To Örebro University

This article critically examines Sweden's National Professional Programme (NPP) for principals, teachers and preschool teachers, launched in 2025, through the lens of Bacchi's framework "What's the problem represented to be?" From an international perspective, the Swedish case is an example of transnational policy trends carried by powerful agents such as the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Three main problem representations were identified in the analysed documents: governing; equity and continuous professional development (CPD). The analysis identifies various binaries, such as individual vs. collective efficacy, successful vs. unsuccessful professionals and national standardisation vs. local autonomy. The NPP has been framed as a solution to local governance inadequacies by calling for centralisation and tightening control over educational quality. This shift poses potential risks, including competition for control over professional development opportunities, marginalisation of principals' roles as pedagogical leaders and creation of hierarchies within the school professions. Furthermore, the emphasis on CPD as a singular path to improvement may overlook collective efficacy and local contexts, favouring a one-size-fits-all approach that may exacerbate existing inequities. The findings indicate the need for further investigation into practical effects that the NPP poses and its impact on Sweden's educational landscape.

The aim with this scoping review is to provide an overview of research on school leaders’ responses to neoliberal education reform. The review offers insights into how macro-level policies translate into micro-level experiences. By mapping existing studies on school leaders’ lived experiences under neoliberal reforms, it provides valuable knowledge for policymakers, educational leaders, and researchers seeking to navigate and influence these ongoing transformations. This article employs a resistance theory perspective. I identified 21 articles that met all the inclusion criteria through the search. I undertook both a descriptive and a content analysis. The latter considers how school leaders navigate the reforms, and how they resisted them. The results show that resistance was manifested in terms such as speaking one’s mind, irony, simulation and compliance. These studies exemplify some of the problems associated with the ‘new professionalism’ fashioned by educational policy seeking to steer the work of schools in a competitive school marketplace. Overall, the review underscores the transformative nature of neoliberal reforms on education and the imperative for using resistance and power theories to both help shed light on the sometimes soul- altering changes these initiatives can achieve and point to possible counter-discourse and counter-conduct.

The aim with this scoping review is to provide an overview of research on school leaders’ response to neoliberal education reform. There have been claims that there is a lack of empirical research critically examining the vast amounts of education reforms from a local perspective This review is an answer to that call, as it analyses existing research on school leaders’ experience of neoliberal reforms using empirical data. This article employs a resistance theory perspective. The search resulted in 21 articles that met all the inclusion criteria. A descriptive analysis and a content analysis was undertaken. The latter considers how school leaders navigate the reforms, and also how they resisted them. The results show that resistance was manifested in terms such as speaking your mind, irony, simulation and compliance. The reviewed studies exemplify some of the problems of the ‘new professionalism’ fashioned by educational policy seeking to steer the work of schools in a competitive school marketplace. Overall, the review underscores the transformative nature of educational reforms on education and the imperative for using resistance and power theories to both help shed light on the sometimes soul altering changes these initiatives can achieve and point to possible counter-discourse and counter-conduct.

This thesis investigates the power dynamics between state and municipal actors within the state-initiated school improvement program, Co-operation for the Best School Possible (CBS). CBS can be seen as an example of the numerous reforms driven by the global education reform movement (GERM), which is rooted in neoliberal ideologies. The thesis aims to illuminate how power operates within the CBS program, focusing on the construction and regulation of local school actors. It explores the intricate power relations between the Swedish National Agency for Education (SNAE) and local school actors, including headteachers, local education authorities and local politicians.

A Foucauldian perspective serves as the overarching analytical framework, incorporating key concepts such as governmentality, sovereign, disciplinary, and pastoral power, along with neoliberalism, discourse, and resistance. The study also employs soft governance and policy instruments. The research adopts a case study approach, utilising data collected through interviews, meeting observations, and documents from a municipality, as well as national policy documents. The analysis methods include narrative discourse analysis, thematic analyses, and a scoping review.

The findings underscore the constitutive role of language in official policy texts and how local actors are governed through policy instruments such as carrots, sticks, and sermons. From a Foucauldian perspective, local school actors are identified as deviant under the normalising gaze of experts, internalising state-imposed norms and standards. Subtler methods of steering involve pastoral techniques, such as self-evaluation, requiring local actors to reflect on their weaknesses and how to better themselves. The Systematic Quality Assurance (SQA) work exemplifies a self-monitoring trend in education, where schools continuously self-evaluate based on preset standards, combining disciplinary, sovereign, and pastoral power to improve performance. The SNAE functions as both a monitor and a pastor, providing the local actors with a roadmap to redemption.

Eight years after CBS’s implementation, research on its various aspects remains limited. This thesis contributes to understanding how power technologies operate in large-scale school improvement initiatives like CBS. It addresses gaps in existing research by examining how power functions in public education and how neoliberal reforms shape the professional identities and practices of local school actors.

There is a global movement of education reform in many countries informed by a neo-liberal agenda (Verger, Fontdevila, and Zancajo 2017). The large changes in education during the past decades are to a large extent linked with a growing connectedness between the state, education and the economy (Lundahl, 2021). The acceleration of the global economy, as well as technological developments and the strengthening of transnational agencies like the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and the European Union have transformed nation-states into what Ball (2009) has named competition states. Krejsler (2019) has a similar label, the ‘fear of falling behind’ regime which has significant performative effects in producing a state of crisis awareness which motivates and drives education reforms.

This has also led to a shift towards a market-based educational reform agenda characterized by an emphasis on in-school factors, specifically, teacher quality and accountability, to a large extent leaving out of school factors affecting achievements out of the equation (Nolan, 2018). A discourse of continuous improvement follows this neoliberal agenda, and both national and international accountability systems put pressure on teachers and schools, individually and collectively (Watson & Michael, 2016). Schools are steered from a distance by performance measurements, surveillance and monitoring (Lingard, Seller & Lewis, 2017) which puts local school actors under a constant gaze (Holloway & Brass, 2018) and an endless pressure to perform.

In this paper I will examine the dynamic interactions of knowledge and power in the relationship between local school actors and the national agency for education in the context of a Swedish national school improvement programme called Co-operation for the Best School Possible (CBS). Foucault’s theories on power are utilized to understand how power relations and interactions between the national and local level in the Swedish education system can be understood in light of the global governance trends painted above. Power according to Foucault ‘is exercised rather than possessed’ (Foucault, 1995, p. 26) and it works in capillary manners. A framework including sovereign, disciplinary and pastoral power as well as the concept of governmentality will allow for a careful study of visible traces of subtle and intricate ways of steering in a complex multi-layered education system such as Sweden’s.

This article analyses different forms of power visible in a state-initiated school improvement programme using a Foucauldian framework. One important contribution a critical analysis can make is to question the common sensical, but furthermore Foucault gives us words to make the exercises of power recognisable. When we can recognise and assign words to the power being exercised, we also enhance our options for participating in relations of power. Thus, the aim is to is to explore the power relations between the Swedish National Agency of Education (SNAE) and the local school actors and how power operates and is exercised in a large-scale state-initiated school improvement programme. Through documents and citations from stakeholders in one municipality, these different modes of power are exemplified and highlighted in this article. By using Foucault, the formation and mode of subjection as well as techniques used to achieve them are at the foreground of the analysis (Foucault, 1982).  

Method: The materials used in this article come from a case study in a small municipality which took part in the three-year school improvement programme. The municipality was in the final stage of the CBS programme and the schools involved were compulsory schools. The empirical material includes four kinds of data: a) documents concerning the work with the CBS programme in the municipality (n = 17 documents, including situation assessments, action plans and final reports); b) meeting observations (n = 8 and a two-day closing conference); c) semi-structured interviews with headteachers (HT), local politicians (LP) and staff at the local education authorities (LEA) (n = 10); and d) national documents concerning CBS (n = 3). As regards the method of analysis, a reflexive thematic analysis will be deployed following Braun and Clarke’s conceptualisation of the methodology (Braun & Clarke, 2019, 2021). Braun and Clarke clearly state that thematic analysis has a distinct theoretical base, and the analysis takes its departure from defined themes rather than content. I take a deductive theory-driven approach to coding with predefined themes. ‘[A] deductive approach is useful for honing in on a particular aspect of the data or a specific finding that could be best illuminated or understood in the context of a pre-existing theory or frame’ (Kiger & Varpio, 2020, p. 3). The material has initially been scanned to try to understand how the local actors perceive the relationship with the SNAE within CBS. The theoretical model based on Foucault was used to focus the analysis on how power is exercised within that relationship and in this context. In that way the analysis process resembles what Jackson and Mazzei (2023) describe as ‘thinking with theory’. The findings will be presented as (‘creative and interpretive stories about the data’ Braun & Clarke, 2019, p. 596, emphasis in original). Hence, there is no claim of investigating intentions or cognitions of the participants, but the analysis approach will enable me to focus on the entangled exercises of power within the relationship between the local and national level in the CBS-context.

Expected Outcomes: In the initial analysis of the material four overarching themes have been identified: The Power of the Spectacle, the Fear of the Inspection, The Almighty Systematic Quality Assurance work, and Governing through Self-evaluation. Being chosen to participate in CBS is being part of a spectacle. The basis for the selection of schools to participate in CBS is negative. It is based on the Inspectorate’s reports and school results, which are all public documents. Thus, at the start of CBS, the municipal actors have recently been put through the disciplinary and normalising gaze of the Inspectorate. The threat of the Inspectorate is something that can be seen throughout both the interviews and the observations. Phrases like, ‘if the Inspectorate comes’ or ‘We’ll be ready when they come’, denote a certain fear of the Inspectorate. A lot of time and effort is placed on systematic quality assurance (SQA) work in CBS. It is something that permeates the doings and the everyday lives of the school actors. The SQA work has elements of both the synopticon and the panopticon as the forms used and the standards and norms to aspire for are set by external actors. Throughout the CBS programme there are reports to fill in that should be sent to the SNAE. The reports that the local school actors must fill in all revolve around the issue of self-evaluation. The preliminary analysis thus points to that that all power modes are visible in the case example, but foremost the softer modes of governing aimed at self-regulation are most palpable. By using an analytical language based on Foucault the exercise of power is made recognisable. When we can recognise and assign words to the power being exercised, we also enhance our options for participation in relations of power.

There is a global movement of education reform, informed by a neoliberal agenda, emphasising continuous improvement and accountability through performance measurements, surveillance and monitoring. This puts local school actors under constant gaze and endless pressure to perform. This article uses a Swedish state-initiated school improvement programme, Co-operation for the Best School Possible (CBS), to investigate how power is exercised within the programme and to discuss possible implications for the local actors. A theoretical model based on Foucault's power modes of sovereign, disciplinary and pastoral power as well as governmentality is used. Empirically, the article builds on a case study from a municipality participating in CBS. The analysis takes impression of Jackson and Mazzei's "thinking with theory". The CBS programme illustrates the widespread and multifaceted nature of power in educational governance, prompting local actors to internalise norms, self-regulate, and continuously evaluate their practices. This study highlights the importance of understanding the interplay of different power modes in shaping educational practices and the professional lives of local school actors. This article has contributed to questioning the common sensical, and it has made the exercises of power recognisable through the use of Foucault's concepts.

This article focuses on the co-operation between the Swedish National Agency for Education and school actors at the municipal level, examined from the latter’s perspective, within the context of a state-initiated school improvement programme, namely Co-operation for the Best School Possible (CBS). Co-operation between different levels of the school system is a neglected but essential aspect to analyse in a decentralised system such as Sweden’s, which is showing signs of re-centralisation. Empirically, the article is based on interviews with local actors in a small municipality participating in CBS. The interviews were part of a case study, and the analysis was guided by the theory of soft governance, Vedung’s concepts of sticks, carrots, and sermons as policy instruments, and Weick’s concept of sensemaking. Sensemaking, evident in the case study as a retrospective communicative notion, was employed to capture the local actors’ stories of how they perceived CBS. The connection with past experiences also played a part in their sensemaking since a clear history exists and was noted between the state and municipal levels. In conclusion, the analysis shows that CBS used sticks, carrots and sermons to steer municipal school actors towards the right path as regards school improvement.

Research topic/aim: Attention has been given to how the neoliberal agenda the past decades together with a trend of decentralization have led to issues such as “governing by numbers” and “governing by comparison”. Simons (2015) proposes a new governing paradigm, governing by example where he describes two governing strategies: governing through what works and governing through responsibilization. Simons’ reasoning goes well together with Foucault’s three different types of power: disciplinary, sovereign, and pastoral. This article uses a Swedish school improvement initiative, Co-operation for the best school possible (CBS), to investigate what governing agendas can be seen in a state-initiated school improvement initiative and how different modes of power can be discerned. 

Theoretical framework: This article uses Foucault’s theories of disciplinary, sovereign, and pastoral power, in combination with what Simons (2015) calls “the power of the example”. 

Methodology/research design: A reflexive thematic analysis will be used following Braun and Clarke’s conceptualization of the methodology (see Braun & Clarke, 2019; 2021). I take a deductive theory-driven approach to coding. The data, consisting of meeting observation and documents, will be studied with the theoretical framework in mind and the results aim at what Braun and Clarke (2019, p. 596) call “creative and interpretive stories about the data”.

Expected results/findings: Examples of all three powers can be found in the material with disciplinary power and pastoral power being the most prominent ones. 

Disciplinary power is the most pronounced form of power. The State agencies cannot be ever present in physical form but relies on local school actors to internalize the norms and standards of the state agencies. This form of power has much in common with what Simons (2015) call governing through what works and governing through responsibilization. Governing through responsibilization can also be seen as part of the surveillance mechanism. Responsibilization implies that “schools and teachers come to understand there is no reference anymore to something outside themselves and beyond their control that explains their performance” (Simons, 2015, p. 722). 

Relevance to Nordic educational research: A lot of pressure is placed on the local school actors in decentralized systems such as Sweden’s. Poor results in international studies such as PISA has created a narrative of failing schools. By doing an analysis using theories from Foucault and Simons I aim to help change the “menu” of available narratives (Smith & Monforte, 2020). When we can recognize and put words on the power being exercised, we also enhance our options for participation in relations of power and leadership. 

In 2015, the Swedish National Agency for Education (SNAE) was commissioned by the Government to start Co-operation for the Best School possible (CBS) "in order to raise the knowledge results and increase the equivalence within and between schools" (Ministry of Education, U2015 / 3357 / S, p. 1. my translation). 

The study focuses on the perception of co-operation between the Swedish National Agency for Education and local municipal school actors, seen from the municipal actors’ perspective, within the context of the state-initiated school improvement initiative, CBS. Co-operation between different levels in the school system is a neglected but essential aspect to analyze in a decentralized system such as Sweden’s, a system where there also are signs of re-centralization. Empirically, the study is based on interviews made with local actors (headteachers, local educational authorities and local politicians) in a small municipality that was in the final stages of the three-year initiative CBS. Theoretically the analysis has been guided by the concepts of governance and Foucault’s concept governmentality. 

Artikeln tar sin utgångspunkt i tre texter rörande skolförbättringssatsningen Samverkan för bästa skola (SBS) varav två kan betecknas som policytexter och den tredje är en myndighets hemsida rörande SBS. Policydiskurser är viktiga att undersöka i och med att de ramar in vad som är den politiska viljan kring ett givet fenomen. Genom policy konstrueras mening och identifieras problem i utbildning. Syftet med studien är att skriva fram ett tänkbart narrativ om SBS för att synliggöra och lyfta fram underliggande diskurser i retoriken kring SBS i de analyserade texterna. Analysen har guidats av både en narrativ och en diskursiv ansats. Ett styrningsperspektiv har anlagts i analysen med utgångspunkt i governance och governmentality. I analysen lyfts olika konkurrerande diskurser fram spänningen mellan samverkan och styrning, mellan decentralisering och kontroll. Studiens kunskapsbidrag är att den kritiskt granskar en av de största skolutvecklingssatsningar som gjorts i svensk skola och ett resonemang om de underliggande antaganden som identifierats i analysen förs. Att vara kritisk betyder inte att säga hur saker egentligen är, utan vad diskursanalyser av detta slag kan bidra med är att lyfta blicken från dessa under-liggande common sense-antaganden som genomsyrar offentliga texter och på så sätt öppna upp för alternativa tankesätt och handlingssätt.