The context for this study is the Danish upper secondary school which is undergoing remarkable changes these years. The actual reforms build new frames of teaching into the everyday life of the teachers, and the role of leaders are radically changed, both because of changed internal structures in the schools and because of a political demand that schools must think more strategically towards the external world. In a recently published evaluation of the reform (Danmarks Evalueringsinstitut 2008) the result elucidated considerable differences between teachers’ and leaders’ interpretations of the reform implementation, and especially the students’ outcome of cross curricular activities and the idea of competence building. The leaders are generally very positive towards “the new”, while the teachers are more skeptical, although the last group seems to divide in different positions. In a four year research study about the changing teacher roles (Zeuner et al. 2006; 2007; 2008) we have observed the same tendency in some of our qualitative studies. How come? Our provisionally thesis is that leaders and teachers have different experiences, interests and feelings towards the same reality although they belong to the same organizational system. Therefore we find it beneficial to use a paradoxical approach for both investigating and analyzing the organizational change. The differences are both generated by the “outer” role and by the sensemaking “from within”, i.e. the effort to give meaning to a certain subjective perspective. In our theoretical approach we will use phenomenological theory about lifeworlds and sensemaking (Kvale 1998; Hargreaves 2000) as well as sociological theories about roles (Hargreaves 2003) in order to understand leaders’ and teachers’ different perspectives towards school changes. The research question is: What kind of information does the researcher get, when he interviews? And how can the researcher use different perspectives to analyse organizational development?

The paper has a conceptual as well as a practical approach. We will investigate the field of differences further, especially by focusing on the interview situation in our own interviews from the teacher role project. Secondly, we will discuss the importance of different roles in relation to organizational development and learning (Argyris & Schön 1978; Qvortrup 2001). How do differences affect the collective “learning” in schools? When do they create resistance and conflict, and when do they create dynamics and mutual understanding? Is there a tendency towards a widening discursive “gap” between leaders and teachers catalyzed by the actual reforms? Thirdly, we will analyze the connection between power and knowledge in the public discussion about reform and school development. Leaders and teachers are agents with particular interests in promoting different discourses about the school, prescripting a tactical use of results (Weiss 1999).

Leaders are appointed to change schools according to the actual reform discourse; also they have to think strategically towards the outer world, for instance politicians and parents. Probably this leads to what we will call a strategic discourse. Also, the actual reforms create more room for leadership, which from a leader point of view creates a room for internal maneuvering which is probably appreciated by most leaders. Teachers do not act strategically in the same way, and their experienced room for maneuvering is related to teaching in the classroom. Also, it is our thesis that the group of leaders is rather homogenous while the teachers are more divided in their approach towards the reform. One reason for this could be that the role set of teachers is more complex than the role set of leaders creating more possible teacher positions.