Hierarchy of Subjects, School Leadership, and Different Responses to Ministerial Demands for Change

• In Event: 64.088 - Sheraton Roundtable 12 - Osgoode Ballroom
  In Roundtable Session: 64.088-3 - Teacher Educational Leaders and Curriculum: Global Perspectives

Abstract

This paper aims to understand how upper secondary school leaders in Iceland responded to ministerial demands to change school practices. The study is based on interviews with 21 leaders and the data were analysed according to Coburn’s (2004) five response categories to macro-level demands for change, Washington, Boal, and Davis’s (2008) ideas on institutional and organisational leadership, and theories on subject hierarchies. The findings show that seven of the nine schools studied matched four out of five response categories. Adding the category ‘pioneering’ to Coburn’s five existing categories would enable appropriate categorisation of new schools. The different power of subjects clearly controls the responses and the school leaders acted accordingly either as institutional or organisational leaders or both.

Author

• Guðrún Ragnarsdóttir, University of Iceland