This article deepens the knowledge of middle leaders’ impact on school improvement and organisation development. More precisely, it focuses on how middle leaders from comprehensive schools and preschools translated improvement strategies and tools from a municipal course on leading school improvement into their own organisations. It is based on interviews with middle leaders, teachers, and principals at two schools and two preschools. Translation theory is used as a theoretical frame. The findings show that the middle leaders translated improvement strategies based on local needs, and for several reasons: for clarification and reduction of roles and improvement areas; structuring improvement work; engaging and involving colleagues in school improvement; and developing a professional culture. When taking the role of translators, the middle leaders became central to progressing the developmental elements of local school organisations. The study recommends investing to provide middle leaders with improvement strategies and an understanding of translation theory to enable translations that aid the development of school organisations.

Research dealing with preschool teacher education has been, for a long time, criticalof a binary divide between theory and practice. Based on that issue, this studyinvestigates a preschool teacher education programme in Sweden. It focusses onreflection upon theory and practice as an affordance offered to students in studies andwork. The study used a questionnaire with two groups: campus studentsfollowing the regular programme and students who were nurses already working atpreschools. Analysis shows a fragmented education where the groups faced differentproblems, but also that neither of them could connect reflections on theory andpractice at the workplace to their own learning approaches in either studies orworking matters. How the students experienced affordances depended on theireducational skills and knowledge, and the programme relied mostly on individualreflection as the solution to the binary divide. This reliance seemed to work better forcampus students, who were challenged by the new environmental affordances. Thestudents in the field-based programme were close to the preschools’ pedagogicalmicro-practice, which limited the possibility for critical reflection on theory andpractice and its contextual conditions, especially for students who were nurses.Workplace routines seem to structure the students’ learning instead.

In a previous report, 2013, results from questionnaires and interviews showed how a new middle leader role among preschool teachers and teachers had been implemented 1,5 years after a course focusi ...

The article outlines a programme theory for the Swedish school inspection. The theory has a format of ‘if … then … because’, whereby the last term states one or more generative mechanisms behind the reactions to inspection, and the former terms imply what the inspectorate does and which reactions it receives. The assumptions of the theory are tested regarding their precision of definition, consistency and empirical status. No research has as yet confirmed a general positive effect of the Swedish inspection on learning and school development. Programme theory, however, suggests that such effects are mostly context-dependent, and thus will vary between schools and school authorities. A complicating feature of the present inspection is its objectivist ethos, which is at odds with the Swedish tradition of a transactional ethos in inspections.

I denna rapport, som tagits fram i samarbete mellan Helsingborgs stad och Goteborgs universitet, presenteras en uppfoljning av kommunens satsning pa att infora processledare pa alla skolor och forskolor i ett av Helsingborgs verksamhetsomraden. En kartlaggning har genomforts av initieringen och nulaget i satsningen och mer specifikt har svar sokts pa fragorna: • Hur ar processledarnas arbete organiserat? • Hur styrs arbetet? • Vilka uppgifter arbetar processledare med? I en enkatundersokning till alla skolor och forskolor i omradet framkommer att betydelsen av processledarnas arbete i denna fas inte i nagon stor utstrackning paverkat lararnas arbete i klassrummen men daremot uppmarksammas en skillnad i lararnas motespraktik. I gruppintervjuer med alla rektorer och forskolechefer redogors for vad processledarna arbetat med. Framst har arbetet rort mikroprocesser, sasom handledning vid pedagogiska diskussioner, men det finns ett onskemal om att processledarna i storre utstrackning ska arbeta med makroprocesser, sasom ledning av strategiskt skolutvecklingsarbete. Intressant ar att rektorer och forskolechefer har olika asikter om nyttan av att ha processledare i sina organisationer. En del ser dem som ett hot mot det egna ledarskapet och en del som viktiga for att astadkomma forbattring i sina verksamheter.

Lasaren haller ett temanummer om skolutveckling i sin hand. Har i inledningen skall vi – som ar temaredaktorer – beratta om vilka som skrivit artiklarna, vilken forskargrupp som ligger bakom initiativet till temat och gora en kort kommentar till vilket slags innehall artiklarna bjuder pa och dess bidrag till en vetenskaplig och praktisk diskussion. Forfattarna samarbetar inom forskargruppen PULO pa institutionen for pedagogik och specialpedagogik, Goteborgs universitet:

Sweden has an indicator system for grade 9 in comprehensive schools building on value added measures. The aim is to stimulate improvement, and not to rank schools in quality. Data are easily available at the webb. A government committe suggested recently that the system should be used by a new, more powerful state inspection. Whatever purpose, the problem with the statistical model is its weakness in taking account of the variance in marks that cannot be related to school composition in terms of parents’ education, ethnicity, and gender distribution among pupils. Explained variance is about 40 per cent, and the rest (the residual) is taken as the indicator of a school effect. The article show’s some ways to improve this: Structural equation modelling, and pupil questionnaire data about the transfer of cultural capital in families. By these means the explained variance is increased to 55 per cent. By using school adjustement as another value added measure explained variance was 68 per cent. Variation between schools is markedly higher with school adjustement than with marks. Still, there are heavy problems with the model. The article concludes by discussing what functions this indicator system may have in the steering system as a whole.

Skolinspektion kan vara ett redskap for styrning, det vill saga maktutovning i nagot syfte. I denna studie beskrivs den engelska inspektionsmo-dellen (O FSTED ) samt tre svenska kommunala inspektioner. De svenska och engelska fallen styrs med delvis olika ideologiska syften. Det senare visar sig bland annat i de skrivna rapporterna. De engelska kannetecknas av ett obejektivistiskt ethos med stor distans till skolans personal. I tva svenska kommuner har rapporteringen ett resone-rande respektive didaktiskt ethos, som ar kansligare for den publik man vander sig till och mera personlig i sitt tilltal. I det tredje svenska fallet ar rapporteringen objektivistisk, men till skillnad fran O FSTED , doljs inte ideologin bakom objektivis-men, utan ar framhavd i kriterierna. En annan skillnad ar att de engelska inspek-torerna betonar amnesstudier och traditionell kunskapsformedling medan de sven-ska lyfter fram samarbete och tematiska studier.