Horizontal dynamics in an inter-professional school improvement team

Abstract

This study focuses on leadership development as a collaborative practice in the context of a school improvement project aimed at increasing the students’ competence in approaching factual texts in and across disciplines. Although numerous studies from surveys and self-reported data have examined what types of leadership development school leaders participate in, little attention has been paid to studying leadership development as practice. Here, leadership development involves social interaction, often in informal and inter-professional settings over time. The present study seeks to capture leadership development as practice by expanding the unit of analysis from individual responses and reports to interactions in a project team who worked over a two-year period. The analytic focus is on interactions in the boundary zone among representatives from the local educational authority in the municipality, principals from three schools, and a university. Cultural-historical activity theory constitutes the theoretical framework for the analysis. The study demonstrates how the participants struggled to identify the purposes of the project, as well as how to reach them. Thus, coming to terms with ill-defined purposes of collaboration (objects) seems to be a prerequisite for leadership development on an interdisciplinary school improvement team.