Norwegian Superintendents Are Mediators in the Governance Chain

Transnational bodies such as OECD have had great influence in the national educational debate in Norway since the first PISA study was made public in 2001. A range of social technologies, such as participation in international rank-based tests, national standardized tests and various teacher and student surveys, have been implemented stepwise in order to more tightly monitor the work of schoolteachers. These trends have been institutionalized towards a consistent regulative system by means of two structural elements. The national quality assurance system was established in 2005 to tighten the links between national policies and classroom practice. The semi-independent National Directorate of Education and Training was established and radically up-scaled (in terms of staffing) at the same time, to lead reform initiatives for municipalities and schools and to manage the national quality system. This also put superintendents in a normative and cultural crossfire between the longstanding norms of the teaching profession and traditional policy cultures in education, on one hand, and the reform agendas and the instruments influenced by the OECD, on the other. The results of surveys of superintendents, school board members and school leaders illustrate aspects of the new situation for superintendents in the midst of governance chains and networks. The main inference taken from the data is that superintendents have to operate multiple arenas within and beyond the municipality organization, which puts them in a crossfire of conflicting expectations and demands.