Conference Agenda

Research question
In what ways has the new Education Act affected collaboration between the Educational Psychological Service (EPS) and schools, and what opportunities and barriers have emerged?

Objectives
The Educational Psychological Service is a national statutory support service within the Norwegian education system, regulated by the Education Act and organised at both municipal and regional levels. The EPS’s mandate is to support and guide schools in assessing the need for adaptations to teaching and to implement measures as early as possible when required. It also contributes to professional and organisational development to ensure that provision is as inclusive and well adapted as possible. Where the law or regulations require an expert assessment, the EPS is responsible for preparing that assessment (Education Act 2023, § 11‑13).

The recently revised Education Act places greater emphasis on the EPS’s responsibility for organisational development (OD) to support inclusive and adaptive education. Our study investigates how the new Act has affected collaboration between the EPS and schools, and what opportunities and barriers have emerged in system‑level work. System‑level work involves developing the combined capacity of the EPS and schools by analysing and improving structures, relationships, and practices; it is a collective endeavour in which all stakeholders actively adhere to the principles of an inclusive school (Sundar, 2018, p. 36).

In this study we interviewed leaders and counsellors at three municipal EPS offices. Through data analysis, we highlight the importance of developing organisational culture by identifying both opportunities and barriers.

Theoretical framework
In organisation theory, the concept of change agents has been widely used; its strength is said to derive from high professional competence in involving organisational members in addressing challenges (Beckhard, 1969). Change agents should not be understood as experts who initiate and implement change alone or top‑down. Rather, they act in interaction with stakeholders to ensure collaborative and consultative processes (Sundar, 2018), functioning as equal partners in collaboration.

Making different knowledge bases and value foundations visible can foster a broader understanding of each other’s perspectives (Fasting & Breilid, 2023) within collective competence building. Professional capital (Hargreaves & Fullan, 2012) can be strengthened by creating coherence between theory and practice. Intersubjective dialogues between schools and the EPS (Lassen & Breilid, 2010) can facilitate development of holistic competence and high‑quality provision through a shared understanding of the EPS’s mandate.

Supportive leadership and safe spaces enable reflection and promote system‑level change to enhance inclusive education (Sønsthagen, 2024). Professional communities that include both EPS staff and school staff can improve practice collaboratively by working systematically towards shared goals to strengthen inclusive learning environments (Kuria & Kelly, 2023). Positive outcomes arise when professionals work together in established groups and engage in discussions that combine research‑based knowledge with lived experience (Hargreaves & O’Connor, 2018). Professional communities also develop a shared understanding of the values and visions underpinning school practices; they are shaped by sequences of events, reform trajectories, and local practices over time (Abbott, 2016). This process includes developing a common understanding of what the new Education Act entails in practice.

Collaboration between the EPS and schools can be defined as a partnership in which actors from different institutional contexts cooperate around common goals while bringing different expectations and practices (Nomerstad, 2025). Governance and organisational practices influence how educational leadership is exercised—both as a formal role with set expectations and as a relational process dependent on partnership collaboration (Stokke et al., 2026). Successful change through partnerships requires close cooperation and leadership at all levels (Lillejord & Børte, 2016).

In current debates surrounding digital transformation and agile governance in public administration (Wirth, 2020), as well as the development of school systems (Azorín & Fullan, 2022) cooperation as knowledge and action appears as a core capacity, replacing individualized, strongly evidence focussed or hierarchical practices.

Within the framework of Educational Governance, managing interdependencies and negotiating among actors across system levels (Altrichter, 2015) are fundamental to innovation and development. Educational governance research investigates the coordination of action among different actors and considers their constellations as unit of analysis (Dietrich, 2018).

Cooperative professionalism (Hargreaves & O’Connor, 2018) manifests in the ability to perceive and represent both one’s own and others’ perspectives and to integrate them toward a shared goal. Edwards (2017) conceptualizes this two-step process as ‘relational agency’. Such open and self-reflective communication enables cyclical negotiation processes making innovations more concrete (Grosche et al., 2020) or constructive conflict resolution (Decuyper et al., 2010) and contributes to the formation of collective agency (Zumpe, 2024).

Considering diverse expectations and demands, cooperation has been widely discussed and examined in the context of instructional development (Gräsel et al., 2006; Grosche et al., 2020). However little empirical evidence exists concerning inter-level cooperation in multi-actor settings. Existing studies typically focus on dyadic relationships, such as between school supervision and school leadership, or between external evaluators and teachers (e.g., Lambrecht, 2018). Brüsemeister (2007) describes cooperation in the multi-level setting as “antagonistic cooperation” referring to different action logics of school policy, administration, and practice. The praxeology of cooperation, as integration of knowledge and action, can be described by reconstruction of practice, which is the aim of our project. To achieve this, we analyze real interactions between multi-level actors during an innovation project. We apply the Documentary Method, which allows us to uncover tensions between knowledge and action.

In our research project, actors from different levels of the school system collaborate in a joint innovation process. The project is designed as a participatory and co-creative design thinking process (Brown, 2008), initiated by administrative leaders and designed together with researchers. This project offers a dual perspective on actors’ guiding orientations toward cooperation. On the one hand, cooperation is a necessary practice for jointly generating outcomes within the design thinking process. On the other hand, cooperation becomes the thematic focus of the design challenge itself: participants are tasked with developing a prototype for a new dialogue format among stakeholders responsible for school system development. This new format aims to enable joint interpretation of school quality data and its productive use for development.

Within the project, researchers and practitioners from schools as well as administrative representatives collaborate on both the conceptual and practical levels. The resulting Research-Practice-Administration (RPA) Partnerships (Bremm & Manitius, 2019) illustrates how administration and school practitioners – and researchers as well – perform different praxeologies of cooperation. The deliberate inclusion of administrative actors generates new insights into interactions across organizational levels.

The central focus of data analysis concerns the “how” of cooperation: how cooperative practices emerge and how bodies of knowledge are discursively introduced (Weber, 2018). Another key perspective revealed through analysis pertains to speaker positions (who?) and the strategies through which actors establish authority. Gaps between knowledge and action become visible—reminiscent of Brunsson’s (1989) concept of organizational hypocrisy. The analyses illustrate how such gaps as inconsistencies within or across organizational levels may inhibit cooperation and development.

Schools, as the central educational organizations, exist against the backdrop of current cultural and social changes. They must respond to new challenges and find a new educational mission in our changing world. From this, the necessity for ‘school development’ arises. Cultural and social changes, new administrative regulations and curricular reforms have had a significant impact on school development policies in many European countries during the last years. This constellation gives rise to new challenges for established routines, practices and identities in schools and surrounding organizations in the local communities (Müller & Fahrenwald, 2023). Studies in German-speaking countries have already identified a complex set of diverse (success) conditions for school education reform projects. However, these studies consistently emphasize the relevance of the socio-spatial context as a condition for success (Rolff, 2016). Regional cooperation within broader educational landscapes thus becomes a central perspective for future-oriented school development, both in theoretical and practical educational considerations (Berkemeyer & Järvinen, 2011; Brühlmann & Rolff, 2015). In the context of the new governance in the Austrian school system, which aims, among other things, to promote greater equity in educational opportunities, concepts such as decentralized governance and the regionalization of educational processes are gaining increasing importance. In this context, networking is attributed significant potential, as it is often more effective in addressing challenges than traditional state governance structures (Emmerich & Maag Merki, 2009). In particular, the ability to directly exchange knowledge, thereby creating and utilizing synergies, professionalizing teachers, fostering cooperation among various stakeholders, and enabling learning based on mutual trust, are highlighted as key advantages (Järvinen et al., 2012; Jungermann et al., 2018; Seitz, 2011).

When engaging in school development, it is beneficial to involve external support to gain additional resources. This is where school development consulting (SDC) comes into play – a common form of support in many school systems aimed at fostering the autonomous quality development of individual schools (Altrichter et al., 2021; Berkemeyer, 2021; Dedering, 2014). In Upper Austria, SDC is institutionally anchored within the University of Education Upper Austria (Altrichter et al., 2021; BMBWF, 2024). This institutional positioning creates an interface between practice and research. SDC is expected to make a significant contribution to the success of school development processes.

In line with the conference theme “Knowing and Acting: The changing conditions and potentials of education research”, the paper positions school development in networks as a process of learning in, of, and between organizations (Göhlich et al., 2018), fundamentally shaped by co-creation, participation, shared knowing and acting. Drawing on recent empirical findings from a school network in Upper Austria, it shows how SDC frames such co-constructive, participatory processes, translates scientific knowledge into actionable, practice-oriented knowing and acting, and thereby promotes and safeguards the effectiveness of future-oriented school development in networks.

Across German-speaking countries, schools are increasingly confronted with unprecedented challenges in responding to societal change, learner diversity, and systemic constraints. While many schools struggle with incremental adjustments, a growing number demonstrate the potential of radically innovative school development—approaches that rethink structures, cultures, and pedagogical practices in profound and sustainable ways. Drawing on the conceptual frame of the Mutmacherand Musterbrecher projects, this proposal introduces a research-based model of innovative school development that emphasizes professionalism, persistency, and strategic coherence. These innovative schools, some recognized as award-winning institutions and others less publicly visible, provide compelling real-world examples of transformative practice aligned with the principles of Next Practice, rather than mere best practice replication.

The point of departure for this inquiry lies in understanding why schools embark on developmental journeys. Consistent with the findings from the Mutmacher project, the motivations are highly diverse: threats of closure, internal crises or conflicts, dissatisfaction with learning outcomes, a lack of student autonomy, heterogeneity challenges, impulses from professional learning, and school redesign initiatives. School development is rarely linear; instead, transformation unfolds iteratively, shaped by contextual conditions and a school’s evolving identity. Across cases, a shared pattern emerges: successful innovation pivots on a clear sense of purpose, stepwise implementation, and a willingness to redesign nearly all aspects of school life. Innovation rarely begins from ideal conditions; rather, pressure and opportunity operate together as catalysts when schools interpret them through a lens of agency and purpose.

The radical approaches presented here are informed by multi-layered conceptual models seen in the uploaded materials: the BIO+S strategy (Bolster, Innovate, Optimise, and Suspend), the interconnected development of learning culture, school culture, and leadership culture, the emphasis on meaningful cooperation, and the focus on quality of education supported by structured quality management and strategic processes (e.g., vision work, evaluation loops, pilot projects). Innovative schools shift from teaching to learning: they foster self-organized learning, adopt learning coaching roles, expand learning environments, integrate collegial observation, leverage project-based learning, and use agile processes that encourage prototyping, iteration, failure tolerance, and reflection.

Across cases, recurring milestones include guided self-organized learning, redesigned learning spaces (“learning space as a third educator”), strengthened coaching and collegial observation, and professionalized project structures.

This proposal is grounded in two complementary qualitative research strands:
(1) A detailed case study of one innovative school, including ten semi-structured interviews, participatory fieldwork, and a whole-staff BIO+S survey exploring what should be preserved, innovated, optimized, or suspended.
(2) An interview study involving 12 schools in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, representing all major school types. These interviews with school leaders examine historical development trajectories, present conditions, and the strategic approaches that drove successful innovation.

The findings can be synthesized into four interrelated domains: (1) triggers and drivers of innovation, (2) developmental pathways and milestones, (3) cultural and structural enabling conditions, and (4) strategic tools and processes that support sustained transformation.

Findings across both strands reveal that radically innovative schools share a strong commitment to cooperation, shared responsibility, purpose-driven leadership, and the courage to rethink established practices. Their developmental pathways emphasize relationship-centered education, systemic coherence, resource-orientation, and values-based decision-making. They exhibit a “forest rather than monoculture” mindset: diversity, collaboration, and mutual learning serve as engines of innovation.

Taken together, the analyses show that innovative schools create new professional cultures and future-oriented learning environments by combining strategic clarity with pragmatic iteration. Their radical approaches are not disruptive in the sense of abrupt upheaval, but transformative through persistent, thoughtful, and data-informed action. With these insights, this contribution aims to inspire other schools—“Next Schools”—by showcasing pathways for becoming resilient, student-centered, and future-ready educational organizations.