The purpose of this paper is to discuss how the Swedish state intervention Collaboration for Best School (CBS) governs principals in Swedish compulsary schools. CBS is a government assignment to the Swedish National Agency for Education which has been ongoing since 2015 in about 500 schools and 150 preschools and targets organisations with low results that are not expected to be able to reverse this trend on their own. Several researchers point out that  Swedish teachers' and principals' room for action has decreased at the same rate as the central control increases and the state control regime has strengthened (see e.g Ivarsson Westerberg, 2016).

The starting point for the study is an assumption that schools and their leaders today are under enormous pressure to fulfill the educational system's requirements and authorities' policy directives, which are about delivering better results and an equal education (see e.g. Håkansson & Rönnström, 2021). In this regard, the school professions are at a disadvantage with their changing conditions in the form of a lack of qualified teachers and  preschool teachers besides a limited professional autonomy. Biesta (2007) emphasizes that education needs a model of professional action that recognizes a non-causal interaction, that professional judgment is central to educational practice and that the nature of judgment is more a matter of morality than of technicalities. In line with Uljens (2021a, 2021b) we also argue that the task of pedagogy and education is to discuss and question political decisions. Politics and pedagogy must be seen as equal entities, even if politics decides on the content of education.

Eight years after CBS’ implementation, research on possible consequences is still limited, which is why this study can contribute through the analysis of collected empirical material within the framework of CBS and what it does with the principal's opportunities to understand and relate to their mission (cf. Lindster Norberg, 2016). Prøitz (2021) points out that questions about collaboration as an ideal and activity in modern governance provide the basis for a series of new questions regarding the development of the school.  If a person, in this case the principal, does not adapt to the prevailing norm, that person is seen as disqualified and problematic in the prevailing regime of truth and thus becomes in need of retraining (Popkewitz & Brennan, 1997).

Based on this problematization we are interested in how school leaders participating in CBS are  governed and shaped through various technologies of power (Foucault, 2008). The education sector can be seen as a practice where different methods and strategies operate to direct and control the thoughts and actions of individuals/principals/pedagogues in specific directions in order to best adapt to the trends that arise (Dahlstedt & Hertzberg, 2012). Although Foucault has been widely used in educational research in general, it can be stated that there is little research in educational leadership that takes Foucault as its point of departure (Nietche, 2011). Foucault's theories can therefore make a valuable contribution to our understanding of principals' work and principals' subjectivity. By examining the principal's role as a position for power relations and by exploring the principal's subjectivity, it becomes possible to find cracks and room for action where principals have the opportunity to operate within the framework of the normalizing and discursive regimes that make up the leadership's framework and the leadership's self-governance. This study can thus also contribute to exploring how principals can be given the opportunity to find room for action within the framework of a series of disciplinary regimes that assert themselves within the framework of the Collaboration for the Best School (cf Nietche, 2011).

The empirics of the study mainly consists of interviews with principals and partly documents. After an initial reading of the National Agency for Education's reports (2019, 2021), a number of supporting concepts were selected which have formed the basis for the interviews. These concepts are: CBS, dialogue, effort, cooperation, governance, support, systematic quality work, school development, action, ownership and abilities. Based on the selected concepts, eight semi-structured interviews were conducted via zoom and recorded, with inspiration from concept maps (see e.g. Khattri & Miles, 1995; Lindster Norberg, 2016). The goal was to get the principals to freely associate around the selected concepts. The interview method with inspiration from concept maps fulfills the criteria for a qualitative research interview (Kvale & Brinkman, 2009). Theoretically we use some of Foucault's concepts to analyze how the principals receive, implement and perceive this state intervention for school development. Foucault's concept of governmentality is useful for making visible the governance of the Swedish school in general. The concept of governmentality means "that collective power processes guide thoughts and behaviors in certain specific directions, directions that are not usually questioned" (Kronqvist Hård, 2021, p. 46). Foucault (2008) believes that different technologies of power control and regulate the behavior of individuals. Technology can be seen as a collection of techniques that explain how individuals are governed (Foucault, 1991, 2003). In the technologies there are certain norms and perceptions that have an impact on how technologies are designed (Ivarsson Westerberg, 2016). Techniques here become concrete approaches to achieve what is found in the technologies. Being guided to behave according to what is currently the norm and what is expected can be summarized in the concepts of conduct of conduct (Gordon, 1991; Rose, 1998). The concepts mean governing individuals so that they govern themselves. As mentioned above Foucault has been widely used in educational research in general, but not to any greater extent in educational leadership (Nietche, 2011). Foucault's theories can therefore make a valuable contribution to our understanding of principals' work and principals' subjectivity. Collaboration for Best School aims to improve and develop current schools into something better than it was before, and the principal plays a decisive role. In advanced liberal governance, state governance becomes most effective when the individual acts in accordance with its interest. It is the activation of the individual itself that is the control, it is about "government at a distance" (Rose 1999).

The idea of effective intervention is a central aspect within evidence-based practice, ie administering treatments to achieve a certain effect (Biesta, 2007). This movement is an international phenomenon based on a Taylorist approach which emerged in the 1990s with sanction systems and public ranking of education (Uljens (2021a, 2021b). In our study the principals generally describe a low goal fulfillment as the basis for participation in CBS and they express difficulties in making the necessary changes on their own when the state makes demands. They are aware that they are in the hands of state authorities, at the same time as they wish to be professionally autonomous. They express different perceptions of what collaboration is, and a collision appears between top-down and bottom-up logics. This exemplifies what Liljenberg (2021) describes, that national models and central initiatives tend to overlook local needs and rarely take into account the complexity of the interaction between those who participate. There is thus a risk that the support for the principals ignores the importance of the context for the principal's leadership (Hallinger, 2018). Based on Foucault this could mean that power as politics and control of the subject's self-governance has been successful. Through the designation of schools and principals as more or less functioning, technologies of power are established and discursive constructions become truths (Foucault, 1991). In CBS, these discursive truths could be formulated as "the low-performing school", the incompetent principal", "The National Agency for - the savior in need", etc. (Sundberg, 2012). The principals are socialized in a certain direction and become active subjects in the social practice in which they operate (Edwards, 2008). This is in line with what Rose (1999) describes, that by being guided by the truth regimes that prevail, individuals' subjectivities are nurtured, developed and shaped into a way of being.

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