The Principle of Singularity
This paper provides insight into the legislative process behind the current Education Act of Sweden. The aim is to shed light on how and why it came to prohibit joint leadership for principals. Joint leadership is a sub-form of shared leadership between managers characterised by complete formal auth...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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OsloMet — Oslo Metropolitan University
2018-11-01
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| Series: | Nordic Journal of Comparative and International Education |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.hioa.no/index.php/nordiccie/article/view/2757 |
| _version_ | 1811342970137346048 |
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| author | Marianne Döös Lena Wilhelmson Jenny Madestam Åsa Örnberg |
| author_facet | Marianne Döös Lena Wilhelmson Jenny Madestam Åsa Örnberg |
| author_sort | Marianne Döös |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | This paper provides insight into the legislative process behind the current Education Act of Sweden. The aim is to shed light on how and why it came to prohibit joint leadership for principals. Joint leadership is a sub-form of shared leadership between managers characterised by complete formal authority, hierarchic equality and merged work tasks. The sharing of a principal’s position is, in previous research, identified as potentially favourable for principals and schools as it decreases principals’ often heavy workload. Five retrospective interviews were done with people involved in the legislative process. The analysis points out both distrust in the governing line and uninformed notions of leadership among legislators as explanations behind the prohibition. In the legislative work, joint leadership was at most a marginal issue. Thus the legal prohibition was an unintended side-effect, yet completely in line with traditional and uninformed notions of leadership. The principle of singularity ruled and joint leadership was extinguished for principals without considering whether this favoured or harmed the overarching aims of the Education Act: increased peda-gogical responsibility and leadership with a focus on the students’ learning, results and democratic upbring-ing. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-13T19:20:12Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-784298287b22480ab031587ea5916fa6 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2535-4051 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-13T19:20:12Z |
| publishDate | 2018-11-01 |
| publisher | OsloMet — Oslo Metropolitan University |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Nordic Journal of Comparative and International Education |
| spelling | doaj.art-784298287b22480ab031587ea5916fa62022-12-22T02:33:32ZengOsloMet — Oslo Metropolitan UniversityNordic Journal of Comparative and International Education2535-40512018-11-0122-310.7577/njcie.2757The Principle of SingularityMarianne Döös0Lena WilhelmsonJenny MadestamÅsa ÖrnbergStockholm UniversityThis paper provides insight into the legislative process behind the current Education Act of Sweden. The aim is to shed light on how and why it came to prohibit joint leadership for principals. Joint leadership is a sub-form of shared leadership between managers characterised by complete formal authority, hierarchic equality and merged work tasks. The sharing of a principal’s position is, in previous research, identified as potentially favourable for principals and schools as it decreases principals’ often heavy workload. Five retrospective interviews were done with people involved in the legislative process. The analysis points out both distrust in the governing line and uninformed notions of leadership among legislators as explanations behind the prohibition. In the legislative work, joint leadership was at most a marginal issue. Thus the legal prohibition was an unintended side-effect, yet completely in line with traditional and uninformed notions of leadership. The principle of singularity ruled and joint leadership was extinguished for principals without considering whether this favoured or harmed the overarching aims of the Education Act: increased peda-gogical responsibility and leadership with a focus on the students’ learning, results and democratic upbring-ing.https://journals.hioa.no/index.php/nordiccie/article/view/2757education actprincipalschool unitshared leadership |
| spellingShingle | Marianne Döös Lena Wilhelmson Jenny Madestam Åsa Örnberg The Principle of Singularity Nordic Journal of Comparative and International Education education act principal school unit shared leadership |
| title | The Principle of Singularity |
| title_full | The Principle of Singularity |
| title_fullStr | The Principle of Singularity |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Principle of Singularity |
| title_short | The Principle of Singularity |
| title_sort | principle of singularity |
| topic | education act principal school unit shared leadership |
| url | https://journals.hioa.no/index.php/nordiccie/article/view/2757 |
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