Ensuring the effectiveness and quality of educational institutions is not just the responsibility of individual school stakeholders. Rather, the school as an educational organization is embedded in a complex system of interdependencies. If we want to understand how transformation processes (e.g. digitalization) are implemented in schools, we must also consider the role of regional school supervisory authorities, municipal school boards, institutions linked to the regional department of education, and other supporting structures., However, there is a lack of research on these supporting structures of schools and the associated educational administration (Berkmeyer, 2020). Attempts to close this gap usually focus on the interaction and task profiles of school leadership and school supervision (Dobbelstein et al., 2020).
In practice, the school boards of the municipality and the support institutions linked to the regional ministries of education present themselves as important contributors who create the necessary framework conditions and control resources, especially for the promotion of digitalization (Bockhorst & Kreutzmann, 2021). This is where the article becomes relevant. Using the example of the German federal state of Rhineland-Palatinate, the perspective of the school leaders and the teachers responsible for digitalization in schools - in this state, individual teachers are selected by the school leader and designated as ‘coordinators for education in the digital world’ (KoBiddW) - is included in addition to employees of the municipal school boards and employees of the regional school supervisory authorities. Since the survey examined on our poster was conducted in the context of the evaluation of a digital competence center in Rhineland-Palatinate and because the digitalization of schools can be internationally regarded as one of the central challenges for the development and success of education in general, the poster places a special focus on this topic.
The theoretical foundation for this examination is provided by Educational Governance research, focusing on the alignment, communication, and coordination within the multi-level system of the institutional environment of schools as a central research topic (Hafner, 2022). Based on the cross-cutting theme of digitalization, this contribution can provide implications and insights for analysis beyond the German borders, thus making a valuable contribution to the pan-European discourse on the challenges and opportunities of digitalization in the education sector and interinstitutional cooperation. This highlights the potential to develop common strategies and share best practices within Europe to strengthen and advance educational systems across the continent.
To approach this complex structure, the poster addresses the following questions:
- How do school leaders, teachers in the KoBiddW function, employees of the municipal school boards, and employees of the regional school supervisory authorities assess their cooperation and their mutual relationship?
- What conditions for success and obstacles can be identified for cooperation between the actors?