Conference Agenda

The professionalization of school leaders is frequently developed and debated all over the world. Almost all OECD countries and EU member states have invested massively in school leader professional development and training (Huber, 2010), and a recent research overview suggests that such investments have enormous potential for high quality education and student learning (Grissom et al, 2021). One important reason for these investments is the growing recognition of school leaders as essential for the quality of teaching and learning in schools (Bøje & Frederiksen 2019). School leaders are increasingly perceived as key agents for the quality of teaching and learning, teacher professional development but also for school improvement, school reform and capacity building (Rönnström, 2021).

However, the meaning of ‘professional’ and ‘professionalization’ vary between a plurality of contexts and connoisseurs, but there are some converging tendencies in recent developments and debates. Some use the term ‘professional’ mainly as an indicator of being successful or good at one’s job which is reflected in research explicating the meaning of successful or effective school leadership (See Drysdale & Gurr, 2017; Hallinger, 2011; Leithwood, 2021; Leithwood et al, 2004; Robinson et al, 2009). Others use the term to indicate membership a of group of professional practitioners or a learning community, or as being a co-creator of communities of practitioners within or linked to schools (See Zachrisson and Johansson, 2010; Chirichello, 2010). There are also researchers who reserve the term for membership in qualified and closed communities as depicted in the sociology of professions. The latter researchers commonly argue that school leaders run the risk of de-professionalization despite massive investments in professional development and training (Bøje & Frederiksen 2019).

However, the urgency of recent school leader professional development investments is not primarily linked to professionalization in the traditional sociological sense; rather, it´s linked to the increasing globalization, economization, rationalization and re-organization of the public sector in general and the education sector in particular (Pashiardis and Brauckman, 2019; Ringarp and Rönnström, 2021; Hood, 1995). In our hyper modern world, changing landscapes of professionalization and professions are emerging. They are growing in importance and they are important to questions about the meaning of school leader’s professional being and becoming. Consequently, we can no longer grasp recent professionalization and professional development investments by exclusively focusing on skills, capabilities, professional membership or criteria drawn from standard textbooks in the sociology of the professions. There is a need for new frameworks and alternative ways of understanding the professionalization of school leaders in order to understand the scope, character and urgency of school leader professional development and training in present time.

By discussing and analyzing the professionalization of school leaders in Sweden, this paper aims to contribute to the field of Continuing Professional Development (CPD). We will illuminate an ongoing global movement and converging strategies among many European nations with regard to the professionalization of school leaders, and we will discuss their scope, character and urgency. We will in depth discuss recent school leader professional development and training in Sweden and how these affects the professional identities of school leaders. Finally, we will argue that the school leader profession is steadily growing into an organizational profession in Sweden and elsewhere (Evetts, 2011; Ringarp and Rönnström, 2021). This is important but rarely recognized in recent investments, debates and research on school leader professional development. Organizational professionalization differs from occupational professionalization (as the latter is explicated within the sociology of the professions), and this development has consequences for the knowledge-base, training and autonomy of school leaders and how they are expected to relate to other professionals and their professional development in schools.

International agendas to reform education systems seeking to improve student outcomes has placed an increased attention on school improvement over the past four decades. The role of school leadership has been spotlighted as a crucial factor in driving such reforms and improvements within education systems (Leithwood, 2019). Furthermore, the evolving changes in education systems, policy, and curricula have placed increased and changing expectations on school leaders (Leithwood et al., 2019). Principal/head teachers are overburdened with responsibilities including financial and human resource management, alongside leadership for teaching and learning with the school (OECD, 2008, 2009, 2013). There has been a growing concern expressed by policy makers around high attrition and turnover rates in school leadership and a decline in applications to replace such turnover (IPPN, 2022; OECD, 2008; Tobin, 2023). Such hesitancy to apply for these roles is due to the increasingly demanding roles of the principal/head teacher that are observed by teachers in the system (Sugrue, 2015). In addition, it has also been found that reluctance to apply is also due to lack of support and insufficient preparation for the role (Burke et al., 2022; DeMatthews et al., 2019). In responding to the issues presented above, the past two decades have witnessed a policy turn to make leadership more sustainable, alongside an agenda to enhance the quality through supports such as professional learning and mentoring (De Matthews et al., 2021; Stynes & McNamara, 2019; Ummanel et al., 2016). A call by scholars and practitioners has flagged the need for principals/headteachers to be provided with time and capacity to focus on practices that are required to improve teaching and learning (IPPN, 2023; King et al., 2023). In addition, there has been a call for schools to be more autonomous through processes such as self-evaluation, coupled with distributed leadership alongside efforts to make the role of school leadership more attractive (Stynes & McNamara, 2019). Despite the above attempts to improve school leadership on the island of Ireland, the challenges of retaining and recruiting school leaders remains in both jurisdictions. While efforts have been made north and south to make schools more autonomous, evidenced in processes such as school self-evaluation and an increased attention towards distributed leadership within policy, a number of reports continue to raise concerns about the sustainability of principals/headteachers workload responsibilities (Murphy, 2023; Sugrue, 2015). In addition, the reports have also flagged that applications for principal/headteacher roles remain significantly low, and the heavy workload and demands have been attributed as one of the key factors.

Given the documented challenges internationally, alongside challenges to date on the island of Ireland, this research examines how early-career principal/headteachers are navigating the role. The voice of early-career leaders has gained wider attention in recent years, given that it can be a daunting transition from teacher to school leader, particularly where the expectations of their role significantly alter. Within this new occupation, they are tasked with driving leadership within the school setting. Yet, there is little research to date in both jurisdictions that has significantly unpacked their daily lived experiences as they navigate these roles and responsibilities (Murphy, 2023). Thus, our commissioned research delves directly into this. Our research is anchored further by exploring why they transitioned into the role, underpinned by a theoretical framework of occupational socialisation. Specifically, this framework draws on the research of Spillane and Lee (2014), which explores how “how novice principals become socialized into their new occupation in a particular school organization” (p. 434).

In light of Kazakhstan's aim to build its national identity and increase its global competitiveness, enabling teachers to actively participate in developing and implementing educational policies is pivotal to the success of the government’s initiatives (OECD, 2014a). This is because teachers can act as key mediators of social change (OECD, 2005). There is therefore a need to re-consider the system’s approach to educational reform. The current approach, with its focus on a centralized bureaucracy, has been criticized for being weakly coordinated and lacking communication with the periphery (Bridges et al., 2014, p. 276). As a result, there is little power or autonomy at the local school level where school directors still exist in the system whilst “all the important decisions are taken elsewhere” (Frost & Kambatyrova, 2019). In such conditions, there exists little space for local initiatives and creative practices leading to the teachers’ voicelessness and exclusion. In order to address this, It has been suggested that teachers in Kazakhstan should be provided the opportunity to lead initiatives and be supported in their endeavours (Yakavets et al., 2017a).

This calls for extending teachers’ leadership capacity through providing support for their ongoing professional learning and creating conditions for their agency and voice. This is particularly important as teachers in Kazakhstan have more recently been proactive in translating new policies into their classrooms, despite the bureaucracy, top-down reform, and the lack of communication with the center (Bridges et al., 2014). The critical question is how to mobilize teachers’ leadership capacity to facilitate educational reform in Kazakhstan.

Non-positional teacher leadership (NPTL)

Conceptualizing the notion of teacher leadership (TL) from the non-positional perspective led to the emergence of the Leadership for Learning (LfL) framework. The LfL framework considers leadership as a practice that can be exercised by every member of the school through ongoing learning, creating conditions for learning, engaging in dialogue, sharing leadership roles, and taking responsibility at the personal, school, and society level (MacBeath & Dempster, 2008). The LfL framework views TL as both an individual and a collective agency, which includes “influencing and serving others, taking the initiative and making decisions for the greater good, whilst modelling learning and being sensitive to context” (Swaffield & MacBeath, 2009, p. 38). This approach puts democratic values and moral purpose at the core of leadership. Leadership is perceived as a “right and responsibility rather than […] a gift or burden” and hence, can be exercised by all stakeholders including headteachers, teachers, students, and parents (p. 44). This definition allows leadership to be viewed as a practice that can be used as a tool for releasing teacher’s leadership potential (Dempster & MacBeath, 2009). This is particularly important in the context of Kazakhstan schools where the knowledge of leadership is often limited to the system of official roles and positions.

In contrast to the positional TL, the non-positional teacher leadership (NPTL) approach views leadership as an entitlement of all practitioners regardless of their roles or positions to become active participants of educational improvement at the classroom, school, and system level (Frost & Harris, 2003; Bangs & Frost, 2016). Central to NPTL is the idea that, when the right conditions are created, teachers can take strategic actions and initiate and lead change regardless of their positions or roles (MacBeath & Dempster, 2008; Durrant & Holden, 2006; Ramahi & Eltemamy, 2014; Bangs & Frost, 2016). Therefore, the focal point of the NPTL is the development and building of teacher capacity to exercise leadership. As such, it is not mere wishful thinking, but a strategy directed towards system-wide educational improvement.