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Police leadership is an essential part of policing, as is the education of police leaders. Our study responds to the call for research on how to transform police leadership education into practice. In this longitudinal mixed-methods single case study we investigate two research questions: 1) How do the digital didactics of the digital police leadership course contribute to students’ perceived learning? 2) How are the knowledge and skills acquired in the digital police leadership course perceived to be applied 1.5 years after course completion? We collected data from students enrolled in a 12-week course. This course offered 24 students a two-day on-site course introduction, while the rest of the course was taught online. Data was collected through five surveys and follow-up interviews with six participants. The results show that police leaders perceived increased competence in being a police leader, report enhanced ability to bridge theory and practice, and improved their digital skills. They also reported increased confidence in the leadership role and increased sharing of competence after study completion. The findings suggest that digital didactics may achieve embedded police education as it can provide an interplay of individual and organizational factors.

This research paper investigates the meaning of role models in higher education. As a case, the Norwegian Military Academy (NMA), which educates military officers for the Norwegian army, is used. Particularly investigated is how role models can be seen as resources in the “learning landscape” surrounding the army officer cadets through their 3 years of learning and Bildung processes. Data used in this work stem from an ethnographic fieldwork following a class of cadets at the NMA through their practical training, off-campus. Officer cadets in interviews report both intentional and unintentional use of role models as a resource in their learning landscapes. By critical educational interpretation of this ongoing practice, using the frame of Wolfgang Klafkis Bildungstheory and “the perfect action principle”, the relationships between this practice and the NMA’s own Bildungideals are questioned. Role models are at the NMA linked to their own leaders, culture and practice. This narrows what is valid practice and can enforce a self-driven power structure and a one-dimensional understanding of how leadership should be performed, where only people within this culture can be seen as participants. We argue that the risks of this NMA practice are related to organisational narcissism and a possible distorted reality orientation, where the NMA fails it’s given educational tasks related to the need of the society and future demands of war.