A Central School Reform Programme in Sweden and the
Local Response: Taking the Long Term View Works
A twenty year longitudinal study of 35 Swedish “grund” schools
Dr. Ulf Blossing (ulf.l.blossing@kau.se), Karlstad University, Sweden
Prof. Mats Ekholm (mats.ekholm@kau.se), Karlstad University, Sweden
Abstract
The report deals with a longitudinal study of 35 Swedish comprehensive schools involving interviews with
teachers, school leaders, students and parents carried out at intervals in 1980, 1982, 1985 and 2001. During the
35 year period covered by the study, the schools experienced significant reforms. The most important of these
reforms involved a shift from a system of highly centralised control of school activities to a system where a large
degree of control over schools was devolved to local municipalities - kommuns - and to the schools themselves.
These reforms are such that today, for example, local kommuns are responsible for school budgets where
previously the state was in charge of them. School leaders now appoint teachers and teachers pay is agreed
individually on the basis of annual negotiation with the school leader. Strong emphasis is also placed on the need
for schools to respect the views of their students and a high level of student democracy is expected.
The result of a revisit in 2001 at the schools studied during the 1980’s shows that schools have taken up the
challenge of being more autonomous. There are more of collective approaches reflected not only in teacher
teams but also in steering groups responsible for the management of the schools. Schools use more evaluation
strategies at the beginning of the new millennium than they did before and the norms of the teachers have
changed so that the systematic evaluation of teachers’ work is now accepted. Teaching and learning methods that
stimulates active student learning are still not in use to the high degree that was expected by the politicians, but
the changes found in the study indicate that this is a matter of time. Close analysis of the 35 schools suggests two
types of improvement cultures at work. 27 of the schools have found systematic ways to connect goals and
results and thereby to improve the quality of the improvement works. Six of the schools responded to demands
for reform using what is described as a passive reactive strategy. The study makes a strong argument for the need
for a process of progressive decentralisation that puts the emphasis on local democracy as opposed to the
alternative that tends to emphasise greater state control.
Introduction
Sweden has a simple structure for its child care system and its primary and secondary
education. Preschool is well established. Three out of four children participate in preschool at
the age of 3-4 years. At six all children in Sweden go to preschool classes that are linked with
the “grundskola”, that starts at seven. From seven to sixteen all children go through
comprehensive school where they stay together with the classmates in the same class for nine
years. 92 percent of a year group continues for three years in the “gymnasieskola”. During the
first three to seven years of the “grundskola”, the class is taught by the same teacher,
supported by a number of specialist teachers responsible for instance for handicraft or sports.
Step by step subject teachers are introduced during school year six and seven. These subject
teachers follow the students during their last three or four school years. As Sweden contains
many sparsely populated areas school size varies. A “grundskola” may have less than thirty
teachers. In cities there are usually around 70-80 teachers to be found in a “grundskola”. The
work is led by a school leader (“rektor”) who not only manages the teachers but also manages
the people who work at the school in student care, counselling, health, clerical services,
maintenance and food services.
The study reported here focuses on the “grundskola”. This type of school has been in
operation since 1962. At that time the school system was highly centralised. Aims for the
schools and guidance on how to reach the aims were presented by the government or by
national boards. Almost everything that took place in a “grundskola” was rigorously set out in
different sets of guidelines at that time. Although the schools were governed by specific
boards of the local municipalities (“kommuns”1), these boards only had real power over
housing and school transport in the early sixties. Money was distributed to the schools from
the state on the basis of key numbers of students. The money to be used for teacher and school
leader salaries was decided at the national level, following seniority tariff principles.
Step by step the governance system of the “grundskola” has changed during the latter part of
the twentieth century in Sweden. The central guidelines (“läroplan”) were rewritten in 1980
and in 1994; the 1994 version is short and concise. The board of education of the “kommun”
has been given much more power over school finance. The state distributes a sum of money to
the “kommuns”, that distribute the money to the schools. At the school level the school
leaders have significant power over the distribution of the money. Recruitment of teachers is
carried out by the local school, where the school leader cooperates with the teacher unions not
only about hiring new teachers, but also about the individual level of each teacher’s salary.
The state still formulates the central aims for the schools, but the schools are responsible for
the educational process they employ to reach the goals and for the use of the resources that
have been allocated to the school. From the mid-seventies the Swedish comprehensive school
system has changed from being a highly centralised system to become a school system were
power is devolved to the local school so they can solve its problems.
Aim of the study
This longitudinal study investigates to what extent a group of school reforms formulated in
the late 1970’s (Government of Sweden, 1975) had been realized at local school level in 35
grund schools by the beginning of the year 2001. The overall aim of the study has been
twofold. First it follows up the impact of a national reform programme on the inner lives of
the schools. It achieves this by examining the relationship between the centrally introduced
school reforms and the local response of schools to those reforms. Second it contributes to the
systematic building of knowledge about institutionalisation in schools (Miles et al, 1987).
The reforms concentrated on the internal management structures of the schools, such as the
role of the school leader, creation of teams and joint planning among teachers and the use of
school based evaluations. The reforms which were introduced during the 1970’s put emphasis
on the development of an inner democracy in schools. School leaders, teachers and pupils
were expected to take greater responsibility for improving the school work. This included
1
There are 290 Swedish kommuns. Each of the kommuns is responsible for the use of taxes within several areas
such as technical services (water, sanitary), elderly care, child care and schooling. The kommun has a local
parliament reflecting the votes of the inhabitants and several boards with a political composition that also reflects
the local opinions.
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making allocation of resources and work planning more flexible in order to adapt to the needs
of the pupils, having teachers collaborate in teams to ensure a holistic approach where the
individual pupil need is the principle focus, shaping a teaching methodology that fosters pupil
responsibility, collaboration and participation. It also assumed carrying out follow-up reports
and evaluation of local activities and achievements centrally and strengthening of ‘practical’
experimental work and inset (SOU, 1974:53). These have evolved as the key themes in the
various stages that the reforms have gone through in the period between 1980 until early
2000.
The process of institutionalisation in schools is a long term process. Miles, Ekholm &
Vandenberghe (1987) point out, more research is needed to establish how the relationship
between implementation and institutionalisation is shaped and what are the important factors
that are at work that influence the process of institutionalisation. The distribution of power
within the school and between the school and its surrounding society may affect the
institutionalisation of the kind of innovations that the Swedish reforms promoted. Miles et al.
(1987) also point to the importance of understanding the vulnerability of schools as they deal
with the pressure of external expectations if we are to understand properly what promotes or
hinders the institutionalisation process.
Even though it has long been acknowledged that school improvement is a long term process
(a question of institutionalisation) and that the change is heavily affected by changes in the
surrounding society (Miles et al., 1987) these facts has not been fully addressed empirically in
previous research. Institutionalisation as a long term process points towards gaining
knowledge about the “natural” development of schools in different countries. However,
reviews of school improvement research (e.g. Fullan, 2001; Hopkins, 2001) indicate a high
level of empirical research investigating managerial actions and their impact on improving
schools focusing on action that covers a two or at the most, four year period. But these raise
the question: what fosters school improvement over the long term, over periods of time where
short term school development projects have elapsed? In what way are societal attitudes and
education policy changes significant? How are educational “visions” in terms of school
reform affected by the country specific societal context? Since we know that school
improvement is a long term process, empirical research that does not stress the importance of
a long term perspective risks measuring the extent of improvement/change with standards
quite different from the ones put forward twenty years ago. If that is so we will surely have
much research suggesting schools never seem to improve their internal structure.
This study offers the chance to examine these areas and issues and sets out to illuminate
important questions including: what kind of reforms is it possible to carry out at the local
school level over the long term? What works in these terms and what does not work? Is it
possible to gain and understanding about the relative merits of different improvement actions?
What kind of changes in societal attitudes towards schooling, influence the institutionalisation
process? Do any of these changes lead to structural changes that may influence the
institutionalisation process in the local school?
Method
The design of the study is based on longitudinal and comparative case studies of 35 Swedish
grund schools. The study uses three reviews, the first in 1980, the second in 1985 and the last
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in 2001. The reviews are based on extensive interviews at the schools and provide the
foundation for the comparative analysis of the improvement cultures.
75 schools were sampled among the 300 schools which in 1980 were either putting a
personnel team on a one year training programme aimed at improvement initiatives at school
level or putting the school leader into a two year on-the-job training programme (Ekholm,
1987). The schools invited were offered a school based review to be carried out by a team of
two experienced evaluators at three points over a five year period. The invitations were spread
over the country in such a way that three schools per county were invited. Schools were
chosen so that they were equally divided by county and type of district. After considering the
invitation, 35 schools accepted. These schools came from 21 out of the 24 counties of
Sweden. Seventeen of the schools came from municipalities with less than 30 000 inhabitants.
Seven were in places with 30 000 to 90 000 inhabitants and eleven of the schools came from
cities with more than 90 000 inhabitants. Thirteen of the schools comprise students from the
age of 6 to 16 and in eleven schools from the age of 6 to 12/13. The remaining eleven schools
comprise students covering the later ages of the grund schools. In some of these schools this
means starting with the 10 year olds, in some others with the 12year olds or the 13-year olds
and going through until the students are 16 years old.
The interviews were based on a question guide covering the nine key areas that the reforms of
the late seventies and onwards have focused on: goal management, work organisation,
methods of teaching, organisation of special education, student democracy, resource
utilisation, improvement work, school based evaluation and openness towards the external
community. Interviews were carried out in 1980, 1982, 1985 and in 2000/2001. They
involved students’ teachers, special needs teachers, school leaders, teacher team leaders,
personnel from the maintenance services, union representatives, representatives of the parents'
association and local authority representatives. The study conducted interviews with
individuals as well as with groups. Most interviews lasted about 60 minutes. After the first
three visits to the schools (1980, 1982 and 1985) the evaluators formulated a report that was
based on their findings. The process involved ‘storing’ reports No 1 & 2 until completion of
the third report. In 1985 the reviewers evaluated results and identified the changes that had
taken place over the five year period.
The interviews in 2000/2001 were recorded and thereafter set out in a disposition made up of
three parts: 1) a substantial description of the present situation using the headings employed in
the question guide 2) an assessment of the characteristic features of each focus area 3) a
comparison with the assessment made in 1985 in terms of the relative development that had
taken place in each focus area. The report for each school was sent to the school which
responded to the description of the present situation and the development undergone.
Thereafter there followed a cross site analysis using the reports from the 35 schools.
The analysis of the data was accomplished in three steps: 1) the information about each of the
areas under investigation was categorised 2) comparative description of the changes from the
early 80`s to 2001 was made 3) information was reduced to describe different kinds of
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Table 1. Categories, scales and explanation in short.
Categories
Scales
Explanation in short
Management
organisation
Collective versus solitary
Whether the school leaders base their leadership on
deliberation and participative decision-making or
make decisions on their own.
Planning
organisation
Collective versus solitary
Whether the teachers make use of joint planning in
teams or plan in isolation.
Linkage
Stable structure versus loose
structure
Strong efficiency versus
weak efficiency
The linkage refers to communication of information,
wishes, intentions and decision from heads to
teachers. Its structure can be stable, i.e. well
organised or loose, i.e. not organised in a formal
way.
Its efficiency can be strong, i.e. well communicated
in both direction, or weak, i.e. communicated in a
defective way.
Methods of teaching
Developmental versus
traditional
Whether the teaching methods employed are
developmental in terms of e.g. pupil participation,
inter subject-cooperation and learning by
discovering, or traditional e.g. teacher focused, text
book centred with pre-produced assignments, little
pupil participation, little group-work and subject
isolation.
Student democracy
Stable, sporadic, nonexistent
The degree of teachers’ systematic deliberation and
participative decision-making with the pupils.
Attitude towards
change
Open versus closed
Whether the teachers are open or closed to, reform
initiatives.
The organisation of
the change work
Systematic, mildly
systematic, spontaneous
The degree of staff coordination in the
implementation of changes.
The school leaders’
driving force in the
change work
Driving versus passive
The degree to which the school leaders are active in
support of the change work
Goal management
Moderately or high intensity
versus little or not at all
The degree of goal management in terms of
systematic discussion among teachers and heads.
Working plans
Wholly versus partially
The degree of goal management in terms of
systematic documentation of goals, realization of
goals and evaluation.
Evaluation
Stable, sporadic, nonexistent
The degree to which evaluation comprises the pupils’
as well as the teachers (the schools) performance and
also the degree of linkage between the local school
evaluation and the local authority evaluation.
Special needs
teaching
Clear distribution of work,
isolated, supportive,
coordinative, competition
The degree to which special needs teaching is
integrated and functions in a supportive or
coordinating way with the regular teaching, as
opposed to being isolated from it or having to
compete to assert its place.
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improvement cultures. Local response to the reform agenda set out by the government was
assessed using the categories established in the 1985 report. These comprise: management
organisation, planning organisation, methods of teaching, attitude towards change, the
organisation of the change work, the school leader’s driving role in the change work, goal
management, developmental plans, school based evaluations and special needs teaching. For
each category different scales of assessment were used, see table 1.
Categories used for analysis
The categories used for assessment of the local response are closely linked to the interview
guide covering the areas that the reforms of the late seventies and onwards have focused on.
In this follow-up study these categories and adherent scales have been used deductively as a
matrix for analysing the interview data. However, the scales and their dimension originate
from an inductive analysis carried out of the research team in 1985. Encouraged by the
methodology of grounded theory (Bartlett & Payne, 1997; Glaser & Strauss, 1967) this
research team sculptured the data from the into categories // Vad är “into categories” för
något?// which laid the bases for the scales used. Below follows an account of these findings.
Management organisation
Analysing the report reviews the research team found that the management organisation
consisted of three types of management: solitary school management, informal team,
formalised team, group steering and also managerial body.
Solitary school management
The school management makes decisions independently
without assistance of certain bodies of consideration or
drafting committees. The school management collects
basis for decision-making, listens to the opinion and
makes all important decisions on its own.
Informal team
The school management organises help-groups of an
informal kind. These groups have en important position as
long as the school management considers them important
as advisers. A frequent example of this is schools where
the student welfare personnel constitute an informal
consulting group.
Formalised team
It has established permanent drafting bodies which
prepare proposals for decision-making. This can for
example relate to groups for allocation of resources, inset
committees which for examples have been appointed by
the personnel conference.
Group steering
The school management takes active part in the planning
on the ground level and steer/find support for the
realisation of decisions. This can be done through
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informal contacts with individuals and groups. It can also
be carried out by participating in conferences, planning
groups etc.
Managerial body
The head has together with e.g. teacher team leaders
constituted a managerial body that exercises decision
making. One can talk of an extended school management.
The persons that besides the head constitute the
managerial body are in their turn often leaders of
subgroups, e.g. teacher teams.
The four types informal team, formalised team, group steering and managerial body were
summarised into collective management organisation, versus the opposite pole of the scale –
the solitary management organisation, see also table 1.
Planning organisation
The planning organisation, i.e. the different ways the teachers organise to plan the teaching,
was discerned into four types: Solitary, personal co-operation, interest co-operation and also
team co-operation.
Solitary
The teachers plan mostly by one self. Slight co-operation
only at certain teaching situations or at certain
arrangements. The teachers carry out a minimum of the
conferences acquired.
Personal co-operation
Small groups of two to three teachers collaborate in the
daily work. The co-operation is grounded on bonds of
friendship, but very little co-operation outside these
groups of friendship.
Interest co-operation
Co-operation based on group belongings of importance
for the work, e.g. subject groups. The co-operation has to
be regular and of manifest importance to the individual
teacher’s teaching.
Team co-operation
Joint planning cross subject bounds, year bounds, class
bounds, personnel categories etc. Teacher teams in
function in line with the reform. In order to place a school
in this category it is required that the majority of teachers
are members and participate in teams which co-operate
regularly and whose work are of major importance for the
individual teacher’s teaching.
The solitary and personal co-operation types were summarised into solitary planning
organisation while the opposite pole were constituted by interest and team co-operation, i.e.
collective planning organisation, see table 1.
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Linkage
Regarding the communication of information, wishes, intentions and decisions between the
school management and the personnel two different structures as well as two different effects
were found. The structure of the communication could be stable, that is well organised by
regular conferences, extensive and regular written information etc. On the other hand the
structure could be loose in schools where joint conference happened sparsely and written
information was not available or was not consumed by the teachers. From the report reviews
one could conclude that the communication in some schools could have an impact, have a
strong efficiency, where there existed a mutual exchange of information, standpoints,
arguments and decisions. On the other hand one could find schools where the efficiency was
weak and where the information insufficiently reached teachers and heads. By this inductive
analysis the linkage was defined by the scale stable versus loose structure and also strong
versus weak efficiency, see table 1.
Methods of teaching
Statements from teachers and students about what methods of teaching that were used were in
the first analysis of 1985 categorised in 22 categories which in the end were summarised into
two groups – developmental versus traditional methods of teaching. Below follow an account
of the categories with concretising of quotations from interview respondents.
1. Traditional methods of teaching:
a. Tradition saturated procedures.
Teaching steered by the teacher, learning activities dominated by the teacher,
conventional working ways with mainly teacher steered lessons, traditional working
ways, teachers conservative regarding methods of teaching.
b. Little student participation in the planning.
No student democracy, the teachers do not engage in student democracy activities,
teacher dominated planning, short-term student participation in instructional planning,
teachers do the planning work by themselves, student participation in the planning rare.
c. The textbook in the centre.
The textbook in the centre, textbook steering, textbook the framework of the teaching,
one starts from the textbook and works at it.
d. Group work unusual
Group work sometimes/rare, the students work individually without co-operation.
e. Instruction/practise
Going through – home work – test, traditional frontal instruction, teacher going through
with accompanying assignments is common.
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f. Filling-in questions
Filling-in questions on work sheets, pre-produced assignments, work books.
g. Home-work, test common
Knowledge test common, one to two tests per in year 5-6, tests in writing in all subjects,
tests and home-works common, home-work over the weekend, home-work from year 2,
no more than two tests per week.
h. Methods of teaching are not evaluated
Only student achievements are evaluated.
i. Clear subject limits
Clear subject limits, “pure” subject teaching, limits between subjects are sustained.
2. Developmental methods of teaching:
a. Others.
Montessori inspired methods of working, drama, increased concretizing (general)
“daring to test new methods of working”.
b. Student participation in planning.
Students plan/influence their own working schedule, student participation, planning-book
which the students influence, free weeks when the students choose content, “different”
days/weeks, students could influence the choice of methods and the order of different
subject parts, students could choose order of assignments within subject area.
c. Theme/subject co-operation.
Theme weeks, theme days, theme studies, interdisciplinary working areas, block
teaching.
d. Learning by discovering/projects.
Laboratory working ways, the teacher looks upon the student as a resource in the
teaching process, learning by discovering, projects, student active working ways, one
starts from problems in the learning process.
e. Group-work common.
f. External sources of knowledge.
Parent participation in work experience programme, excursions in the community, visits
to the parents’ working places, contacts outside school, parents telling about their work in
school.
g. Less dependence of textbooks.
Less dependence of textbooks, books steer less, the textbook is no longer binding for the
planning.
h. Co-operation in teaching between class or stage limits.
Grouping cross class limits, co-operation cross levels, projects that involve several levels,
non-graded classes.
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i. On duty groups/environmental groups.
Internal work experience programme, school practise, assistant school help.
j. Sponsoring activities.
(not only transitions between school levels)
k. Individualisation.
Advanced courses, ability grouping, book clubs on different reading ability levels,
diagnostic tests.
l. Camp school.
m. Evaluation of methods of teaching and learning.
Class councils evaluate the teaching, evaluation of teacher performance, students keep a
log f their work, students assess the accomplishment of teachers’ planning, evaluation of
theme days, student survey about the teaching.
Student democracy
The student democracy regards in this study the frequency of class councils and students’
councils based on statements from teachers and students. The frequency of them was
categorised in three groups: stable, sporadic and non-existent. To become assessed as stable
the councils have to appear a couple of times per month to once per week and also have the
form of a meeting where teachers as well as students have the possibility to suggest questions
to the agenda. In those cases where teachers and students have told that councils appear when
there is something to talk about or that they vary in frequency between years they are assessed
as sporadic.
Attitude towards change
Based on the report presented in the reviews the personnel’s attitude towards change were
categorised as open, closed or polarised.
Open attitude
The majority of teachers mean that reform proposals and
national goals are worth positive attention and serious testing.
Sometimes the attitude in fact can be welcoming.
Closed attitude
The majority of teachers are very little interested in testing the
meaning of reform news whether they are compulsory or not.
One could, but must not, have a negative attitude. One can put
aside the responsibility for testing, as something one need not
engage in or as something one is constrained to endure.
Polarised attitude
The categories above don’t exclude that there is critical
minorities in the personnel. One is not busy in conflicts or
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heavy antagonism between opinion groups. Those schools
where such clear conflicts do exist have been categorised as
“polarised attitude”.
The organisation of the change work
The organisation of the change work have been categorised based on the descriptions made by
the reviewers of how systematic and co-ordinated the personnel have acted to handle changes
that either are wanted or one is obliged to do. Examples of attempts that were in use are
development projects, study circles, in-service training for teachers, work with the working
plan of the school. The variable characterises the degree of organisation of the change work as
systematic, mildly systematic and spontaneous.
The school leaders’ driving force in the change work
School leaders that supported change in the goal management, held positive attitudes towards
change or actively participated in the practical change work were categorised as manifest or to
a certain extent driving. Jointly this is characterised as driving support. Those school leaders,
who have not in an active way worked for change, were described as passive. In some cases
the school leader has been unsure in his behaviour to such an extent, that he has not been able
to influence neither actions nor attitudes of the teachers. In some rare situations there have
been school leaders that have actively worked for preserving status quo. These school leaders
have also been categorised as passive.
Goal management
The goal management has been estimated based on the degree of discussions among teachers.
Where schools are working towards goal fulfilment of the syllabus, but without reflecting on
the schools efficiency in relation to the goals in other parts of the curriculum, the goal
management is categorised as little or not all. On the other hand, in schools where the
discussions about the goals are common and where a majority of the personnel are involved in
the production of work plans the goal management is categorised as moderately or being of
high intensity.
Working plans
According to a decision taken by the Swedish parliament in 1979 the schools determination
over what goals to invest most energy and power on increased. The parliament commissioned
to every separate school to establish a local working plan, and thus the schools got a reason
for expressing what priorities they had made as local organisations. The local working plan
doesn’t imply a wholly free situation regarding the goal management. The schools are
expected to construct a local working plan that goes into the national curriculum of the grund
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school. The local working plan implies more of a declaration of where to put an effort, in the
frame of the national curriculum, than a “private” curriculum. It is not allowed to choose
another direction in the local working plan than is defined by the national curriculum.
The category “working plans” measure the degree of goal management in terms of systematic
documentation of goals, realization of goals and evaluation. The use of working plans is
estimated as wholly where it is used as a basis for planning, as well as for realisation and
evaluation. In schools where descriptions in the review report give reason to conclude that the
working plan is used only for parts of the planning-realisation-evaluation process and thus not
constitute an important steering-instrument, it is estimated as partially.
Evaluation
The local working plan should work as a foundation for the local evaluation, in accordance to
the reform initiative from the 70’s (SOU, 1974:53). In the report from 1987 the research team
did not carry through any systematic categorising of the schools’ evaluation work. This was
accomplished for the result of year 2001 where some of the aspects of a school’s evaluation
work was emphasised:
Content of evaluation: From a limited focus that only consists of the students performance to
a broader one that that also includes the teachers’ work and organisation.
Planning of evaluation: From an unarranged preparation and distribution of the evaluation to a
more systematic.
Linkage: From a loose linkage between class room, school and municipality to a stable
linkage where feedback between the levels exists.
If the emphasise in a school’s evaluation work is put both on students and teachers
achievement, on systematic planning and links between different levels are established the
evaluation has been estimated as “stable”. When evaluation work was found to be without
focus, without preparations and without linkages between the levels of the local school
system, the evaluation was concluded to be “non-existent”: If the evaluation work has been
estimated somewhere between these two descriptions it has been categorised as “sporadic”.
Special needs teaching
The reform initiatives for the special needs teaching imply that the teachers and the special
needs teacher team (special pedagogic teachers, school nurse, psychologist, welfare officer)
co-operate. It is the organisation of this co-operation that has been the focus for the
categorising.
1. Sharp limits between areas of responsibility.
The special needs team work is directly focused on students with problems. Actions more
seldom involve the class room situation. Preventive actions are not of any greater
importance. The exceptions are the school nurse’s health controls.
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a. Clear distribution of work.
Mutual acceptance of the roles above.
b. Isolated.
The special needs team does not accept the distribution of roles and seek a closer
collaboration with the teachers but do not get any real response. It can also be the case,
though more seldom, that the teachers seek collaboration without response.
2. Excess of responsibility areas.
a. Supportive.
The special needs team has a clear supportive function for the teachers in their class
room work. Actions are not only directed to students, but also to the teachers and the
teaching and learning situation.
b. Coordinative.
The special needs team has a clear coordinative function in relation to the teachers work
or collaboration. It may concern participating or leading projects, production of working
plans, inset planning etc.
c. Competition.
A situation of competition in which the special needs teacher team is pressed back from
student with problems. The business is taken care of by teachers or by school leaders.
Using information thus categorised as the basis, the study carried out a comparative
description of each area of investigation for the years 1980, 1985 and 2001.
The study also employed Spearman’s rang correlation and cluster analysis as analytic tools to
reduce the data based on the categories in order to distinguish different improvement cultures.
A closer account of the accomplishment of the analyses of the improvement cultures will not
be given in this article, since it is not the main focus.
Validity and reliability
To ensure the validity and reliability of the study we incorporated the three recommendations
that Pettigrew (1985) put forward in his review of research on strategic organisational change.
Pettigrew’s first recommendation is that the researcher should pay attention to the whole
situation in which the organisational change occurs and avoid studying the processes in
isolation from the everyday life of the organisation. In this study this is assured by a) the
broad scope of the investigation where many of the key components of the school
organisation have been captured and b) by interviewing a broad spectrum of participants in
each local school. Pettigrew goes on to suggest capturing the change process as it appears and
not only assessing what seems to be valid for that present moment. This is assured by a study
design which establishes three measure points, retrospective interview questions and report
reviews. This allows the study to portray the change process as rich and embedded (Saldaña,
2003) and holistic (Pettigrew, 1995) rather than constituted by a list of effective variables as
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in Miles and Seashore Louis account (Miles & Seashore Louis, 1987). Pettigrew finally
stresses the importance of historical development. In terms of the school based reviews this
requirement has been met by means of the longitudinal design and by the retrospective
interview questions. When it comes to the historical changes in society and communities these
have been accounted for by research that has analysed the qualities of these changes and also
the effects.
The best instrument to use for capturing a social and cultural situated process like school
change, highly dependent on humans working in an already interpreted world which they also
ongoing reinterpret, has to be another human (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2000, p. 106).
That implies methodical risks though, since the human factor increases. In this study this has
been managed by using professional interviewers with knowledge of school organisations.
Most schools have been visited by persons with research competence in their capacity as
doctors, doctorial students or bachelors. One group of interviewers is represented by persons
from the National Agency for Education. Moreover it was possible to obtain a group of
interviewers that participated in the last investigation between 1980 and 1985 and these
visited twelve of the 35 schools in 2001. Thus a continuity and consequence was secured
regarding the reviews of the schools. With this in view the rest of the interviewers had to
study the review reports from 1980, 1982 and 1985. At a joint conference in September of
year 2000 attention was paid to the aim of the study as well as the interview guide and the
accomplishment of the research. Thus one can argue that the interviewer as research
instruments were synchronised.
Accordingly the study is heavily dependent on the interviewers as research instrument
together with the question guide and the categorising template. This is the strength of the
qualitative research, but can also be its weakness. The choice of competent interviewers and
the use of calibrating procedures as the conference mentioned above together with
descriptions of how to use the interview guide, there are no guarantees that the research teams
have understood the instructions in the same way. The review reports also indicate that this is
the case. In some cases the interviewers have chosen variants of the spoken for disposition
and in some cases a generous description of the school are in favour for a more summarised
review.
Every completed report review has been sent to the school for response and the interviewers
have then adjusted the report before it has reached the research team for final analyses. Based
on the review reports the categories from the last investigation (see table 1) were used to
describe the inner steering of the schools. In some cases new categories were created, like the
case regarding evaluation and class councils. In seven of the 35 schools two researchers of the
main research team accomplished categorisations that were carefully compared with each
other. Similarities and dissimilarities in our interpretations gave rise to discussions regarding
how we had understood the different areas of inquiry and how they appeared in the report
reviews. In some cases we also held discussions with the old research team to understand how
their decisions about categories once were taken.
Här kanske det ska finnas en text med om hur ni gjorde förra gången!? //Nej, det orkar ingen
läsare med så här långt.//
Results
14
The conceptual framework for presenting the results is grounded in Pettigrew’s
recommendation to pay attention to the whole situation in which the organisational change
occurs. Thus the results are structured in order to firstly present a more detailed picture of the
institutional process of the inner life of the schools and eventually end with a condensed
categorisation of the process by naming four different improvement cultures.
To provide for the detailed picture of the inner life of the schools the two main parts of them
and their development from 1980 to 2001 are accounted for; the working organisation of the
teachers and the learning organisation of the students. Thus, in short, the results show that
there has been a consistent progress towards collective working organisations where in 1980
there were an overwhelming dominance of solitaire organisations. More over there exists a
stable and strong organisational linkage in these school organisations that gives a clear
organisational structure as well as allows a thorough communication about aims and
objectives. If the working organisation for the adults in the schools has developed in line with
the reform initiatives taken, concerning the students there has been a slow improvement
towards activity based learning principles and a decrease in student democracy in the form of
class councils. Summarising in relation to the reform initiative that were taken during the
twenty years studied, these have resulted in an improvement culture where the schools carry
out systematic goal and result work that above all has improved the democratic conditions for
the teachers and less for the students.
Consistent progress towards collective working organisations
In 1980 the planning organisation among the teachers as well as the way the school leaders
carried out their function was characterised as solitary in 21 of the 35 schools. The results
from the first five years of the study showed that only nine schools stayed with a solitary way
of working both among teachers and school leaders. By 2001 there were still five schools
showing resistance to the reforms required of school management and practices among
teachers. In table 2 we present an overview of the changes that have occurred in the schools
studied over the last fifteen years.
The results also show that between 1985 and 2001 schools have continued to develop towards
collective working organisations where school leaders manage the organisation by
deliberation and participative decision-making and where teachers employ joint planning
techniques. During the latter years of the twentieth century the schools also encompass
important elements of a long term developmental capability such as goal management,
developmental planning, actively pushing school leaders, overt organising of change work
and an open attitude to change.
15
By putting together a flow diagram (fig. 1) which shows in what way the schools’ managerial
organisation and planning organisation has changed over the years 1980, 1985 and 2001, it is
possible to examine whether the demand for co-operation regarding decision-making and
planning affected management practices or the planning organisation, first. Following path
‘A’ (marked in grey) through the flow diagram shows that on the first visit nine schools were
assessed as ‘collective’ while the planning organisation was seen as solitary. Following path
A also indicates that the major part of these schools developed collective planning
organisations over the years. Following paths B, C and F it is possible to trace a group of 21
schools which started out as ‘solitary’ in terms of organisation of the managerial organisation
as well as the planning organisation. The majority of these schools become collective both in
the managerial and the planning organisation (B: five in 2001,C: four in 2001 and F: three in
2001). Only in two schools does the change flow (path E) show that a collective planning
organisation has preceded the establishment of a collective managerial organisation. Based on
the observations of the development of the 35 schools over twenty years our conclusion is that
it is more common for collectively based work organisations in schools to evolve when school
leaders have acted as front runners for the staff.
Stable and strong organisational linkage
Linkage refers to the communication of information, wishes, intentions and decision-making
between the school leaders and personnel. Linkage can be well structured based on regular
meetings, detailed and regular written information etc. It can be effective and have a positive
impact and it can be defective and have a less positive impact where teachers feel that they are
not informed in time or that the school leader has not acknowledged opinions or a prevailing
atmosphere or view among the personnel. Four terms have been used to characterise linkage:



stable structure – well organised;
loose structure – irregular, not formalised, personal contacts are decisive
strong efficiency – mutual exchange of information, opinions, arguments and
decisions are communicated in both directions;
Table 2. Changes in managerial and planning organisation in 35 grund schools in
Sweden between 1985 to 2001. (N=35 schools).
Management
Planning organisation
organisation
From
Stable
collective to
From solitary
Stable
solitaire
solitary
to collective
collective
Total
Stable solitary
1
2
From collective
to solitary
1
1
From solitary to
collective
1
Stable collective
4
Total
7
1
3
16
5
2
4
5
1
7
3
13
20
9
16
35

weak efficiency – information etc. is communicated in a defective way to the
addressees.
Linkage becomes more stable and stronger over years. In 1980 twelve schools were assessed
to have a loose, not formalised structure to their organisations and also weak effectiveness
where the information reaches the addressee in a defective way. The opposite circumstances –
a stable structure and a strong efficiency were assessed as existing in sixteen schools. In 1985
the reviews showed that the latter group of schools had increased to eighteen schools and the
former group had decreased by one school. During the assessment made in 2001, 21 schools
displayed a stable structure and strong efficiency while the schools with a loose structure and
weak efficiency had decreased to six. It is a general feature that the stable structure covariates
with strong efficiency as well as covariating with a collective management organisation as
well as with collective planning.
17
Figure 1. Flow diagram of the schools’ management and planning organisation 1980, 1985 and 2001. (CM= collective management, SM= solitary management, CP=
collective planning, SP= solitary planning).
Slow improvement towards activity based learning principles
When the first five years of the study was reported (Ekholm, 1987) it was noted that the
schools had not responded particularly well to the signals that the politicians had sent. The
view was that more variations in working methods should have appeared and especially that
more activity based learning should have taken place in the schools. In 1985 in 33 of the 35
schools it was found hat stable working patterns were dominated by the so called strategy of
‘distribution teaching’ which is characterised mainly by a traditional teacher dominated
approach. In 2001, this pattern was still dominating in 21 of the schools. Although changes
had occurred in 12 of the schools showing that they used more activity based learning (group
work, investigative projects etc) this appears to be evidence of a hesitant response from the
schools to the requirement for reform in the areas relating to the inner life of the school.
The schools have varied in the way they have responded to demands from the political level
that there should be a high degree of student democracy in schools. During all years that the
grund school system has existed (since 1962) requirements have been made by politicians
that the students should participate in decision making during the day-to-day flow of
educational planning as well as through participation in certain democratic organs such as
class councils and student councils. In 2001 the evaluators found that the main changes in the
schools were in the wrong direction. There were regular class councils noted in 2 out of 3 of
the schools in 1985, but only in 1 out of 3 in 2001. There were regular student councils held at
the school level in 25 schools in 1985, but only in 23 schools in 2001. However in these 23
schools the student councils are institutionalised while class councils are institutionalised in
11 of the 25 schools.
Although the progress towards activity based learning principles and student democracy are
slow there are features to learn from the schools which nonetheless have succeeded in these
respect. These schools are characterised by:

Clear and goal oriented leadership with a forceful and driving school leader who
follows up evaluation results and requires teachers to confront deficiencies in, for
example, student democracy.

Enforced restructuring of school departments from for example, being based on
subjects into being based on teams. These teams could include teachers that
“represent” the pupils’ learning situation in such a way that you grasp their whole
situation.

Improvement works which focus on school development by content that includes
organisation and group processes (e.g. learning organisation and learning dialogue)
and by a structure that guarantees the head teacher the possibility to orient to
curriculum objectives, for example through school development or change agent posts.

Community evaluations that included different classroom focused themes (e.g. pupil
participation, anti-bullying programmes).

Visionaries – teachers who act as inventors and creators of new ideas.
The points above also indicate important characteristics concerning teacher practice in schools
using activity based learning principles and putting student democracy into practise. Besides
the necessity for teachers to learn the principles and how to put them into practise there seem
to be a need for teachers to engage in teams with colleagues and to learn collaborative
techniques based on the principles of the learning organisation. These principles coincide with
activity based principles in that matter that they focus individual experience of a specific
situation and how to create a dialogue around it together with others in order to learn from it
and thus henceforth improve it. Thus it isn’t enough for schools to supply knowledge about
activity based teaching. To really make it happen schools also have to organise situations
where teachers can experience the principles themselves from within and where they can
make use of colleagues experiences when making the profound change from traditional to
developmental teaching.
Improvement cultures
The process of regularly reviewing the schools has shown that the response to the reform
initiatives over twenty years, at the local level, has become more and more systematic. In the
cross site analysis of the reviews three summary categories were used to record the
organisation of the change work. These were systematic, mildly systematic and spontaneous.
We present an overview of the findings in table 3.
Table 3. The organisation of change work in 1980, 1985 and 2001. (N=35
schools, one of the schools was not classified in 1980 and in 1985)
Organisation of
improvement works at the
school
1980
1985
2001
Systematic
5
7
17
Mildly systematic
5
13
13
Spontaneous
24
14
5
Total
34
34
35
The discussion of the aims of the grund school is important if the teachers and school leaders
are able to develop conscious strategies to reach the goals. The cross site analyses show that
most schools use a much more systematic approach in this regard in 2001 compared with
1980. At that time there was no evidence of discussion of the aims in 28 schools. There was
evidence of more or less systematic discussion in 7 schools. In 2001 the relation between
schools using these two strategies was reversed. In 26 schools the reviewers found evidence
of systematic efforts to discuss aims and little or nothing in 9 schools.
The use of local working plans increased during the twenty years. This is one of the
explanations for the increase in the use of more systematic ways to get involved in formalised
discussions about the aims. In 1980 local working plans were introduced as an idea in the new
central guidelines for the schools. None of the 35 schools were then using local working
plans. In 1985 23 schools were found to use these plans, but only partially. They were not
usually employed as a basis for evaluations. In 2001 29 schools were using the local working
plan in more serious ways, including as a tool for local evaluations. However, demands that
20
the schools make local evaluations a part of the institutional working pattern have not
succeeded to the same high degree. In 1980 the schools faced a new demand that they should
evaluate their inner works once a year. None of the schools acted in any systematic way at
that time. In 1985 the reviewers found that 25 of the schools “tasted” local evaluation as a tool
for the management of the school. Only in one of the schools at that time had local evaluation
of the school become an institutionalised working pattern. In 2001 the evaluators found that
16 of the 35 schools had built local evaluation into the yearly routines. It was still a sporadic
event in 18 of the school and in one school, local evaluation was not to be found after more
than twenty years of demands at the political level.
The ways in which the schools have responded to centrally introduced reforms has tended to
be formulated in four different improvement strategies. The most common pattern for
responding in local schools has been to find systematic ways to connect goals and results and
thereby to improve the quality of the works so that the required results could be reached. In
the schools that use this strategy, which is the vast majority of the cases studied (27 out of 35)
the leadership appears forceful and challenging, clearly aiming to shape teacher teams and
efficient local working plans. Through dialogue the school leader encourages teacher
commitment. The teachers collaborate in teams where they discuss goals and objectives, and
improve working plans. The plans do not sit on the shelf collecting dust. Teachers use them as
a valuable support in their work. Teachers have mostly an open attitude towards demands for
change – at least as long as the demands are reasonably in line with the dominant teacher
culture.
Evaluation procedures in school tend to be based on well tested materials. Community
evaluations are important features that complement the schools’ own evaluation. The teachers
improvise ways to involve the students in the process of evaluation. It is common for
community evaluations to address questions about the comfort and well being of the students.
There was an intense level of developmental work or different kinds of projects.
In this kind of school the teachers have increased the use of student self-management through
portfolio work and schemes for self-study. The students have limited scope as regards steering
the content of the learning by, for example, having the teacher work from the pupils own
experiences. When it comes to special needs care there is a clear distribution of the work.
Special needs teachers do their job without co-operation with the regular teachers and thus the
student’s daily learning situation tends not to have improved.
Six of the schools responded to the demands for reform in ways that the study categorised as a
passive reactive strategy. The school leaders impact in a participative way by being
responsive to the teacher culture and place significant confidence in the professionals’
assessment of what improvement works need to be done. The school leaders of these schools
follow the principal that all development should come from the “bottom” and understand their
main task as being to inspire change. In the daily work the teachers do not consider it
purposeful to participate in a teacher team. The goal discussion is focused on grading and how
to make the pupils “pass the examination”. More extensive goal discussions about the social
objectives of the curriculum and the local goals are absent. The teachers have a closed attitude
towards the state proposals for restructuring of the schools. In their own school though, the
teacher experiences significant scope. The teaching methods are traditional as compared to a
more activity-based approach.
21
The special needs teaching is also organised in traditional ways. “Cases and clients” are
treated in a special needs conference. Teachers tend not to collaborate and there is prevention
of moves to enable the special needs teaching service to be integrated with the regular
classroom work. Evaluation is accomplished on the initiative of the teachers, sporadically.
Any kind of systematic and central community evaluations are rare. Work relating to national
initiatives on quality work tends to be unknown to teachers.
Discussion
The long term perspective that we have been able to use in this study is helpful in identifying
institutionalised phenomena in the schools. In several of the schools certain features exist in
2001 that did not exist in the schools in the early eighties. The school leaders’ way of basing
their leadership on collective grounds in interplay with the teachers or with representatives of
the teachers is one such phenomenon. Collective work among teachers, where teamwork
between teachers concerning planning is a normal occurrence in 2001 is another. School
based evaluation with a mixed focus on student achievements and teacher work is an
institutionalised pattern that we find in several schools at the end of the twenty year period
that did not exist at the beginning of the period. While some schools have not succeeded in
fostering student democracy in others a high degree of student democracy has become the
institutional norm
Several explanations can be found for these institutionalised working patterns in the schools.
The more collective base for the leadership that several of the schools have developed seems
to have been caused by various factors. One goes back to the impact of the School Leader
Education programme that certain school leaders have participated in at different times during
the twenty years covered (Appelqvist, Lindgren, & Skolverket, 1998). The programme has
had strong components that emphasise the need for a school leader to find legitimacy for the
leadership in the school where she or he works. As the programme to a large degree is based
on collegial discussions, norms are set between school leaders that influence their actions at
their home school. School leaders tend to search for solutions in the everyday at their schools
grounding their initiatives in dialogue with the teachers. At the same time there has been a
trend in the organised work among teachers as professionals to search out cooperation with
their school leaders to be able to develop the inner work of the schools.
In the efforts that the teachers unions have set out during the last decade of the twentieth
century they have gone for initiatives that will develop schools. In agreements between the
teachers unions and the union of the Swedish kommuns, structures have been put in place to
secure the progress of the schools. One such is that the teachers of the grundschool since the
first years of the nineties use six percent of their yearly working time for the development of
their competencies (Svenska Kommunförbundet, 1995). This is about thirteen days a year that
teachers use for planning with others and for in-service training of different kinds. This
structure is present in all the 35 school that were studied. Another that has come out of the
agreements that were reached during the nineties is that many kommuns renovated their
schools so that they contain working areas for teachers. In these areas each teacher has their
own working space including a computer; this has helped teachers to stay in the school when
planning and when they follow up the education given to the students. In some schools space
has also been given for meeting rooms for teachers, which has helped the cooperative process
to develop.
22
In the schools where we have seen that collective planning among teachers has become
normalised, the changes have occurred during the nineties and eighties. The basis for
institutionalisation of new working patterns among teachers has been a mixture of material
changes and changes in the norms among teachers. Earlier attitudes that stated that every
teacher is doing as well as he or she can and therefore it is reasonable for them to work in
isolation have slowly been replaced by attitudes saying that no one, not even a teacher, is
perfect and therefore may need to get feedback from others and may also need to receive help
to do better. These norm changes have been significant in stimulating the development of
more collective forms of work between teachers.
Changes in the environment that surrounds the schools has also contributed to the explanation
for changes in the working pattern between teachers, as well as the growing
institutionalisation in the schools of school based evaluations. Sweden has a long tradition in
the use of national knowledge testing. Ideas about the use of standardised knowledge tests that
can be used by the teachers to calibrate their marking of the students were introduced during
the forties and has been at use since the sixties. In the fifth year of the grundschool most
teachers in todays’ schools use optional knowledge tests in Swedish and Maths. In grade nine
all students are obliged to test their knowledge in Swedish, English and Maths. Sweden has as
a nation participated in each of the different kinds of international comparative study that
have appeared during the last forty years within the IEA and the OECD (Skolverket, 2004).
Loud voices have been raised in the debate about the need for increased achievement among
the students pleading for more frequent evaluations of the schools based on measurement of
attainment. This debate surrounding schools has made teachers more aware of the need for an
open presentation of the results of the work of the schools, but also less sensitive to critical
remarks about schools’ results, as criticism is regular or programmed.
The idea of presenting an annual quality review of the school has now been adopted
(Skolverket, 2002) and the efforts that the central offices in the kommuns have made to react
and give feedback to the schools on their self assessment has contributed to changed attitudes
in the schools. Previously the attitude among the teachers in most of the schools studied
concerning self-evaluation was: ‘we already know what we are achieving in our school, it is
waste of time to evaluate it, we can use the effort to educate the children instead’ and this
appears to have gone. Instead attitudes exist that are pro self-evaluation: ‘it is good to know
where we stand, we are not worse than others, it is good to receive feedback from others on
our efforts and it is quite possible that the politicians in our kommun will listen to our needs
when we present them in this clear and well argued way’.
With these observations in mind regarding the causes of the institutionalisation processes that
have occurred in the target schools, we can conclude that institutionalisation takes place in
schools in consequence of changes in material prerequisites, social norms, changed use of
time and also changed conceptions of the idea of school work. Embedded in the changes that
led to institutionalisation of new working patterns for teachers and school leaders in the
schools, we can identify a changed attitude to the ownership of schools. In the early 80’s
school leaders and teachers had a weaker feeling of ownership of their school than they have
in 2000. This relates to the entrusting to teachers and school leaders of responsibility for their
own budget. In 2001 teachers are given individual salaries, based on individual discussions
between the teacher and the school leader (Svenska Kommunförbundet, 1995). In 2001 the
school leader takes decisions about the distribution of almost all the money that the school
spends after having listened to the teachers. In the early 80’s, in contrast, the school had
23
charge of less than five percent of its own funds. This shift in responsibility has created a
much stronger feeling of ownership in the grundschools.
When we look back at how the implementation processes are related to the institutionalisation
of different phenomena in the schools we can see various causative factors at work here too.
One obvious vehicle for the implementation of the changes is the signals that the central
political actors have sent out, not only once, but time and again over the years. However
repeating the message does not ensure an innovation becomes institutionalised. The most
obvious example here is the level of student democracy in the schools. Over the years studied
the central political powers have made decisions about the involvement of students in the
daily decision making work. However these signals have usually not been followed by other
more concrete measures as is the case with team work among the teachers. There could for
instance, have been evaluation materials offered or specific time allocated to encourage and
allow for student democracy. One indicator that it is a combination of presentation of ideas,
evident and repeated signals that these ideas should be used and specific use of time, that
contributes to changes in working patterns can be seen in the early part of our study. In the
late seventies, when the Swedish grund schools were still highly centrally directed, the
government decided that there should be class councils held once a week during a school
hour. This happened in 1985 in 2 out of 3 of the schools in a fairly stable pattern. Later on this
rule disappeared together with many other rules in grund schools This in turn seems to have
resulted in a drop in frequency of this aspect of student democracy. To be implemented
effectively an innovation appears to need to be backed up in a number of ways. The new
working pattern of collective work of the teachers is a good example.
From the schools that have been able to sustain a collective working organisation over the
major part of the twenty year studied we can learn that the school leader’s driving function as
well as a stable structure and strong efficiency of the management have a decisive
significance. Expressed in other words there is a need for a school leader who has knowledge
about how to build a participative and democratic organisation, and who has good
communication skills and is able to make decisions and make things happen. If there also is
an open attitude to change among the teachers and a moderate turnover of leaders and staff
there are good conditions for sustainable development.
It is the considered view that Pettigrew’s structure for longitudinal studies with a focus on the
whole situation in which the organisational change takes place , the process and also the
historical frame, is an accessible and productive research model for extracting knowledge
about reform implementation from a local organisational perspective. It is the strong
contention that when it comes to this kind of knowledge the longitudinal perspective is
essential if you have as an ambition to raise and sustain an unbiased and objective discussion
about the future development of a country’s school system. Short term studies of Swedish
schools often use current norms and attitudes concerning what an effective school should be.
However as these norms are continuously changing schools also tend continuously to fail in
their attempts to reach them. This twenty year study of 35 Swedish grund schools
demonstrates that from the basis of the reform initiatives from 1975 (which were concentrated
on the internal management structures of the schools, such as the role of the school leader,
creation of teams, joint planning among teachers and the use of school based evaluations)
schools have made profound steps towards an improved and more democratic structure.
Where short term studies of Swedish grund schools and their accountability make an
argument for more state control of schools, the present study strongly supports the vision of a
24
more democratic school system where power and decision making is devolved to school
leaders, teachers and students.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the National Swedish Agency for Education as well as the Swedish Association of Local
Authorities, which have funded the research. We would also like to express thanks to Robin Matheson
(robinmatheson@btopenworld.com), who provided extensive comment on the use of English.
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