Educational superintendents' perspectives of a national networking project on school segregation in Sweden : Lessons to be learned?

Abstract: World-wide, countries struggle with providing equitable education to all children, where the socioeconomic (SES) background of the students does not affect their educational attainment and achievement. School segregation has been shown in previous research to exacerbate the influence of family background on educational achievement and attainment. In 2019, the Swedish National Agency for Education (NAE) initiated a network between seven superintendents in charge of compulsory education where focus was on school segregation. Through reflexive thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews conducted with six of the superintendents, this research aims to identify what can be learnt from the network project with regards to (1) how school segregation can be tackled by superintendents and (2) using such networks as a method for collaboration. The results indicate that NAE-organized networking between superintendents can be a fruitful way to facilitate professional learning for superintendents by providing a forum they do not usually have access to, where vulnerability and openness is encouraged, and the superintendents help each other develop professionally. With regards to school segregation, the results indicate that the superintendents chose to focus on tackling the negative effects of school segregation by enacting leadership actions aimed at improving instructional quality in the schools with the lowest educational achievement. The findings indicate that superintendents may be able to reduce SES disparities in educational attainment and achievement through enacting and communicatively encouraging leadership actions oriented towards achieving tight coupling, boundary spanning practices.