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Currently, the issue of inequality is one of the most pressing concerns in education and educational research. Factor such as increased socio-economic inequality, movement of people across national boundaries, and refugees, creates major challenges for local communities and schools. Therefore, it is crucial to ensure that teaching and leadership are informed by the best available knowledge to meet these challenges. This article, which is based on research on successful school leadership and school reforms, aims to explore what type of knowledge is used and given priority, when politicians and administrators make decisions about improving education. The article also discusses what we need to know to address equity-relevant progress and improvement. In the analysis the role the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has in setting the agenda in educational research is problematized and methodological shortcomings within research traditions focusing on successful school leadership are mentioned. A main argument is that our thinking about educational leadership must be complemented and informed by research which focuses on recent changes in the political economy which have challenged public education severely. To lead education beyond the agenda of what works we need different approaches to research, including critical studies addressing the power structures.

This paper investigates how and why test-based accountability (TBA), a global model for education reform, began to dominate educational debates in Norway in the early 2000s, and how this policy has been operationalised and institutionalised over time. In examining the adoption and retention of TBA in Norway, we build on the cultural political economy framework, in combination with a political sociology-driven approach to policy instruments. The analysis draws on two data sources: four White Papers and 37 in-depth interviews with top-level politicians, policy-makers and stakeholders, conducted between September 2017 and February 2018. The findings indicate that 'scandalisation' of Norway's below-expected PISA results and promotion of standardised testing as a neutral device contributed to the relatively abrupt adoption of national testing in the early 2000s. The increasingly dominant policy discourse equalising education quality and learning outcomes led to the institutionalisation of TBA, developed to ensure equity and quality standards in a decentralised education system. Increased visibility, benchmarking and administrative control are identified as key mechanisms in putting pressure on local actors to re-orient their behaviour. The study provides original insights into the drivers, expectations and strategies underlying TBA in a social democratic institutional regime.

Although previous research has contributed to the body of literature in education for democracy by addressing deficits in policies in equalizing students' life chances, less attention has been paid to how accomplishing a democratic mandate in education is constructed and legitimized by educational authorities in national policy documents. In this article, we report findings from a project that examined this issue. The aim is to provide insight into how professionalism is constructed and legitimized within and across key education policy documents in the wake of a major national educational reform in Norway. We identify possible discursive shifts and examine what tensions are at play via textual analysis of selected policy documents, with a methodology inspired by a critical approach to discourse analysis. Theories on professionalism and democratic leadership serve as an overarching framework. The findings suggest (1) there are tensions between the use of performance data and education for democracy; (2) little attention is given to professionalism as a deliberative activity; and (3) there is increased emphasis on fulfilling students' individual rights. We argue that introducing a language of performance expectations has permitted the reinterpretation of what it means to be a professional educator in a social democratic welfare state.

© 2016 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This paper provides a basis for a tentative framework for guiding future research into principals' identity construction and development. It is situated in the context of persisting emphases placed by government policies on the need for technocratic competencies in principals as a means of demonstrating success defined largely as compliance with demands for the improvement in student test scores. Often this emphasis is at the expense of forwarding a broader view of the need, alongside these, for clear educational values, beliefs and practices that are associated with these. The framework is informed by the theoretical work of Wenger and Bourdieu as well as recent empirical research on the part played by professional identity and emotions in school leadership. In the paper, we highlight different lines of inquiry and the issues they raise for researchers. We argue that the constructions of school leadership identities are located in time, space and place, and emotions reflect complex leadership identities situated within social hierarchies which are part of wider structures and social relations of power and control.

This paper provides a basis for a tentative framework for guiding future research into principals' identity construction and development. It is situated in the context of persisting emphases placed by government policies on the need for technocratic competencies in principals as a means of demonstrating success defined largely as compliance with demands for the improvement in student test scores. Often this emphasis is at the expense of forwarding a broader view of the need, alongside these, for clear educational values, beliefs and practices that are associated with these. The framework is informed by the theoretical work of Wenger and Bourdieu as well as recent empirical research on the part played by professional identity and emotions in school leadership. In the paper we highlight different lines of inquiry and the issues they raise for researchers. We argue that the constructions of school leadership identities are located in time, space and place, and emotions reflect complex leadership identities situated within social hierarchies which are part of wider structures and social relations of power and control.