This paper critically examines how school principals understand and engage in change efforts related to norms and values essential for equitable and inclusive education. In recent years, school principals in Europe and beyond have been increasingly recognized as key agents in student achievement, teacher professional development, school improvement, and educational reform implementation (Grissom et al., 2021; Leithwood et al., 2019).

In many countries, the role of principals is largely framed through an economic discourse centered on goals, quality, efficiency, and results (Rönnström & Robertson, 2022). However, this narrow perspective fails to capture the complex realities faced by school leaders, who must navigate a broad range of tasks and challenges, including social order, gender equality, well-being, sustainability, school culture, democratic values, and inclusion.

Furthermore, European school principals are increasingly expected to build capacity for equity, holistic education, and inclusive schooling. They are also tasked with mitigating the impact of socioeconomic factors, responding responsibly to disadvantaged groups, and to address a variety of detrimental factors affecting the right to education for all without exception (see European Commission, 2022).

This situation calls for principals to address questions of norms and values in schools, and not only quality and results in a parochial sense (Rönnström & Robertson, 2022). In fact, there is need to generate knowledge about how school leaders address different norms and values operating in schools, and how they build capacity and strategy for change when actual norms and values interfere with promoted educational values such as equity and inclusion. Research highlights that school principals and other school leaders are important for the shaping of norms and values in schools, but also that they find it difficult to break out of bureaucratic and economic agendas defining their work (Rönnström, 2024). Principals regularly struggle with shaping and building school cultures in alignment with the tasks of schools, and their work often become reactive rather than proactive (Heikkilä 2023). Moreover, principals as change leaders often find it hard to address questions of norms and values although they are crucial for the inner life of schools. They find it difficult to analyze habits, structures and factors detrimental to equity and inclusion, and they find it even more difficult to mobilize school staff for new patterns of action when needed (Amundsdotter 2009, Brüde Sundin 2007, Amundsdotter & Andersson 2012).

It is against this background this paper aims at generating knowledge of how school leaders understand and participate in change work related to norms of values important to equitable education. There is a need to generate knowledge about leadership for change in schools related to norms and values since attitudes and culture are simultaneously necessary and difficult to address in leadership for change (Robertson, 2016). We draw on theories and frameworks of transformative leadership (Shields, 2017), leadership capacity for change (Stoll, 2009; Stoll & Kools, 2016; Rönnström, 2022) and norm criticism (Kumashiro 2002; Ahmed, 2012). The research questions are:

RQ1. What are the norms and values school leaders address in their change work, and how do they articulate their reasons or grounds for needed change?

RQ 2. What change agents do school leaders activate in the change work, and how do they mobilize resources and build up support structures for change in their change work?

RQ 3. What do school leaders find challenging in leading change work, and what do they perceive as enabling and disabling circumstances?

The study involves a group of approximately 25 principals from different educational levels, including preschool, elementary school, and high school. Using an interactive research approach (Aagaard Nielsen & Svensson, 2006), practitioners and researchers collaborate to generate knowledge about which norms and values principals consider most relevant for their change efforts. Through interactive processes, the principals engage in reflective exploration to make school norms and values visible. This involves identifying and analyzing existing norms, formulating a change agenda, and developing strategies for change. This is achieved through writing, oral presentations, and written documentation of the principals’ local studies. The principals visit each other’s schools and collaborate to identify and develop strategies within their practice. They conduct local studies, including observations and interviews for example. Their observations are documented and presented in joint knowledge processes in the group with the researchers. The participants' choices of change initiatives are sorted and categorized into themes. Subsequently, an analysis is conducted on the mobilization processes they choose to employ. The empirical data consists of field notes from a total of eight full-day group meetings, principals' written reflections on their change efforts, as well as written and oral presentations on various stages of their change processes.

Several of the principals were keen to work with children and pupils as change agents, with the intention of increasing participation and promoting democratic values among them. A principal at a preschool aimed to develop how educators worked with democratic values for young children. Several of the principals gained new insights through the interactive processes and made gender-based norms visible—norms that hindered gender equality. This led several of them to decide to work with gender equality as a theme in their change efforts. Several principals worked on creating spaces for reflection and learning among their staff while also striving to be visible change leaders with clear communication. Many principals practiced understanding and testing different types of mobilization processes within their contexts—an approach that was unfamiliar to several of them. The principals also developed perspectives on addressing resistance and seeing themselves as change leaders, where key competencies included effectively communicating and mobilizing their staff for change. Some of the principals struggled to sort out what was the cause of a problem and what could be seen as symptoms. Some of the principals challenged their own resistance and fear of causing conflicts by adressing norms and values that needed to be visible and changed.

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