Principals’ Autonomy in the Nordic Countries: Governing Positions, Responsibilities, and Expectations

Growing political expectations exist for educational leaders in terms of their efforts to enhance students’ outcomes and apply education as a tool in national and international competition regarding school quality and student achievement. Educational leadership can be viewed as a multi-level phenomenon distributed over several levels, in which multiple actors interact and collaborate in dynamic networks. In this article, we investigate how the mission of a principal is constructed according to formal documents in the Nordic countries by conducting a document analysis with emphasis on the following research question: what degree of autonomy do school principals have as public educational leaders in the Nordic countries? Depending on the educational leadership levels above them (municipality and national levels), principals have different relative autonomy with regard to national laws, curriculum, policies and local municipal directives. For principals, many tasks may stand in contradiction with each other and point in different directions, making it impossible to uncritically conform with all responsibilities and expectations. Instead, principals need to interpret and relate to these in a reflective manner.