice leadership, then, is primarily about confronting and possibly eradicating the discrimination and oppression of marginalized individuals or groups largely on the basis of color, race, disability, gender, and ethnic-cultural background. Leadership scholars are calling schools to become more inclusive and attend to the diverse needs of individuals and groups who have been discriminated and marginalized (e.g., Theoharis & Scanlon, 2020) and call for the preparation of social justice educational leaders (e.g., Diem & Carpenter, 2012; Jean-Marie et al, 2009).

The aim of the present paper is to explore possible connections between the discourse on 'adaptivity' and the discourse on social justice educational leadership. Despite their different ends, it is my impression that both discourses share basic principles and that the dialogue between the two discourses may promote important insights for each discourse. I shall discuss the connecting links (principles) between the two discourses and briefly discuss the implications of connecting the two discourses for social justice educational leadership discourse.

Many people recognize that PISA examines what students know in science, reading and mathematics. But PISA also examines students’ wellbeing and covers both negative outcomes (e.g. anxiety) and the positive impulses that promote healthy development (e.g. interest, engagement and motivation). The OECD (2017) comparisons on wellbeing is an example of a growing international consideration for the young generations’ health and wellbeing. Within EU an expert group will in 2023 start to develop proposals on strategies for supporting wellbeing. However, there is yet no consensus on what the responsibility of schools and school leaders are. The curricula between countries differ.

Sweden is a country which has stipulated that health and wellbeing is the responsibility of schools and principals. The National School Act (SFS 2010:800) requires that schools must have multi-professional teams of doctors, nurses, counsellors, psychologist and teachers with competence in special education. These teams are to cooperate with the teachers and be involved in the regular school work. Since Sweden combines national regulations with a decentralized local responsibility for implementation, including a school level (with principals) as well as a municipality level (with superintendents and other leaders) the aim of the paper is to explore the leadership of this complex local curriculum making. The research question is:

• What are the leadership challenges in transforming the holistic approach of the national curricula, to local curriculum processes?

Until recently questions of health and wellbeing related to education has predominately been studied within the field of health education (see for example; Boot & de Vries, 2010; Carlsson, 2016; Jourdan et al. 2016, Kostenius, 2021). Within this research a whole school approach with a focus on professionals other than teachers, including school nurses, counselors and others, has been recognized. But few studies so far have had the focus on school leadership for learning, health and wellbeing (XX).

The primary focus of school leadership research has often been on instructional practices and what successful school leaders do to improve students’ learning in the classroom (Leithwood et al., 2019). For over a decade, these leadership practices have been central to school leaders’ work. In many countries, they have even been established as standards within preparation programs (Young et al., 2017) and linked to various leadership models such as distributed leadership, instructional leadership and transformational leadership (Gumus et al., 2018; Leithwood et al., 2019). It is stressed that teachers’ work is the most important factor in students’ results, and when wellbeing is added, that it improves the chances of student success (Leithwood et al., 2019). However, a holistic approach including multi-professional coordination and a multipurpose approach including different aims for schools is absent in most school leadership research. There is, however, a growing interest in complexity (Day et al., 2016; Hallinger, 2018; Hawkins and James, 2018). This paper brings together the research of principals with that on superintendents (se for example Moos et al, 2016; Ärlestig & Johansson, 2020; Sigurðardóttir et al., 2022). It explores the complexity of coordinating curriculum processes within and between different system levels.

The paper uses a curriculum theory perspective developed within Sweden (Dahllöf, 1967; 1999, Lindensjö & Lundgren 1986; XX). The focus is on the how the transformation of national curricula transforms into local curriculum processes. This takes place within and between two local system levels, the meso level (meso) and the micro level. The theoretical contribution of the paper is that it highlights the importance of coordination of curriculum processes within and between different local system levels. This in turn requires a coordinated leadership.

This paper aims to highlight diversity in educational leadership by exploring the middle leader role without formal managerial power in Higher Education (HE). Based on ongoing research including a systematic literature review this paper contributes new insights and perspectives on the role's possibilities, challenges, and limitations. The study asks the following questions:

• how is the middle leader role constructed as a solution to which problem?
• how can the middle leader role adequately function in higher education organisations?

The middle leaders may be labelled as study leaders, educational leaders, course coordinators, or programme leaders. A common characteristic is that they are both teachers, and researchers, and additionally are formally appointed to take special organisational responsibility for coordinating and developing education/teaching. Empirically, the role seems quite implicit and hence, invisible, where the middle leaders find themselves on their own, navigating tensions between a formally appointed role and the lack of formal role structures, expectations, and managerial power. In research, there are a limited number of English-speaking and Scandinavian studies focusing on the role. In some of the few studies, a common theme is that educational leaders often lack formal power to lead and thus, are caught in the middle between management and staff (Gjerde & Alvesson, 2020; Marshall, 2012). Even though there are individual studies, and the research interest has been around for some time, the field is nevertheless sparse and fragmented, lacking a more robust and explicit picture of how these middle leader roles are organisationally constructed and how they can handle the role.

In general educational leadership has over the last two decades, become a common response to quality demands in HE (e.g. Stensaker, Elken, & Maassen, 2019, p. 91), where leadership is understood as having an impact on the quality of student learning (e.g. Cardno, 2014, p. 352) and where educational leadership is needed to support educational development in local collegial contexts (e.g. Mårtensson & Roxå, 2016, p. 248). In research, educational leadership is a broad and messy concept. For example, educational leadership is often linked to the concept of distributed leadership commonly understood as an advantageous way for management to delegate some of their decision-making power to special responsible employees (e.g. Kjeldsen, Quick, Jønsson, & Andersen, 2020, p. 54). The idea is that management can place formal managerial power on middle leaders outside of traditional management structures. Educational leadership can also be related to middle leaders both with and without formal managerial power in the same study (e.g. Bryman, 2007; Grunefeld et al., 2017) if these different leaders have to do with influencing the goal-directed behaviour of others (Bryman, 2007, pp. 694-695). Both examples are ignoring the fact that middle leaders without formal power have different possibilities than those with formal power to influence the behaviour of others within the authority and power structures. Given this background, it is relevant to distinguish the middle leader in this study from those with fixed managerial roles and who are part of hierarchies and thus explore the role as a role ‘in itself’ (Lassen, 2020, p. 265).

Theoretically, the paper draws upon and is inspired by Systems Theory, formulated by the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann (1927-1998). The theory explicitly focuses on organisational systems and structures, including the concept of role and function that resonates with the focus of this study. Through a functional methodology (Luhmann, 2000, p. 94), it becomes possible to observe functional equivalents, by “[…] considering whether there are special system-dependent conditions” (Nissen, 2014, p. 189), that constructs and affects the middle leader’s possibility to function more adequately.