Instructional leadership has been identified as an effective strategy when it comes to school leadership’s impact on student learning (Robinson et al., 2008; Shatzer et al., 2013) and has become widespread around the world during the last two decades with the rise of international student assessments and the increasing demands for greater student achievement. It is, however, increasingly discussed in recent years that the implementation of school reforms and leadership practices is conditioned by the contextual factors the leadership must work on the basis of (Hallinger, 2018) Thus, the nature and the practices of instructional leadership have been analyzed in different settings, such as China (Walker & Qian, 2022), Israel (Shaked et al., 2021), and Turkey (Gümüş et al., 2021), in order to frame how the overall concept of instructional leadership is being adapted and ‘rolled out’ in national settings. Our study will explore the form of instructional leadership in Danish primary and secondary public schools and draws on the definition of instructional leadership provided by Hallinger et al. (2020) that characterize instructional leadership as ‘school leadership intended to influences school and classroom teaching and learning processes with the goal of improving learning for all students’(Hallinger et al., 2020, p. 1632).

Global educational comparison through, for example, the OECD´s PISA-test system, has turned national politicians’ spotlight on how good the student achievements are in their educational system (Waldow & Steiner-Khamsi, 2019), which results in pressure from policymakers regarding school performance. That has given rise to a growing interest in which role the school leadership has in achieving the goals (Leithwood et al., 2008). In that sense, this study will contribute to the school leadership literature by exploring to what extent Danish school leaders apply instructional leadership and thus mapping the form of instructional leadership practices in Danish schools. Denmark is an interesting case as Danish schools are generally characterized by a flatter (non-hierarchical) organizational structure in contrast to schools in many other nations (Uljens et al., 2013). Danish school principals are defined as first of equals in the school context and traditionally prioritize democratic participation and well-being of students and staff (Moos, 2014). However, the Danish education system has undergone several major reforms during the last decade (Krejsler & Moos, 2021), with an increasing emphasis on decentralization, accountability, and student achievement – ideas that have been dominant in many countries for the last 20 years or more (Verger, 2018). The political visions and guidelines in continuation of the reforms (Danish Ministry of Education, 2016) underpin mechanisms aiming at change and improving the teachers’ practice with the end goal of higher student achievement. With the intention to understand the new role of school leadership, school leadership has been discussed in Danish literature, with e.g., attention to professional learning communities (See for example, EVA, 2018). Although there has been attention to leadership importance for the success of professional learning communities and also leadership practices as for instance, transformational leaderships impact on student achievement (Andersen et al., 2014), the broader role of principals in shaping teaching and learning processes in schools as well as the various relevant leadership practices have not received much attention.

Such a context makes it possible to collect rich data regarding teachers’ and school leaders’ perceptions of instructional leadership and possibly provide unique examples. Thus, we argue that the Danish context for applying instructional leadership is unique. Because of this, the leadership literature can learn from this specific case, as we theorize the meaning of the context for leadership practice. This leads us to the following research questions: How is instructional leadership unfolded in Danish schools?

In the Danish context, the school principal often distributes some of the responsibility to members of the leadership team (See for example, VIVE, 2019). Following that understanding, in terms of constructing the research design, we were interested in different positions at the schools. Thus, to have the possibility to systematically analyze the school principals’ initiatives to enhance student learning outcomes and how those specific initiatives flow in the organization, we interviewed principals, members of the leadership team and teachers at 4 schools located in the same municipality. We paid attention to provide maximum diversity regarding the socioeconomic composition of the communities where the schools are located to grab the different practices, which might be caused by the family compositions, but still under the same local policy environment. We also dıversified our participants within schools, including school principals middle leaders, such as the school pedagogical leader, the leader of the secondary department, the leader of the primary department and the leader for the special needs department, and key teachers, who have special obligations at the schools e.g., act as representatives for the Teachers’ Union or teachers who possess a significant amount of literacy capital, resulting in great responsibility for the local effort and initiatives concerning student reading skills. This methodology was guided by a strategic assumption that middle leaders and key teachers significantly influence how organizational initiatives and broader visions are communicated and performed at schools. The strategically selected variation of respondents at the schools underpins an analytical possibility of comparing the pattern of differences that emerged in the interviews in terms of leadership initiatives, communication, and involvement regarding improving student achievement. Data The findings in the article are based on the analysis of 20 semi-structured interviews. The interviews were conducted at 4 schools, and the distribution of participants were 3 principals, 7 from the leadership team, 10 key-teachers. The interviews took place from September 2021 to December 2021. During the interviews, participants were asked to respond to questions related to how school leadership ensures improvement in teaching and learning experiences in schools. The participants mostly framed their experiences in terms of their role when implementing new policies. The data was processed in two processes (Bryman, 2016). The second round involved a closed system-thematic coding (Kvale, 2007) derived from instructional leadership expectations regarding themes of how the school leadership role of organizing school structures with a particular focus on student achievements.

The preliminary analysis of the data points toward three findings leading to the conclusion of the paper. First, we find that it is absolutely essential for the members of the school leadership team that all things considered within the schools must be beneficial regarding student achievements. In line with that, the leadership team emphasizes that the real experts on teaching and student learning are the teachers. Such a setting, on the one hand, indicates that the ideas of instructional leadership are present, but on the other hand, that it is an implicit strategy. Second, that the many reforms and ministerial guidelines that highlight the importance of schools emphasizing a strict focus on students’ achievements, and furthermore stressing teaching methods to accomplish the goals pressures the leaderships to a student learning focus. Thus, such policies support the leadership team with arguments to organize a school structure that highlights a focus on student learning, but in its core element, also contrast that teachers are the real experts. Finally, that the leadership team focuses their effort on organizational substances, always with an eye on what they believe improves student learning at their school. Thus, the visions of the leadership are not revolutionary but instead slowly seeps down through the school structures and, in the end, shape the school in light of their visions. These leadership visions could, for example, be realized in the organization of a class conference structure and clear commando ways when poor student performance is discovered. The three findings suggest that the concept of instructional leadership is unfolded as an organizational strategy that slowly but surely seeps within the schools. Accordingly, the strategies put together can characterize as a particular form of instructional leadership as the strategies always are pronounced as efforts underpinning student learning outcomes by the leadership team.

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