The complexity and contradictions of Finnish superintendents’ work
| Pages | 297-314 |
| Published date | 09 May 2018 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/JEA-06-2017-0066 |
| Date | 09 May 2018 |
| Author | Ian Hardy,Petri Salo |
| Subject Matter | Education,Administration & policy in education,School administration/policy,Educational administration,Leadership in education |
The complexity and contradictions
of Finnish superintendents’work
Ian Hardy
School of Education, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, and
Petri Salo
Faculty of Education and Welfare Studies, Abo Akademi, Vaasa, Finland
Abstract
Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to explore the governance of educational reform, as an interpretive
process –“interpretive governance”–through a case study of five superintendents living in a predominantly
Swedish-speaking region in Finland.
Design/methodology/approach –To foreground superintendents’perspectives on reforms as
simultaneously reflective and constitutive of governance processes, the research applies and extends
Rhodes’(2012) notions of “network governance,”“meta-governance”and “interpretive governance.”
Interpretive governance, an underresearched area, is construed as particularly important for developing
better insights into how school reform is understood by key actors involved in its enactment.
Findings –The research identifies what are described as three “deliberative”dimensions of interpretive
governance; these modes of governance are elaborated as “dialogic,”“directive”and “defensive”in nature.
Originality/value –The study reveals senior educators’interpretations of governance as multifaceted, and
argues that these complex modes of deliberation need to be taken into account to better understand how
school development is understood and enacted in municipal and school settings.
Keywords Governance, Educational reform, Teacher professional learning, Superintendents,
School development
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The role of the superintendent is crucial to the educational work and good governance of
schools. In order to be successful, superintendents have to make meaning of diverse and
ever-changing global and national policy contexts, in varying local environments, across
multiple professional fields. They act as both mediators and drivers of change together with
and in relation to various kinds of stakeholders ( Johansson and Nihlfors, 2014;
Paulsen, 2014; Paulsen et al., 2014; Rapp, 2011). Nihlfors et al. (2013) describe the position of
the superintendent as important in a linear way –as “a key agent in the chain of governance,
where policy aims and objectives are transmitted from transnational, national and local levels
to schools”(p. 194). However, while Nihlfors et al. (2013) provide important insights into the
nature of the work of superintendents in the Nordic countries, we challenge this “linear”
understanding of educational governance, foregrounding how current educational reforms
play out in complex and contradictory ways, depending upon how superintendents’
understand their work.
The research questions are:
RQ1. How have superintendents interpreted federal mandates?
RQ2. What are the effects of their understanding on local implementation (i.e. municipal
and school-level decisions/actions)?
To reflect the complexity of superintendents’work, this paper is anchored in a regional
study of five Finnish superintendents working in a Swedish-speaking minority language
environment.
Journal of Educational
Administration
Vol. 56 No. 3, 2018
pp. 297-314
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0957-8234
DOI 10.1108/JEA-06-2017-0066
Received 20 June 2017
Revised 30 September 2017
Accepted 3 October 2017
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0957-8234.htm
This work was supported by the Australian Research Council under Grant No. FT140100018.
297
Finnish
superintendents’
work
Superintendents’work and educational reform
Superintendents are situated in a conflicted location within the organizational framework of
schooling. They are the titular heads of the municipal educational bureaucratic
organizations that administer schools. At the same time, they have to be responsive to
the expectations of both national and local politicians, and to principals and teachers as they
orchestrate schooling practices within their specific jurisdictions. The situation is alike in
Nordic countries, that is, Norway (Paulsen, 2014) Sweden (Rapp, 2011), Denmark
(Moos, 2014) and Finland (Risku et al., 2014). Their work has shifted over time, as
superintendents have become subject to much more nuanced relations between different
policy actorsas part of broadergovernance processes, and as moreintermediary mechanisms
influence the organization of schooling; the latter include various forms of international
measures, most obviously the OECD’s PISA results (Lingard et al., 2016). These forms of
“soft power”(Nye, 2004) influence how national parliaments come to constitute schooling.
Through the deployment of benchmarks and measures of learning, bodies suchas the OECD
have considerable influence on schooling in national and local jurisdictions. This exercise of
global governance occurs alongside a concomitant shift from national jurisdictions focusing
upon schooling for citizenship and societal development, to economic development in the
context of a competitive, globalized economy. In Europe, the European Union has also
influenced national parliaments’capacities to represent their peoples regionally and locally,
and represents a force for greater integration of policies and populations. Such policies have
not gone unchallenged in education; local responses reflecting specific social, political and
historical circumstances influence how such processes come to be considered legitimate or
otherwise (Nordin and Sundberg, 2014).
In the USA, there has been considerable attention to the role of superintendents
in educational reform. Björk et al. (2014) provide an overview of the history of the
superintendency; they show how global economic competitive forces contribute to the
rearticulation of national-state-district relations, increasing pressure upon districts to
be responsive to educational reforms.
In the Nordic countries, detailed accounts of more recent school development reforms on
superintendents’work have not been developed. Paulsen et al. (2014) draw upon national
surveys of superintendents’leadership practices in Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway
to shed light upon leadership governance processes in relation to earlier reforms.
Nihlfors et al.’s (2013) work reveals that superintendents “express high levels of reform
consciousness”(p. 193) in response to earlier initiatives. In the Norwegian context, Paulsen
(2014) shows how superintendents actively mediate national educational reforms, with more
accountability-oriented influences reinterpreted in relation to school development and
pedagogical-leadership discourses at the local level. In Sweden, Rapp (2011) argues that
while superintendents were seen as responsible for management of funds, concerns about
accountability for students’results was not a concern to them. In Denmark, Moos (2014)
argues global competition has resulted in reconstituted relations at national and
sub-national levels; this includes engaging with schools as independent entities directly
governed by the Ministry of Education, rather than through the municipalities.
Provision of education is one of the most important tasks for Finnish municipal
governments. Even if the administrative structures vary greatly, almost every municipality
has a board of education, led by a superintendent. Boards prepare the yearly budget for the
municipal council to decide upon, and education is a major component of this budget.
As well as education, in over half of Finnish municipalities, the responsibilities of boards
and superintendents also include looking after cultural activities, libraries, sports and youth
services. (Risku et al., 2014, pp. 387-390). A survey amongst Finnish superintendents
revealed their main tasks included human resource and financial management,
administrative decision making, networking, organization of support services, leading the
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