Research on school improvement has accumulated an extensive list of factors facilitating the potential to turn around poorly performing schools (Leithwood et al., 2010; Murphy & Meyers, 2007). However, limited attention has been paid to contextual differences across schools, districts, and educational systems with distinct traditions and prerequisites. At the core of the problem lies the ever-present need to make trade-offs. While, in theory, it would be ideal to improve schools on all conditions identified as desirable for turnaround, this may not be feasible due to organisational capacity and resource constraints. Earlier empirical research on school turnaround relies either on qualitative case studies of one or several schools (Duke & Salmonowicz, 2010; Hallinger & Kantamara, 2001), or traditional regression methods (Boyne & Meier, 2009; Heissel & Ladd, 2018). What is missing is a case-oriented approach that addresses the complex causality related to school turnaround (van Der Steen et al., 2013). This study aims to address these contextual and complex causal patterns by making a systematic comparison of schools that do and do not make a turnaround across different school contexts (although generally within a Swedish intitutional context).

Using qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), we study 77 schools in Sweden over 10 years to unearth the existence of necessary and sufficient conditions for turnaround. The QCA analysis allows for analysing complex causal combinations as well as equifinal solutions (multiple paths to turnaround) (Ragin, 1987). We study conditions that could explain school turnaround as identified in the turnaround literature (Meyers & Smylie, 2017; Murphy & Meyers, 2007) as well as in Swedish school improvement studies (Jarl et al., 2017).

We find that there are multiple paths to school turnaround, but we do not find evidence of a generalisable “silver bullet”. No single condition can solely explain school turnaround, but it is possible to turn schools around without ticking every box on the list. We however find two types of common turnaround processes, the first of which is bottom-up turnaround where teachers actively cooperate with each other and there is a principal who strongly focuses on the school’s core operations. This kind of turnaround however, seems to be conditional on the school being visibly underperforming. The second type we call a bypass-turnaround primarily driven by the school the organiser (the school district, i.e., the municipality) working actively with quality assurance of their schools in combination with high expectations at the school level. This type of turnaround takes place despite the absence of a principal focusing on core operations and regardless of whether teachers actively cooperate or not. The context also moderates the possible paths to a successful turnaround. While leadership from either the school principal or school district appears important across all contexts, schools in non-urban contexts could make quick gains by improving the collaborative culture among teachers. Schools in urban contexts face greater challenges in achieving such a collaborative culture and could require even more tailored solutions. We discuss implications for these findings for research on school improvement and education policy.

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