The performative shift: middle leadership ‘in the line of fire’
Year: 2018
Type: article
Abstract: State school inspection in Norway is currently changing with targeted schools becoming subject to more complex methods of inquiry. Not only school principals but middle leaders are exposed to this shifting system, for the latter are in the frontline of their schools’ everyday practices. The article examines how state school inspection is used as means of controlling legal compliance, as well as evaluating the formative assessment routines and practices of schools, middle leaders, and individual teachers. Drawing on the concepts of accountability and performativity, field observations of inspectors interrogating department heads in primary education are analysed. The empirical study demonstrates how use of standardised rubrics steer the inspection process in schools, aiming more towards completing on task, rather than supporting middle leaders in their struggle to comply with legal standards. During such interrogation, the department heads comply with the system, and are at the same time open towards the inspectors’ questioning concerning the school’s lack of fully implemented routines.
Author: Jeffrey Brooks Hall
Institution: University of Oslo
Language: English
Subfield: Information Systems and Management
Field: Decision Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: Norges Forskningsråd
Award: G5177755360
OpenAlex ID: W2889571122