Big ideas, soft governance: managing large-scale school improvement at the national agency level in Sweden

Introduction

Reform policies targeting whole systems and overall strategies have become increasingly prominent over time, illustrating a movement toward more nationwide and large-scale approaches to school improvement (see, e.g. Hopkins et al., 2014). A crucial aim of such large-scale and systemic approaches is to activate and involve multiple levels of education systems (i.e. the national, district and school levels) so that they work in concert (see, e.g. Fullan, 2010). Besides the changed conditions for policymakers and school actors due to this changed school landscape, these policy shifts also have consequences for school improvement research. That is, when studying large-scale school improvement reforms, one must pay attention to the different levels of education systems and to the relationships among them. As noted by Hopkins et al. (2014, p. 269), “we can only learn about system change by studying systems, their components, and the interactions among their components.”

Reviewing the research on school management shows that leading work has supplied important details on effective school leadership and on the relationship between school management and student results (see, e.g. Bendikson et al., 2012; Hallinger, 2005; Leithwood et al., 2020). Also, when it comes to local education authorities (LEAs), earlier research offers important insights into how successful LEAs operate and support school managers in various contexts (see, e.g. Anderson and Daly, 2013; Leithwood, 2010; Leithwood et al., 2019; Liljenberg et al., 2022; Nordholm, 2016; Rorrer et al., 2008). However, less attention has been paid to the level above the LEA level, i.e. the level of the national school agency (i.e. the Swedish National Agency for Education –SNAE). That is, educational policy and state policy directives must often, in a first step, be interpreted and operationalized by a national school agency in more concrete school reforms and programs before they reach LEAs and school actors in the local schools. Yet, we have limited knowledge of how officials at the national school agency level make sense of and operationalize state intentions and directives for national school improvement programs before they are implemented at the LEA level and in local schools.

Previous research has also shown that the implementation of educational policy is far from a straightforward process; rather, it is dependent on contextual factors at various levels of education systems. For example, by studying educational leadership and policy-making mechanisms in three US states, Seashore Louis et al. (2008) showed that each state had very different means with which to pursue educational policies, concluding that political culture is a mediating factor for states' responses to increasing demands for leadership and accountability initiatives. Similarly, Harris and Jones (2018) pointed out that policymakers worldwide remain preoccupied with identifying the “right” policies rather than considering the conditions and contextual factors that could contribute to effective policy in practice. As also argued by Brauckmann et al. (2023), using Sweden as a case, it is essential for educational leaders to develop a profound understanding of contextual factors in times of new public management. By recognizing these and other works, this article is positioned in a tradition in which sensemaking activities at different levels of the education system are essential for analyzing and understanding the underlying ideas and results of educational policy (cf. Coburn, 2005; Spillane and Anderson, 2014; Spillane et al., 2002).

In this paper, a large-scale national school improvement program in Sweden, Collaboration for the Best School Possible (CBSP), is taken as an empirical case for studying these processes. In Sweden, the responsibility for education is roughly divided between the central government and its agencies, which are responsible for ensuring the overall quality of education, and the LEAs or their independent counterparts, which are responsible for providing education in preschools and schools. Most public schools are organized by the municipalities, each having a school board and one or several superintendents. Swedish school boards consist of appointed politicians, representing the political parties of the municipal council such that the school board has the same political composition as does the municipal council. Notably, Sweden has 290 municipalities, so there is great variety in local school governance and municipal school organization (Johansson et al., 2016).

The CBSP program started in 2015 and stands out as a striking example of a large-scale school improvement reform (Adolfsson, forthcoming). For example, at the beginning of 2022, the program involved school actors from approximately 250 schools, 50 process leaders at SNAE and 130 educators from Swedish universities. In the first step of CBSP, the LEAs, principals and teachers analyze the schools' results jointly with SNAE, leading to a number of efforts in response. Then, when the concrete efforts start, the universities get involved by providing their academic expertise. The aim is to offer a combination of researchers with doctoral degrees, who can contribute theoretical and scientific perspectives, and university teachers with extensive practical experience, for example, as school leaders and/or teachers. A primary aim of CBSP is to develop a capacity for sustainable school development at the local municipal level in collaboration with SNAE and the universities and, in so doing, avoid a top–down approach. The financial resources are close to SEK 100 million (about USD 10 million) annually (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2019). A considerable proportion of this funding is distributed to LEAs and schools during their participation in the project—normally about two years. Despite this large-scale national investment in terms of the number of involved schools and economic resources, previous work (Author, forthcoming) has indicated a lack of clear state directives and guidance to SNAE as to how this school improvement reform should be designed and implemented. This raises important questions concerning the links and relationships between the government and SNAE levels.

Theoretically, this article is based on a neo-institutional point of departure (e.g. Scott, 2001, 2008) and on previous work examining sensemaking in organizations (e.g. Weick, 1995, 2001). This theoretical framework provides a valuable perspective on how reform intentions of different types are articulated at the state level and, in a next step, are interpreted and operationalized at the level between government politicians and LEAs.

Using CBSP in Sweden as a case, this article explores the state governance of a large-scale school improvement program and how officials at the state agency level make sense of the reform ideas and operationalize them in strategies and policy actions.

The article starts with a description of the theoretical point of departure with a particular focus on the relationship between institutions and social organizations, in addition to presenting the concept of sensemaking in organizations. The article then introduces the material and the data analysis, before the empirical findings are presented in three subsections. Finally, the article provides a discussion and conclusions based on these findings.

Theoretical points of departure

In analytically examining and understanding different aspects of the governance and management logics linked to the implementation of CBSP, we drew inspiration from neo-institutional theory. Focusing on the relationships between institutions and social organizations makes it possible to distinguish underlying assumptions, mechanisms and indicators in the governance. In the current case, the Swedish government, as an institution, has long had an ambition to improve the school results nationwide. Following the work of (Scott, 2014), institutional structures are constituted by three “pillars,” i.e. regulatory rules, professional norms and cultural–cognitive beliefs. Accordingly, these dimensions—individually and combined—can be seen as constituting different forms of governance and management logics in relation to different social organizations, in this case SNAE and, in the next step, the LEAs and schools.

The regulatory aspect refers to the laws and rules that together regulate and constrain organizational behavior. Laws and rules are, in this context, associated with regulatory activities, such as rule setting, directives, inspection and sanctions, intended to influence future behavior.

The normative pillar, in turn, comprises aspects that constrain and empower behavior through values and norms. Scott (2008) explained that values are to be understood as notions of the preferred and desirable—that is, various forms of acknowledged social agreements as to the expectations and conventions that direct members of organizations to act in desirable ways. Such pressure may arise from norms, expectations and attitudes linked to how members of organizations should work. In the absence of legal obligations, the normative element primarily operates through soft regulations with no formal legal sanctions attached. However, actions and outcomes can be compared and assessed in light of norms and values. Regarding norms, Scott (2008, pp. 54–55) clarified that they “specify how things should be done; they define legitimate means to pursue valued ends.” Hence, the normative pillar constrains organizational behavior but simultaneously enables social actions that balance responsibilities, privileges, duties, licenses and mandates.

Regarding the third pillar, cultural–cognitive aspects are shared conceptions of social reality that serve as a platform for sensemaking. According to Scott (2001, 2008), these thoughts and identifications are often deeply embedded in the life of social organizations. Concerning their legitimacy, Scott emphasized the power of cultural–cognitive factors because they primarily rest on preconscious and taken-for-granted understandings. However, even if shared cultural understandings tend to work in a homogenizing or isomorphic direction (see, e.g. DiMaggio and Powell, 1983), Scott also pointed out that cultural–cognitive conceptions often vary and, consequently, could have heterogenizing effects as well.

Given these different types of governance and management logics, when studying and attempting to understand how policy and reform processes arise and play out in and between different levels of a school system, the sensemaking concept is essential (see, e.g. Weick, 1995). Studies based on this concept have produced essential insights into how organizational change occurs, by providing a lens through which to understand human agency in relation to organizational conditions (see, e.g. Park and Datnow, 2009; Spillane et al., 2002). A sensemaking perspective on reform and policy implementation implies placing school professionals and their experiences, knowledge, beliefs and context at the center of the analysis. The implementation of a large-scale school improvement program like CBSP, in which several organizational levels are involved, will accordingly be framed by how school professionals at these different organizational levels make sense of the improvement program in relation to the contextual conditions (Weick, 1995).

Consequently, to understand governance and implementation processes in relation to a large-scale school program like CBSP, it is important not just to analyze the formal aspects of this regulation. Rather, it is also crucial to consider the soft forms of the governance logics and mechanisms that were more and less salient in this CBSP program and the ensuing sensemaking activities at SNAE. This implies moving beyond a more traditional implementation and governance analysis of educational policy and reform. The three pillars elaborated on by Scott provide valuable concepts for such an analysis by offering a clear direction while still permitting an exploratory analysis. In the following section, the material and data analysis are presented in detail.

Material and data analysis

To deepen our understanding of the governance and management of CBSP, we analyzed Swedish Government Official Reports, formal directives and Ministry of Education decisions. A request was also sent to SNAE to access documents detailing how the CBSP process had been formalized and operationalized over time. After dialogue with SNAE, 16 documents of different types were sent to the research group. The first type of document (n = 12) comprised internal working material (e.g. drafts, meeting notes, plans, figures and images). These documents offered background on how CBSP had been established and developed over the years. The documents also gave the research group valuable input in formulating suitable interview questions. The second type of document (n = 4) was characterized as more formalized and public and could be described as the formalized results of internal work conducted by SNAE.

In addition, a sample of six (n = 6) SNAE officials was interviewed. Two of these interviewees were heads of the current implementing unit at SNAE and four were directors of studies leading the four working teams organizing and implementing CBSP. The interviewees had extensive insight into and long experience of working with CBSP in designing the collaborations and working processes between SNAE, participating municipalities or independent school organizers, schools and universities. Based on their key positions at SNAE, they also had many years of experience in interpreting the intentions underlying the program and in translating these intentions into concrete school improvement programs and strategies. The interviewees were informed that the study was guided by the ethical guidelines set by the Swedish Research Council (2011) concerning voluntariness, anonymity, how results were to be published and so forth.

Both researchers have worked in CBSP in different municipalities and therefore have had discussions with several interviewees over the years. This probably had a positive impact in terms of gaining access to the field and collecting data. It is worth noting, however, that the researchers have never been involved in CBSP project design as such or in project governance, which is the main focus of this analysis.

The sampled documents and the transcribed interviews were imported into software for qualitative data analysis (NVivo 20). In an initial step, all data were organized and analyzed based on the three pillars (i.e. regulatory, normative and cultural–cognitive) identified by Scott (2001, 2008). More specifically, regarding the regulatory pillar, the analysis explored laws, rules and formal directives that might regulate and constrain the state agency officers' sensemaking efforts. The analysis also paid attention to regulatory activities that might influence sensemaking activities. Concerning the normative pillar, the data analysis explored ideas and notions beyond regulatory governance, identifying what was preferred and/or desirable at the state and SNAE levels (see also Weick, 1995, 2001; Weick et al., 2005). Thus, the analysis paid attention to extracts indicating the values and norms that constitute the basis of dominant prescriptions, obligations, evaluations, goals and means—i.e. “the desirable” or how things should be done. Regarding the third pillar, the cultural–cognitive pillar, the data analysis paid attention to the shared conceptions and frameworks of social reality that serve as a platform for individual and shared sensemaking activities (Weick, 1995). The analysis strove to detect thoughts, identifications and assumptions embedded in SNAE's “life” and work processes that affect the sensemaking activities. As noted above, such shared cultural understandings could work in both homogenizing/isomorphic and heterogeneous directions.

Altogether, despite this somewhat deductive point of departure, the design of the analysis permitted more exploratory elements as well. More specifically, although the regulatory, normative and cultural–cognitive pillars set the direction of the data analysis, the contents of these pillars and the sensemaking activities they generated became empirical matters to investigate. In addition, the current research design enabled important differences among and/or nuances in the documents and interviewees to be revealed.

Results

The results presentation is structured according to the three pillars identified by Scott (2001, 2008). Based on these pillars, the analysis focuses both on the state-level governance and on how officials at SNAE made sense of these intentions and managed and operationalized them in strategies and actions.

Discussion and conclusions

By using CBSP in Sweden as a case, this article explored the state governance of large-scale school improvement and how officials at a national agency of education (i.e. SNAE) made sense of and operationalized this reform in a concrete school improvement program. The relationship between the state decision level and the national school agency level is a hitherto rarely explored relationship in the field of educational management. Accordingly, this article contributes both theoretical and empirical insights into school management and educational reform linked to systemic and large-scale school improvement approaches (see, e.g. Fullan, 2010; Hopkins et al., 2014). In this final part of the article, the main findings will be discussed in light of the article's theoretical concepts and a sample of previous research within the field.

In more detail, by applying key elements of neo-institutional theory, in terms of different dimensions of governance, school management and the sensemaking concept (Scott, 2001, 2008, 2014), this multilayered analysis offers a deeper understanding of governing and managing effective school improvement. This became evident in the implementation of CBSP, in which there was a clear lack of detailed directives from the government department. However, whether this absence of regulatory governance, offering extensive room for action by SNAE officials, should be seen as problematic or preferable is beyond the scope of this article. This article instead demonstrates the importance of having capable leadership if considerable room for action is left to educational professionals, even at the national school agency level. This study has also highlighted the importance of including other dimensions of governance and management besides the traditional regulatory dimension. In fact, given the size and objectives of CBSP, one possible conclusion is that there is an outer limit regarding the use of regulatory directives—a finding that seems transferable to other contexts and improvement programs. Therefore, attention should also be paid to the normative and cultural–cognitive aspects of governance and management to understand the potential and complexity of educational reform and large-scale school improvement. In this regard, the absence of expanded regulatory ideas in the current case demonstrates to educational managers, at different levels of educational systems, the importance of understanding the strengths of normative and cultural–cognitive ideas, often deeply rooted in specific organizations. As shown above, there are always particular “histories” and “logics” in all organizations, regardless of the number of detailed policy directives and intentions. From this follows the importance of considering the professional actors', in this case the SNAE officials', sensemaking process in relation to the state directives. Accordingly, the officials' interpretations and understandings of the current reform, especially when the regulatory dimension of the governance is less detailed, will greatly affect the implementation process and outcome.

These results also evoke important questions linked to specific elements of managing large-scale improvement work, for example, questions linked to distributed versus shared perspectives on educational leadership and school improvement (see, e.g. Brown et al., 2020; Harris, 2011; Harris and Spillane, 2008; Spillane and Healey, 2010). The present results show that the SNAE officials were granted considerable autonomy and trust in interpreting and operationalizing CBSP. However, at the same time, there was no clear infrastructure or supportive framework at the national agency to help managers and officials shoulder this huge and complex assignment. Another condition that reasonably made a trust-based and more distributed working approach more difficult was that CBSP grew gradually and significantly. This implies that the officials have been forced to “lay the rails while driving the train,” which arguably also made it more difficult to distribute roles and assignments and thus lead more collectively. In addition, this made it difficult to take a more comprehensive approach to the improvement program regarding strategies and activities within the program's different phases.

Linked to this discussion, the results also reveal that there were few arenas for knowledge sharing and shared sensemaking activities at SNAE. From a learning organization perspective, which, for example, emphasizes the importance of developing professional learning communities at various levels of education systems (see, e.g. Horton and Martin, 2013; Lomos et al., 2011; Stoll et al., 2006), this is problematic. Obviously, there was a lot to learn and make sense of that could bolster the internal improvement capacity at SNAE. However, the analysis showed that there was no clear idea of how these sizable learning opportunities could contribute to organizational learning and thus become natural parts of SNAE that could reinforce its ongoing work (cf. Senge, 2006). Because the cultural–cognitive dimension comprised such an important part of the implementation process, the lack of such collective processes resulted in the emergence of several heterogenizing ideas among officials at the national agency linked to CBSP. Arguably, building structures and routines that enable such a learning organization is especially important when the regulatory governance dimension is weak.

In conclusion, previous research has offered important results concerning effective school leadership (see, e.g. Bendikson et al., 2012; Hallinger, 2005; Leithwood et al., 2020) and how successful LEAs operate and support school managers in various contexts (see, e.g. Anderson and Daly, 2013; Lee et al., 2012; Liljenberg et al., 2022; Nordholm, 2016). Given that less attention has been paid to the level above the LEA level, i.e. to the national school agency (i.e. SNAE) level, this article makes an important contribution by showing how different types of governance (i.e. regulatory rules, professional norms, and cultural–cognitive beliefs) could set the direction for managing large-scale school improvement at the state school agency level. In particular, in the current case, the lack of clear regulatory directives permitted sensemaking processes clearly influenced by normative ideas and cultural–cognitive beliefs. In that sense, this article echoes and extends previous work on sensemaking in educational research (see, e.g. Coburn, 2005; Spillane and Anderson, 2014; Spillane et al., 2002). It also echoes previous research showing the importance of the context in which policy is to be translated and implemented (cf. Seashore Louis et al., 2008). Lastly, the article demonstrates the complexity of educational reform and large-scale school improvement in which various actors not only must make sense of directives but also must transform them into concrete routines (cf. Harris and Jones, 2018). This, as noted by Brauckmann et al. (2023), demands a profound understanding of contextual leadership factors, evidently not only among principals and superintendents but also at the national agency level.

Regarding the limitations of this work, the present findings are mostly presented from the perspective of SNAE managers and the sample of interviewees is restricted. Therefore, even though the interviewees possessed essential knowledge of CBSP and the link to the state level offering a unique perspective, further studies using, for example, questionnaires and/or focus group interviews could include a larger number of officials involved in the program and attain a deeper understanding of the state-agency level's role and function in interpreting and operationalizing this large-scale school improvement reform.