The professionalization of school leaders is frequently developed and debated all over the world. In recent decades, almost all OECD countries and EU member states have invested massively in school leader professional development and training, and this tendency can be seen worldwide (Huber, 2010). One important reason for these investments is the growing recognition of school leaders as important for the core practices of teaching and learning in schools (Bøje & Frederiksen 2019). School leaders are increasingly perceived as key agents for the quality of teaching and learning, teacher professional development but also for improvement and capacity building in schools (Rönnström, 2021).
Although the meaning of ‘professional’ and ‘professionalization’ vary between a plurality of contexts and school leadership connoisseurs, there are some converging trends in recent developments and debates. Some use the term ‘professional’ mainly as an indicator of being successful or good at one’s job. This way of using the term is reflected in research explicating the meaning of successful or effective school leadership (See Drysdale & Gurr, 2017; Hallinger, 2011; Leithwood, 2021; Leithwood et al, 2004; Robinson et al, 2009). Others use the term to indicate membership a of group of educational practitioners or a learning community, or as being a co-creator of communities of practitioners within or linked to schools (See Zachrisson and Johansson, 2010; Chirichello, 2010). There are also researchers who use the term in order to signify membership in qualified and socially closed communities drawn from conditions developed in the sociology of professions. The latter researchers commonly argue that school leaders run the risk of de-professionalization despite massive investments in professional development and training (Bøje & Frederiksen 2019).
The urgency of present time school leader professional development investments is not primarily linked to professionalization in the common or traditional senses; rather, it´s linked to the increasing globalization, economization, rationalization and re-organization of the public sector in general and the education sector in particular (Pashiardis and Brauckman, 2019; Ringarp and Rönnström, 2021; Hood, 1995). In our hyper modern world, changing landscapes of professionalization and professions are emerging and they are growing in importance, and they are important to questions of who educators are and who they are becoming. We can no longer fully grasp recent and ongoing professionalization movements by focusing on skills, capabilities, professional membership or criteria drawn from standard textbooks in the sociology of the professions. There is a need for new frameworks and alternative ways of conceptualizing the professionalization of school leaders in order to understand the scope, character and urgency of school leader professional development and training in present time.
In this paper, we will discuss and analyze the professionalization of school leaders as taking place within a changing landscape of professionalization due to recent globalization, economization, rationalization and organization in the education sector. We will illuminate an ongoing global movement and converging strategies among many European nations with regard to the professionalization of school leaders, and we will discuss their scope, character and urgency. We will in depth discuss recent school leader professional development and training in Sweden as an example of the changing landscape of professionalization. Finally, we will argue that the school leader profession is growing into an organizational profession in Sweden and elsewhere (Evetts, 2011; Ringarp and Rönnström, 2021). This is rarely recognized in recent debates and research on school leader professional development. Organizational professionalization differs from occupational professionalization (as the latter is explicated within the sociology of the professions), and this development has consequences for the knowledge-base, training and autonomy of school leaders and how they are expected to relate to other professionals in schools.
