Conference Agenda
Overview and details of the sessions of this conference. Please select a date or location to show only sessions at that day or location. Please select a single session for detailed view (with abstracts and downloads if available).
Please note that all times are shown in the time zone of the conference. The current conference time is: 19th Aug 2026, 20:17:59 EET
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26 SES 12 A: Governance, Accountability & Policy Enactment
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26. Educational Leadership
Paper Between Governance and Practice: Principals’ Enactment of the Mandate to Prevent and Address Degrading Treatment in Preschool Umeå Universitet, Sweden Presenting Author:In Swedish preschool, principals hold a central responsibility for preventing and addressing degrading treatment among children and in interactions between children and adults. The Swedish Education Act (SFS 2010:800) requires this work to be systematic and documented, yet the legislation provides limited guidance on how these obligations should be enacted in practice. This lack of specificity creates considerable interpretive space and contributes to local variation. Research on policy enactment emphasizes that policy is not implemented linearly; rather, it is interpreted, translated and enacted within existing organizational norms, routines and professional traditions (Ball, 2003). This raises critical questions about how preschool principals understand their mandate and how they lead their work to for prevent and to address degrading treatment. The concept of degrading treatment is legally defined within a school-based framework, which does not always align with the relational and care-oriented nature of preschool settings (Söderström & Löfdahl, 2017). Historically, children’s conflicts - such as disagreements, physical encounters, or emotional outbursts - have been understood as pedagogical and moral issues, addressed through educational practices aimed at supporting children’s social development (Colnerud, 2014a; 2014b). While preschools continue to have an obligation to support children in managing conflicts constructively (Skolverket, 2025), principals are now also expected to lead systematic efforts to prevent and address degrading treatment as a legal concern. Distinguishing between everyday conflict and legally defined degrading treatment has been identified as particularly challenging in preschool practice and requires nuanced professional judgement (Rantala & Heikkilä, 2023). Research indicates that principals often approach this work through broad, value-based equality initiatives focusing on norms, inclusion, and democratic principles (Söderström & Löfdahl, 2017). Although such initiatives align with the preschool’s value-based mission, they may fail to capture the complexity of everyday pedagogical situations. Teachers may rely on idealized conceptions of preschool practice rather than engaging with concrete dilemmas, power relations, and situational variations (Edling, 2018). This places increased demands on principals to foster critical reflection, professional dialogue, and analytical competence among teachers. At the same time, preschools operate within governance frameworks characterized by juridification, accountability, and extensive documentation requirements. These governance logics risk shifting attention from relational and pedagogical engagement toward administrative compliance (Rantala & Heikkilä, 2022), making the principals’ leadership role particularly demanding. Taken together, this underscores the importance of understanding how preschool principals interpret their responsibilities and lead the work of preventing and addressing degrading treatment. Their interpretations and priorities are central to how legal requirements are translated into pedagogical practice. Examining their leadership, the study can contribute to knowledge about how this work may be developed in ways that align legal obligations with the pedagogical mission of preschool. Research questions:
This study is theoretically grounded in Ball’s (2003) theory of policy enactment, which conceptualizes policy not as a directive implemented linearly from text to practice, but as something that is interpreted, translated, and enacted within local contexts. From this perspective, policy gains meaning through the actions, decisions, and professional judgements of educational actors. Preschool principals act as interpretive links between legal requirements and everyday practice, where their pedagogical judgement is shaped by norms, values, and contextual conditions. This perspective is particularly relevant in relation to degrading treatment, where legal definitions intersect with relational and care-oriented practices. Applying a policy enactment framework enables analysis of how principals navigate legal, pedagogical, and ethical demands in their leadership. Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used To develop an in-depth understanding of how preschool principals interpret, translate, and enact their responsibility to prevent and address degrading treatment, two focus group interviews were conducted with preschool principals. Each group consisted of four to five participants, enabling both interactive discussion and in-depth reflection on shared and divergent experiences. Group interviews were chosen to capture participants’ descriptions and understandings of the enactment process, as the group interaction enables shared meanings to be articulated, negotiated, and refined through dialogue (Morgan, 1998; Wibeck, 2000). The interviews were guided by open-ended, thematically oriented questions focusing on how principals interpret, translate, and enact the work of preventing and addressing degrading treatment in the preschool context. Participants were asked to reflect on their understandings of the concept, their work to prevent and address degrading treatment, including the role of plans and documentation, their responsibility for implementation and follow-up, and the challenges and tensions involved in translating the mandate into practice. This approach captured principals’ situated descriptions of the phenomenon and the considerations guiding their actions within a context shaped by legal and organizational demands. Participants were selected through a strategic convenience sample, drawing on existing professional networks in which preschool principals regularly met. All participants had at least four years of experience as preschool principals and were responsible for both smaller and larger preschool units. This ensured variation in organizational contexts and leadership conditions, as well as sufficient professional experience to reflect on the complexity of the assignment over time. The empirical material was analysed thematically, inspired by Boyatzis (1998) approach, with the analysis being theoretically informed by Stephen J. Ball’s theory of policy enactment (Ball, 2003). Particular attention was paid to how principals described the interpretation, translation, and enactment of legal and policy requirements in their everyday leadership practices. The analysis was conducted iteratively, moving back and forth between empirical material and theory in order to identify recurring patterns, tensions, and contextual influences shaping principals’ work. All participants received written and oral information about the purpose of the study, its procedures, and their right to withdraw at any time without consequences. Informed consent was obtained prior to data collection. The material has been handled confidentially, and all participants have been anonymised in transcription and reporting. The study adheres to established ethical guidelines for research involving human participants. Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings Tentatively, the thematic analysis shows that preschool principals’ work to prevent and address degrading treatment is characterized by continuous interpretive processes, professional judgement, and organizational tensions. Three overarching themes were identified: interpreting degrading treatment within the preschool context, balancing pedagogical practice with legal requirements, and leading through relational and systematic approaches. The first theme concerns the difficulty of defining what constitutes degrading treatment in preschool. Principals described how children’s age, developmental stage, and limited linguistic abilities complicate distinctions between everyday conflicts, developmentally related behaviour, and legally defined degrading treatment. Interpretive responsibility is often placed on teachers, which makes principals dependent on their professional judgement. This reliance creates uncertainty and highlights the need for ongoing reflection and shared interpretive frameworks within preschool organizations. The second theme highlights tensions between pedagogical practice and governance demands. Principals described documentation systems, reporting procedures, and investigative requirements as at times ethically challenging, particularly when very young children are registered in administrative systems. At the same time, documentation was viewed as necessary for identifying patterns over time and demonstrating compliance with legal obligations. Leadership in this area thus involves continuously balancing legal accountability with pedagogical and ethical considerations. The third theme emphasizes leadership as central to how the work is enacted in practice. Principals highlighted preventive and systematic work in which issues of relationships, interaction, and staff approaches are embedded in everyday pedagogical activities. Through recurring safety walks, child-oriented methods, and reflective dialogue, conditions are created for sustained work with children’s safety and rights. Overall, the findings indicate that work against degrading treatment does not follow a standardized model but is enacted through local interpretations in which preschool principals’ leadership is decisive. References References Ball, Stephen J. (2003). “The Teachers’ Soul and the Terrors of Performativity.” Journal of Education Policy, 18(2), 215–228. Boyatzis, Richard E. (1998). Transforming qualitative information: Thematic analysis and code development. Sage. Colnerud, G. (2014). “Lärares Yrkesetiska Dilemman och den ökande Juridifieringen i Sverige.” [Teachers' professional ethical dilemmas and the increasing of juridification in Sweden.”]. Etikk i Praksis - Nordic Journal of Applied Ethics 8 (2): 22–30. Corsaro, W. A. (2015). The Sociology of Childhood. Sage Publications. Edling, S. (2018). Att vilja andra väl är inte alltid smärtfritt: Att motverka kränkningar och diskriminering i förskola och skola. [Wishing others well is not always painless: Counteracting harassment and discrimination in preschool and school]. Studentlitteratur. Morgan, D. (1998). The focus group guidebook. The focus group kit, no 1.Sage Rantala, A. & Heikkilä, M., (2022). För vem finns planer att motverka kränkningar och diskriminering i förskolan? [For whom are there plans to deal with abusive treatment and discrimination in preschool?]. Nordic Studies in Education, 42(2), 194–210. Rantala, A. & Heikkilä, M., (2023). The gap between juridical and pedagogical discourses concerning preventing and countering abusive treatment in preschool policy documents. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 31(5), 811–825. Skolverket (2025). Läroplan för förskolan, Lpfö 18 reviderad 2025. [Curriculum for the Preschool]. Skolverket. Söderström, Å. & Löfdahl Hultman, A. (2017). Preschool work against bullying and degrading treatment: Experiences from an action learning project. Early Years, 37(3), 300-312. Wibeck, V. (2000). Fokusgrupper. [Focus groups]. Studentlitteratur. 26. Educational Leadership
Paper Negotiating a Policy Gap: Principals’ Practices Organising Student Health and Welfare in Swedish Municipal Adult Education University of Gothenburg, Sweden Presenting Author:This paper focuses on how principals in Swedish municipal adult education (MAE) interpret, translate, and enact policy in the absence of statutory requirements for student health and welfare services. The Education Act (SFS 2010:800) mandates that compulsory and upper secondary schools work proactively to support students in achieving their goals by providing coordinated interprofessional support, including medical, psychological, psychosocial, and special education expertise. For MAE, this requirement is not mandatory. MAE is similar in scale to upper secondary school, with 368,000 students enrolled in 2024 (SNAE, 2025). Including Swedish for Immigrants (SFI), adapted education for adults, and vocational training, it offers education from basic to upper secondary level (SFS 2010:800). The student population is therefore heterogeneous in terms of educational background and future goals. In addition to being labour-market oriented, MAE is compensatory—the education must be based on the needs of the individual learner and those demonstrating the greatest educational need are prioritized at admission (SFS 2010:800). Although MAE is tailored to be flexible and individualised, offering distance courses and flexible learning arrangements to accommodate adult learners, a substantial and growing proportion of students require various forms of support in their studies (Andersson & Muhrman, 2022; Public Health Agency of Sweden, 2025). National agency reports show that provision of such support is insufficient and unequal (Public Health Agency of Sweden, 2025; SNAE, 2023). The support offered consists mainly of pedagogical and instructional interventions by teachers, with or without access to special education expertise, which varies significantly between municipalities (SNAE, 2023). As student health and welfare services are non-statutory in MAE, municipalities and principals are required to make decisions regarding the provision, organization, and design of such services. Consequently, it risks being deprioritized. Due to considerable decentralization and marketization, MAE is organized in diverse ways across Sweden’s 290 municipalities, which hold the overall responsibility for provision, resourcing, systematic quality work, and school development (Anderson & Muhrman, 2022; Mufic, 2023). Large parts of MAE are outsourced— in 2024, 48 % of course participants were enrolled with private education providers (SNAE, 2025). This significantly complicates governance, organization, and leadership (Mufic, 2023). Although limited, research on educational leadership within the context of MAE show that local conditions, such as the complexity of the MAE organization and its governance, impact how MAE principals interpret and enact policy (Andersson & Muhrman, 2022; Bjursell, 2016; Mufic, 2025; Portfelt, 2025). Within this context, MAE principals face a dilemma regarding student health and welfare services. While they possess formal discretion, their decisions and practices are also likely to be influenced by value-based judgments and varying municipal priorities. The study frames this as an example of how policy gaps or ambiguities are interpreted and enacted in local school organisations embedded in a highly decentralized and marketized education system, exemplified by Sweden but relevant to similar contexts internationally. Using the theory of practice architectures (TPA) (Kemmis et al., 2014), this study explores how cultural–discursive, material-economic, and social-political arrangements shape principals’ work in relation to the policy gap concerning non-statutory student health and welfare services. The aim is to identify the characteristics of these arrangements and analyse how they enable or constrain principals’ practices in organising such services within MAE. The central research questions are:
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used This multi-sited case study was conducted in three Swedish municipalities during 2025. Data generation methods were participant observation, shadowing, and interviews with principals in their workplaces to capture their day to day practices, methods commonly used to examine site-based practices in organizations (Czarniawska, 2007; Nicolini, 2012). The empirical material consists of detailed field notes from ten months of observations and shadowing, complemented by interview transcriptions from semi-structured interviews with five municipal principals. These interviews included both orienting interviews in preparation for the fieldwork and debriefing interviews upon its completion (Wilkinson & Kemmis, 2015). To gain background information and contextualise the sites, additional background interviews were conducted with one head of education and one MAE principal not included in the shadowing. The analysis was conducted interpretatively, guided by the theory of practice architectures (TPA) as both a theoretical and analytical framework (Kemmis et al., 2014). Initially, the analytical process focused on identifying and coding the practices that became visible in the empirical material. The analysis then examined how these practices were prefigured by the cultural–discursive, material–economic, and social–political arrangements in the sites, and how these arrangements enabled or constrained the sayings, doings, and relatings that make up the practices (Mahon et al., 2017). In the analysis, emphasis was also placed on the concept of praxis, understood as action that is “informed, reflexive, self-consciously moral and political” (Mahon et al., 2020, p. 15). The theory therefore enabled a critical discussion of arrangements “that create and contribute to unsustainability, unreasonableness, and injustice” (Mahon et al., 2017, p. 19). In this way, the analysis was guided by the theory as “a transformational resource” (Mahon et al., 2017) to guide possible development in particular sites. Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings This paper applies a practice-based approach to investigate how principals in municipal adult education (MAE) work with non-mandatory student health and welfare services. The study seeks to enhance the knowledge about how the contextual preconditions of MAE enable and constrain principals’ day-to-day practices. Preliminary findings show that MAE governance and organization reflect local priorities and clearly affect how health and welfare services are understood and organized within the municipalities. The findings illustrate how the principals organize support in collaboration with subject teachers, special education teachers, municipal officials, study coaches, and career and study counsellors. The organizational arrangements both enable and constrain principals’ work, but principals continually negotiate and reshape them within these systems intended to be both flexible and responsive to students’ needs. The analysis directs attention to context-specific dilemmas related to interpretating and enacting policy demands, particularly regarding the unequal support structures available to adults due to legal ambiguity and organizational complexity. Principals describe navigating this policy gap and highlight questions of responsibility, expressing a moral obligation to act in the best interests of their students. Findings show that the principals conceptualize student health holistically and as integral to learning. This holistic approach translates into managing of additional support services available to students, such as help with personal administration, which go beyond the description of student health and welfare services as it is mandated by legislation. These additional resources are often organized in collaboration with other stakeholders and are described as vulnerable to financial cutbacks in the municipalities. Overall, the paper makes visible how principals’ practices related to student support are embedded in MAE’s practice architectures. It highlights the effects of policy gaps and ambiguities on leadership and equity in adult education and contributes to a more nuanced understanding of principals’ practices in complex organizational environments such as MAE. References Andersson, P. & Muhrman, K. (2022). Marketisation of adult education in Sweden. Journal of Adult and Continuing Education 2022, Vol. 28(2) 674–691. https://doi.org/10.1177/14779714211055491 Bjursell, C. (2016). When theories become practice: A metaphorical analysis of adult education school leaders’ talk. European Journal for Research on the Education and Learning of Adults, 7(2), 191–205. https://doi.org/10.3384/rela.2000-7426.rela9084 Czarniawska, B. (2007). Shadowing and other techniques for doing fieldwork in modern societies. Universitetsforlaget. Education Act (SFS 2010:800). Sweden. https://www.riksdagen.se/sv/dokument-och-lagar/dokument/svensk-forfattningssamling/skollag-2010800_sfs-2010-800/ Kemmis, S., Wilkinson, J., Edwards-Groves, C., Hardy, I., Grootenboer, P., & Bristol, L. (2014). Changing practices, changing education. Springer. Mahon, K., Kemmis, S., Francisco, S. & Lloyd, A. (2017). Introduction: Practice Theory and the Theory of Practice Architectures. In K., Mahon, S. Francisco & S. Kemmis (Eds.). Exploring Education and Professional Practice (pp. 1–30). Springer. Mahon, K., Heikkinen, H. L. T., Huttunen, R., Boyle, T., & Sjølie, E. (2020). What is educational praxis? In K. Mahon, C. Edwards-Groves, S. Kemmis, S. Francisco, M. Kaukko, & K. Petrie (Eds.), Pedagogy, education, and praxis in critical times (pp. 15–38). Springer. Mufic, J. (2023). How the concept of the “chain of command” is construed through problematizations in Swedish adult education policy. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 0(0), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603124.2023.2272138 Mufic, J. (2025). Principals’ perspectives on managing systematic quality work in a decentralised and market oriented adult education system. International Journal of Educational Management. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEM-10-2024-0606 Nicolini, D. (2012). Practice Theory, Work & Organization. Oxford University Press. Portfelt, I. (2025), Principals' Influence on Research-Based Education: The Case of Swedish Local Municipal Adult Education Institutions. European Journal of Education, 60: e70081. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejed.70081 Public Health Agency of Sweden. (2025). Hälsan hos elever inom kommunal vuxenutbildning. https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/contentassets/7feacbdbb20f447a978570bdb68803c5/halsan-hos-elever-inom-kommunal-vuxenutbildning.pdf Swedish National Agency for Education. (2023). Elevhälsa och stöd till elever inom komvux. https://www.skolverket.se/getFile?file=11345 Swedish National Agency for Education. (2025). Elever och studieresultat i kommunal vuxenutbildning 2024. https://www.skolverket.se https://www.skolverket.se/getFile?file=13277 Wilkinson, J. & Kemmis, S. (2015) Practice Theory: Viewing leadership as leading. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 47:4, 342–358, https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2014.976928 26. Educational Leadership
Paper The Role of School Supervision - Findings of a Survey in Four German Federal States 1: Leibniz Institute IPN Kiel/Berlin, Germany; 2: Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria Presenting Author:The school supervisory board plays a central role in ensuring and further developing educational quality (cf. e.g. Hejtmanek et al, 2025; Luig & Böttcher, 2021; Ärlestig & Johansson, 2020; Huber, 2020; Huber, Arnz & Klieme, 2020; Bogumil, Fahlbusch & Kuhn, 2016; Moos, Nihfors & Merok, 2016; Altrichter & Maag Merki, 2016; Johansson & Nihlfors, 2014; Heinrich, 2007; Döbert, 2003; Karlsen, 2000). Nevertheless, there are only a few empirical studies to date that deal in detail with the specific tasks and challenges of school supervisory staff (e.g. Dedering & Kallenbach, 2024; Luig, 2023; Porsch et al, 2023; Herrmann, 2020; Klein & Bremm, 2020; Preuße & Pohl, 2019; Brüsemeister et al, 2010-2013). However, existing research findings show that school supervision plays a complex dual role between control and support, which is often accompanied by structural areas of tension. Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used The study used a mixed-methods design. Quantitative data was collected from 125 school supervisors from four German federal states (Berlin, Bremen, Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein). The response rate was 64%. self-disclosure were collected on the work context, specific practices, job satisfaction and workload, and working hours. In addition, qualitative data collection included semi-structured interviews with school supervisors. Qualitative analyses were based on content analysis techniques to examine requirements, roles, tasks, and competencies, as well as job satisfaction, workload, personal professionalization, and support needs. The analysis focused in particular on the tensions between the tasks of supervision, cooperation and consultation in cooperation with school leaders. In addition, an external assessment of 290 school leaders regarding their cooperation with school supervisors was also conducted in one federal state. Overall, the mixed-methods design enabled a comprehensive and multi-perspective understanding of the activities of school supervisors. Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings The results on specific tasks and challenges show that the largest proportion of working hours is spent on administration and consulting, while the areas of law and quality management take up the least amount of time. Complaints and conflict management as well as administration are predominantly perceived as more stressful by the respondents, whereas counseling and leadership are seen as more enriching. Regression analyses also show that more time spent on complaints and conflict management is associated with higher workload and stress levels. Increased stress levels are also reported by individuals who receive limited support from their supervisors and who experienced insufficient onboarding at the start of their employment. The results highlight the need to establish structural relief and targeted support services for school supervisors. Overall, the study provides an empirical basis for recommendations for the further development of school supervision and thus for strengthening system responsibility for safeguarding and further developing the quality of education and schools. References Altrichter, H., & Maag Merki, K. (2016). Handbuch Neue Steuerung im Schulsystem. 2. Auflage. Wiesbaden: VS Verlag. Danzig, A. B., & Black, W. R. (2019). Who controls the preparation of education administrators? Charlotte: Information Age Publishing. Dedering, K. (2020). Die Schulaufsicht als Instanz der Beratung? - Zur Realisierung eines neuen Handlungsprinzips im Kontext „klassischer“ Aufgaben (Educational Governance). In E.D. Klein & N. Bremm (Hrsg.), Unterstützung – Kooperation – Kontrolle. Zum Verhältnis von Schulaufsicht und Schulleitung in der Schulentwicklung (S. 289–311). VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Dedering, K. & Kallenbach, L. (2024). Das Führungsverhalten von Schulaufsicht. Eine empirische Annäherung - In Die Deutsche Schule 116 (2024) 3, S. 252-267 - URN: urn:nbn:de:0111-pedocs-308935 - DOI: 10.25656/01:30893; 10.31244/dds.2024.03.03. Heinrich, M. & Brüsemeister, T.: Funktionen von Schulinspektion (2013 – 2016). https://www.forschungsdaten-bildung.de/de/studies/197-funktionen-von-schulinspektion Herrmann, J. (2020). Schulaufsicht als Beratungsinstanz? Zur Bedingung der Möglichkeit einer Beratung durch die Hierarchie. In: Klein, Esther Dominique & Bremm, Nina (Hrsg.): Unterstützung – Kooperation – Kontrolle: Zum Verhältnis von Schulaufsicht und Schulleitung in der Schulentwicklung. Springer VS, S. 359–372. Huber, S. G. (2020). Germany: Education State Agencies in Germany – Their Organization, Role and Function in School Governing and Quality Management. In H. Ärlestig & O. Johansson (Hrsg.), Educational Authorities and the Schools. Organisation and Impact in 20 States (S. 169–187). Dordrecht: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-38759-4 Huber, S. G., Arnz, S., & Klieme, T. (Hrsg.). (2020). Schulaufsicht im Wandel. Rollen und Aufgaben neu denken. Stuttgart: Raabe. Klein & Bremm (2020). Unterstützung – Kooperation – Kontrolle. Zum Verhältnis von Schulaufsicht und Schulleitung in der Schulentwicklung. Wiesbaden; [Heidelberg]: Springer VS. Luig, C., & Böttcher, W. (2021). Schulaufsicht: Mitte und Mittler. SchulVerwaltung spezial, 23(2), 60–63. Maaz, K., Huber, S. G., Arnz, S., & Klieme, T. (2020). Schulaufsicht gestern, heute und mor- gen: tradierte und neue Aufgaben und Rollen. In S. G. Huber, S. Arnz & T. Klieme (Hrsg.), Schulaufsicht im Wandel. Rollen und Aufgaben neu denken (S. 341–366). Stuttgart: Raabe. Rosenbusch, H. S., & Huber, S. G. (2018). Schulen als Orte organisationspädagogischer Forschung und Praxis. In M. Göhlich, A. Schröer & S. M. Weber (Hrsg.), Handbuch Organisationspädagogik (S. 745–755). Wiesbaden: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/ 978-3-658-07512-5_69 | ||