IntroductionThe role of the school superintendent in the United States has undergone significant changes over the past century. Brunner, Grogan, & Bjork (2002) describe seven discursive stages that characterize shifts in the role of school superintendents. Once considered to be the instructional leader and teacher of teachers, more recently the discourse on the work of superintendents has shifted to politics and collaboration focused on excellence and educational outcomes. There is little doubt that the work of superintendents has increasingly become defined by political pressures (local, state, and national), high public visibility, unpredictable school finances, and greater external controls exerted through judicial rulings and state and federal legislation, e.g. ESEA--No Child Left Behind and standards-based reform in the U.S. In Sweden, similarly, there are calls for accountability and greater scrutiny of the implementation of reform initiatives promulgated by the National Education Agency. Responding to these new realities in their work, superintendents have been challenged to meet heightened role expectations in curriculum, instruction, and assessment practices in their districts. PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present findings from two investigations of the instructional leadership roles of school superintendents in the United States and Sweden. Specifically, the paper examines how recent policy initiatives at local, state, and national levels have affected how superintendents define their primary work, allocate their time, and respond to heightened role and policy expectations for enhanced student learning outcomes. Three major questions guided the research. Within the context or recent education reform policy initiatives, how do superintendents think about, define, and carry out their work as educational leaders? How do superintendents view their role(s) in curriculum development and instructional leadership? When current data (2004) from superintendents are compared to 1994 survey data, what changes, if any, have occurred in superintendents' work?BackgroundA review of the literature on the work of school superintendents reveals a discrepancy between what superintendents say is important and what they actually spend their time doing. Hauglund (1987), Bredeson, (1996), and Bredeson & Johansson, (1998) reported that superintendents ranked curriculum development as a top priority, but then correspondingly ranked it low in terms of how they actually spent their time. Murphy (1989) similarly noted that superintendents spent the majority of time on issues not directly related to curriculum and instruction. He concluded that instructional leadership at the district level was managed more by default than by design. The literature contains suggestions for superintendents to be directly involved in curriculum and instruction (the technical core of the school) as a response to educational reform priorities, (Murphy & Hallinger, 1988; Wimpleberg, 1988; Bjork, 1990; Hord, 1990; Kowalski, 1998; Latham and Holloway, 1999). Based on the tension suggested in this set of dynamic and at times conflicting role expectations, superintendents' self- reports on their work and how it is affected by current policies initiatives are crucial to understanding the relationships between leadership, education reform policies, and educational outcomes. This paper addresses these sources of tensions and paradoxes by gathering empirical data from superintendents who are engaged in significant school reform efforts as the result of state and national initiatives. MethodologyThe paper examines two sets of survey data 1994 and 2004. All superintendents in a large Midwestern state and in Sweden all superintendents were sent a written questionnaire. The response rates for surveys were 82.1% to 75.7% respectively. The original questionnaire (Bredeson, 1994; Johansson, 1995) was modified only slightly for data collection in 2003-4 thus allowing comparison of superintendents' self-reports of their work over time. The survey consisted of four types of items--respondent demographic information, open-ended queries, Likert-scaled items, and rank-order items. Data analysis included descriptive statistics, t-tests, ANOVA, and nonparametric statistical tests. Open-ended responses were transcribed into text-files and coded using QSR NVivo 2.2 (1999-2002). The analytical procedures allowed for structural corroboration and triangulation of quantitative and qualitative data sets. Findings and ConclusionsThe findings from these decennial investigations linked with findings from other empirical studies on the work of school superintendents provide evidence that shifts in the discourse around the roles and work of school superintendents have occurred. Superintendents are savvy political actors who acknowledge educational changes swirling about them and the new demands for accountability and student learning anchored in state and national policy initiatives. However, our data indicate that these shifts are more rhetorical than grounded in the daily realities and the work routines of these school leaders. There continues to be a major discrepancy between what superintendents say is critical to their role as district leaders and how much time they actually spend in curriculum development and instructional leadership. For example, curriculum and instruction was ranked as the third most important administrative task yet dropped to 6th in terms of the time spent in this area. Nearly half (48.4%) of respondents in 2003-04 reported an increased in curriculum and instructional leadership while 34.1% of respondents reported an increase in their involvement in curriculum and instruction in 1994. Despite increased awareness of and attention to curriculum and instructional issues, the daily demands of superintendents' work mitigated against significant reallocation of time in these areas. Budget and finance, public relations, and personnel administration continue to dominate superintendents' time. Gender accounted for significant differences between female and male superintendents in the areas of student learning, curriculum development and instructional leadership. Females reported greater personal interest in and believed others