This paper aims at advancing a research-based understanding of the role of context in school leadership practice. Contexts are essential to school leadership practice although there is a growing convergence towards generic views of school leadership within the educational or school leadership field (Hallinger, 2016). Typically, generic researchers defend the view that there exists a set of leadership practices that do not significantly change as contexts vary (Belcheitz & Leithwood, 2007; Hallinger, 2016; Leithwood et al, 2019). However, since school leadership is not realized in a social vacuum the generic practices need to be adapted or adjusted to different contexts if they are to be successful. Hallinger (2016, 6) argues that a next step for generic research is to develop an account of the diversity of contexts that school leaders encounter (see Braun et al, 2011; Brewer et al, 2020).

Contextualist researchers argue, in contrast, that school leadership practice is essentially context dependent and is likely to vary as contexts change (Den Hartog et al, 1999; Lakomski and Evers, 2022; Rönnström. 2025). Typically, contextualists object to leader centric premises inherent in generic research portraying school leaders as standing over and above the contexts they depend on. They object to the assumption that successful leadership can be explained with reference to dispositions, skills, practices or action plans belonging to individual leaders. School leaders, they argue, are deeply situated in a social reality they cannot bypass, control or escape in their practice (Lakomsky and Evers, 2022). Consequently, contextualists avoid leader centric premises but at the cost of depriving school leaders of the powers they need to raise above and take control over the contexts they depend on.

It is against this background the purpose of the paper is to explicate and advance the understanding of the role of context in school leadership practice and to address unresolved tensions between generic and contextualist views of context dependence. In order to capture the dynamics of leadership practice and the roles different context factors play in school leadership there is a need to move beyond leader centric, situated or structuralist views (Spillane et al, 2004; Diamond and Spillane, 2016), and, as Lakomsky and Evers (2022) argue, beyond assumptions of methodological individualism or collectivism still penetrating the research field. Moreover, there is a need to qualify and challenge the meaning of ‘adapting’ or ‘adjusting’ to contexts in generic views, and ‘situated’ and ‘context dependent’ in contextualist views. The paper is based on a three year-long study of and an ongoing collaboration with 50 Swedish principals and three local education authorities working in socio-economically challenged or structurally disadvantaged areas in a metropolitan area in Sweden. Principals situated in such areas are well suited for this research since no other category of principals in Sweden and Europe is expected to overcome disabling or inhibiting context factors for school success to the extent that principals in socio-economically challenges schools are (European Commision, 2022; Swedish School Inspectorate, 2023; Hirsh & Liljenberg, 2025).

The research questions addressed in the paper are:

1) In what ways do principals respond to, interact with and shape the context factors they depend on in order to build capacity for teaching and learning, change and external collaboration?

2) To what extent and in what ways do principals respond to, interact with and shape external

(outside school) and internal (inside school) context factors?

3) What context factors can be categorized as leadership enabling and leadership disabling?

4) How can the inferred research-based view of the role of context in school leadership address tensions between generic and contextualist views within the field of educational or school leadership?

This research departs from a capability approach to school leadership. Capabilities can be individual and organizational, that is, they capture both individual and collective agency in context. They can be ordinary and dynamic, and they capture what school leaders and school organization are able to do, what they actually do and what they are allowed and expected to do in different circumstances (Rönnström, 2022; Rönnström & Robertson, 2022; see also Pashiardis et al, 2021). The research has been carried out as part of a collaborative partnership between researchers at Stockholm University and three different school districts and local education authorities in the greater Stockholm metropolitan area. The collaborative partnership is designed as a learning network in which principals in socio-economically challenged schools located in structurally disadvantaged areas share experiences and learn the way forward in school leadership together. The purpose of the network partnership is to support school leadership in schools where it is needed the most, to enhance collaboration and learning among principals, and to boost leadership development. The purpose is also to generate knowledge about and for school leaders and school leadership in schools facing difficult challenges, in partnership with principals and local education authorities. In the network, two-day learning seminars, continuous group assignments and so called “deep learning days” are arranged every semester together with the principals. Researchers follow their work and they use documentation, surveys, group interviews and individual interviews in order to collect and analyse data and bring back reflections and results to the principals. The interviews are carried out with a critical incident approach. This particular paper builds on field notes from network seminars, twelve group interviews and six individual interviews in which the topics have been what principals do in their daily work in order to build up capacity for teaching and learning, capacity for change and improvement and capacity for external collaboration with agents important to the school and school leadership. The interviews were carried out and transcribed by four researchers. A thematic analysis was carried out by the author informed by recent developments in reflexive thematic analysis linked to the research questions 1-3 above (Byrne, 2022; see also Braun & Clarke, 2006).

The conclusions are presented in a preliminary form. Firstly, school leaders (eg. principals) respond to, interact with and shape context factors in numerous ways. Context responsiveness is not simply about adjusting leadership practices to context or layers of contexts. Context factors are heterogenous, uncountable and they work and take part in school leadership in many different ways. The impact of their interplay on school leadership are unique to different places. School leaders need to mobilize awareness of and manage their enabling, stabilizing, disabling and ecological effects. The paper highlights how successful schools leaders interact with and manage context factors essential to school leadership. Four (individual and organizational) interrelated capabilities essential to the interplay between context factors and leadership are distinguished (situational capability, ordinary capability, dynamic capability and external collaborative capability). Secondly, the principals build capacity for external collaboration and partnerships with key agents surrounding their schools. External work, partnerships and network leadership activities are linked to and essential for the inner life of schools, and the dynamic interplay between internal and external context factors turns out to be a key factor often neglected in policy and leadership practice. Thirdly, the paper suggests that some context factors are enabling for school leadership because of convergence among the participating principals. Leadership disabling and enabling context factors linked to external partnerships, school infrastructure and school culture are highlighted and although they are inferred from a limited study they are likely to have bearings on school leadership in European countries increasingly expecting school leaders to overcome the detrimental role that socio-economic and other context factors play in schools (European Commission, 2022). Finally, the paper suggests and explicate why it is important to understand the role of context beyond generic and contextualist proposals and to advance the understanding of the role of context in leadership.

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