For several decades, government authorities and practitioners in many countries, including Norway, have focused strongly on the prevention and restore of bullying (Olweus, 2004; Stephens, 2011). Nevertheless, the number of Norwegian students who report that they have been subjected to offensive words or acts seems to be relatively stable over the years (Wendelberg, 2017). Therefore, Norwegian students’ rights to a safe psychosocial environment, articulated in chapter 9a in the Norwegian Education Act, has been strengthen in 2017. The new law includes descriptions that are more detailed how to redress a safe psychosocial environment. This increases the pressure on principals, who are responsible for implementing measures and restore a safe school environment.

 On this background, three research questions are formulated: 1. How do principals interpret and translate the new law into school practices in 9a-cases? 2. How do they construct andlegitimise their practice? 3. What kind of dilemmas and tensions do they experience when they try to restore a safe psychosocial environment?

 The theoretical framework is connected to Evetts’ (2009, 2010) distinction between two ideal types of professionalism in knowledge-based work in the public sector: occupational and organisational professionalism. The former denotes professionalism as an occupational value; that is, work is controlled by professionals and based on their discretion. Organisational professionalism, on the other hand, is characterised by standardised work procedures and practices that are closely linked to organisational objectives, external forms of regulation and accountability measures (Evetts, 2009). However, occupational and organisational professionalism need not to be mutually exclusive. While organisational control may affect professional work, exactly how this changes occupational values and the space for professionals’ discretion is an unsettled question after the implementation of the new law, depending on local organisational work contexts and the principals’ perceptions of legal regulations.

 International studies on changes in professionalism in schools have indicated increased external pressure from national and local governments (Evetts, 2009; Grace, 2014; Ozga, 2000; Sachs, 2001). New public management (NPM) regimes is about public sector becoming more efficient and effective. While management discourses continue to emphasise professionals’ empowerment, autonomy and discretion, professionals in schools are increasingly held accountable for adhering to regulation in law. Earlier studies have explored how institutional regulative pressure impacts work in public schools (see, e.g. Coburn, 2004; Lundström, 2015; Spillane et al., 2011) and demonstrated tensions between external and internal accountability. Discretion is described as a hallmark of professional work. Professional discretion rests on trust in the ability of certain occupational groups to make sound decisions ‘on behalf’ of social authorities. It has been suggested that in Europe, managerialist-influenced policies with increased focus on control and accountability have placed pressure on professional discretion. In welfare states, processes of juridification have been identified, indicating more detailed legal regulation and a tendency to frame emerging problems or conflicts in legal terms (Magnussen and Nilssen, 2013). A recent research in a Norwegian context, called ‘Legal standards and Professional Judgement in Educational Leadership’ have highlighted how rational–legal forms of authority are key aspects in the regulation of education, and how professionals handle legal standards in their practices (Andenæs & Møller, 2016; Ottesen & Møller, 2016; Møller & Karseth, 2016). My project builds on this and wants to understand the interplay between legal standards and professional discretion in schools after implementation of the new law, when students’ rights are strengthened. It is important to unpack the way that legal norms are translated into social practices, how principals legitimise their work in schools and what kind of challenges and dilemmas the new law brings. After recent changes in the law, we know little about how principals’ experiences more juridification in their work as school leader.

Based on individual in-depth interviews with 18 principals in Norwegian compulsory schools (grades 1-10), the study examines how legal standards are translated into school practices, how principals construct and legitimise their work, and what kind of dilemmas and tensions they experience. The analysis is based on school leaders’ stories of their experiences with cases related to the Education Act chapter 9 A, and how local practices in terms of the interactions among school staff, students, and parents emerge and are constituted within organisational and professional work contexts. The schools are in 7 different counties and 16 different municipalities. The selection of schools was purposive: the principals invited to participate had all been through the National Principal Program and had recent experience with challenging and long-lasting 9 A-cases. To ensure diversity in context and background I invited schools from different geographical regions (east, west and south in Norway), different school size, including schools from both cities and countryside, and principals in different ages. I used a semi-structured interview guide and conducted and audio-recorded all individual interviews in locations chosen by the informants. Most interviews lasted approximately 90 minutes. I had my interviews transcribed, and independently analysed the transcripts aiming to identify emergent themes. I used NVivo software as a tool in this process. The procedure enabled me to combine inductive and deductive approaches for the data analysis (Eisner, 1991). First, I performed an inductive analysis, in which I identified chunks of data where the principals talked about measure to restore the psychosocial environment and organised the data according to emergent categories. In the second step, I identified the principals’ interpretations of the legal regulation as stated in Chapter 9 A of the Education Act. I also analysed how organisational and occupational professionalism emerged as conflicting and/or consonant aspects of their interpretations. This helped me to explore the discretionary space within which professional practice was enacted.

Expected findings are: 1) Similar measures to uncover and investigate degrading treatment; specific focus in observations, surveys by socio-gram, interviews with students. Measures to restore the school environment: "stop-talks" (meetings) with students and their parents, extra supervision in recess, isolating students from the rest of the group and school shift. Still, the study reveals many difficulties in restoring work and cases with large complexity, including a) former victims of bullying, b) students with interaction difficulties, c) anxious/sensitive students, d) students with challenging behaviors, e) students who experience offense by teachers. 2) The principals legitimize their measures with support and advice (from both within and outside the school), by evidence-based theory, earlier experiences, their own values, courage and professional discretion (especially when breaking law). 3) Dilemmas are: a. Balancing the rights of one single student vs the rights for the rest of the students in the class b. When staff cannot identify bullying, but the parents think there is and require detailed actions to specific students or staff members. c. Parents lose confidence in the school and go to the county governor, who impose the school to put certain measures into place, measures the principal must carry out but does not believe in and want according to his/her professional knowledge and belief. d. To support both the teacher accused for offense and the student/parents claiming that infringement has been committed e. The Educational Act emphasizes the individual student’s perspective, but weakens at the same time the teachers-, principal-, and other students’ rights.

Andenæs, K. & Møller, J. (red.)(2016). Retten i skolen - mellom pedagogikk, juss og politikk. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. Coburn, C.E. (2004). Beyond decoupling: Rethinking the relationship between the institutional environment and the classroom. Sociology of Education 77: 211–244. Eisner, E.W. (1991). The Enlightened Eye: Qualitative Inquiry and the Enhancement of Educational Practice. New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Company. Evetts, J. (2009). New professionalism and new public mangagement: Changes, continuities and consequences. Comparative Sociologi 8(2), 247-266. Evetts, J. (2010). Reconnecting professional occupations with professional organizations: Risks and opportunities. In: L.G. Svensson and J. Evetts (eds). Sociology of Professions. Continental and Anglo-Saxon Traditions, pp. 123–144. Gothenborg: Bokförlaget Daidalos. Grace, G. (2014). Professions, sacred and profane. Reflections upon the changing nature of professionalism. In: M. Young, and J. Muller (eds). Knowledge, Expertise and the Professions. London: Routledge, pp. 18–30. Hood, C. (1991). A public management for all seasons? Public Administration, 69: 3–19. Lundström, U. (2015). Teacher autonomy in the era of New Public Management. Nordic Journal of Studies in Educational Policy 1: 73–85. Magnussen, A.-M. and Nilssen, E. (2013). Juridification and the construction of social citizenship. Journal of Law and Society 40: 228–248. Møller, J. & Karseth, B. (2016). Profesjonell skjønnsutøvelse og kravet til tilpasset opplæring. I: K. Andenæs & J. Møller (red.), Retten i skolen – mellom pedagogikk, juss og politikk. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget. s. 199–215. Olweus, D. (2004). The Olweus Bullying Prevention Programme: Design and implementation issues and a new national initiative in Norway. In: Smith, P.K., Pepler, D. and Rigby, K. (eds). Bullying in Schools: How Successful Can Interventions Be? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 13–36. Ottesen, E. & Møller, J. (2016). Organisational routines – the interplay of legal standards and professional discretion. European Educational Research Journal, 15(4), 428–446. Ozga, J. (2000). Policy Research in Educational Settings: Contested Terrain. Buckingham: Open University Press. Sachs, J. (2001). Teacher professional identity: Competing discourses, competing outcomes. Journal of Educational Policy 16: 149–161. Spillane, J.P., Parise, L.M. and Sherer, J.Z. (2011). Organizational routines as coupling mechanisms policy, school administration, and the technical core. American Educational Research Journal 48: 586–619. Stephens, P. (2011). Preventing and confronting school bullying: a comparative study of two national programmes in Norway. British Educational Research Journal 37: 381–404. Wendelberg, C. (2017). Mobbing og arbeidsro i skolen: analyse av Elevundersøkelsen i skoleåret 2016/2017 [Bullying in school: analycing of findings in the pupils’ survey in school year 2016/2017]. Trondheim: NTNU Samfunnsforskning.