District Administrators’ Strategies and Successful Knowledge Sharing to Retain Students in Secondary Education in Norway

• In Event: Equitable Education? Policies and Strategies to Prevent Dropout, Accommodate Needs, and Retain Students in Secondary Education

Abstract

Objectives
Despite having a comprehensive model of education, Norway has experienced a high number of students dropping out of secondary education. 20% do not complete within the five years that they have a legal right to access upper secondary education (Statistics Norway, 2024). Even if the completion rate has increased recently, this represents a big societal and political problem. This paper analyses which models and strategies of district administrators can be identified as particularly effective as dropout prevention routines and how these routines are transferred and translated across contexts.

Theoretical perspectives
The analysis draws on institutional work to understand the connection between actors and established structures and routines across levels and institutions (Lawrence et al., 2006). A particular focus is directed towards ‘successful’ knowledge sharing (Røvik, 2023; 2016), which in our context is about the conditions for translating and transferring well-functioning routines across administrative levels and institutions and involves two critical phases: decontextualisation and contextualisation. The first phase involves translating a desired practice in a specific organisational context into an abstract representation (e.g. texts) whilst ensuring the relevant information needed to explain and understand how the practice works in a specific context. The second phase, contextualisation, concerns the complex translation that takes place from an abstract representation of a desired practice to a recreated new practice in another organisation.

Methods
For this qualitative analysis, we have worked both inductively and deductively (Ragin, 2023) by first identifying key routines that inhibit dropout. They appeared as the most prominent observed routines in terms of influencing completion rates, and were also emphasised by the informants. The theoretical concepts of decontextualisation and contextualisation were used sensitively for the empirically driven analyses (Blumer, 1954), i.e. in the analysis we first identified examples of decontextualisation and contextualisation that can be characterised as ‘successful’. By selecting ‘best cases’ for further analyses, we have the opportunity to develop a greater understanding of the routines and knowledge sharing processes..

Data sources
Data sources include key documents (e.g. strategy plans, reports), data based on interviews with administrators and staff (in total 20) having key functions following up upper secondary schools in three districts selected according to geographical location and achieved completion rates over time. Moreover, data from observations of relevant meetings at district level and meetings between district administrators and schools (in total 55 hours) are analysed. The data were gathered over three school years (2021-24).

Results
Three knowledge sharing routines have been identified: a) the establishment of new, procedure-driven routines and tools, which also contribute to a masking of variation in both existing and new routines, b) the use of available data on dropouts and grades, which contributes to a performative accountability, and c) the manifestation of a moral imperative of ‘the pupil's best interests’, which reinforces an interdependence between all actors involved.

Scholarly/scientific significance
Some initiatives to prevent dropout have gained legitimacy and spread across countries over a period of time. This paper generates knowledge about how such routines interact in specific cultural contexts.

Authors

• Guri Skedsmo, University of Oslo

• Sølvi Mausethagen, Oslo Metropolitan University