Ulf Blossing – författare

Hur kan det egentligen komma sig att det finns stora variationer i elevernas resultat mellan olika skolor? Varför är vissa skolor mer framgångsrika än andra?

Att organisera för skolframgång handlar om skolor som lokala organisationer och om hur verksamheten på en skola kan organiseras för att skapa goda förutsättningar för elevernas lärande.

I boken presenteras en jämförande studie mellan fyra framgångsrika och fyra icke framgångsrika skolor. Genom sitt urval ger studien en förståelse för vad som fungerar, vad som inte fungerar och varför.

Boken ger värdefulla insikter och perspektiv till lärare och rektorer som arbetar med att utveckla och förbättra verksamheten i skolan och lämnar ett viktigt bidrag till forskningen om skolframgång.

Författarna är verksamma vid institutionen för pedagogik och specialpedagogik vid Göteborgs universitet och har lång erfarenhet av arbete med lärar- och rektorsutbildning.

Att organisera för skolframgång är ett värdefullt och intressant bidrag inom skolförbättringsforskningen.

This book presents systematically six types of schools, with different improvement capacities. Different schools have different capacities for school improvement, depending on the school infrastructure, norms and routines for the improvement process, improvement roles, and improvement history. The organisation of the improvement capacity is understood on the basis of sensemaking processes among teachers and school leaders. The book focuses on the challenges for each type of school in their improvement work, and which situations and circumstances they need to take into account. The school types are illustrated with detailed descriptions of six schools, coming from an evaluation of a Norwegian school development program. The book fills a need in school organisations to have concrete illustrations from similar schools of how teacher teams are organised, how leadership is exercised and processes are organised in their efforts of improving the organisation and building a complex and effective capacity. Schools’ improvement capacity has become an important feature in school management and leadership as well as in research as western states have decentralised governance to the local level. The expectations on school leaders as well as on teachers are high when it comes to improve their schools to raise student outcome. Accounts of professional school cultures and professional learning communities often describe in an overall perspective the ideal school where such an improvement capacity is in work. However, accounts of the many ways of organising the capacity which perhaps are not all in all ideal or effective also contribute to the knowledge of the local school process.

This book presents a detailed analysis of the educational model in Nordic European countries. It describes the traditional idea of education for all, which can be characterized by the right for every child to have an education of equal quality in a common school for all pupils regardless of social class, abilities, gender, or ethnicity.  

Against this background, The Nordic Education Model traces the rise of neo-liberal policies that have been enacted by those who believe the School for All ideology does not produce the knowledge and skills that students need to succeed in an increasingly competitive and global marketplace. It examines the conflict between these two ideas and shows how neo-liberal technologies affect the Nordic model in different ways.

The authors also show how social technologies are being interpreted in different ways in actual school practices. This process of translating national regulations into internal sense builds on the values in the culture to which they are introduced.

In the end, this book reveals that a Nordic model can constitute a delicate balance between traditional values, institutionalized practices, and contemporary, neo-liberal forms of governance and policies. It may be argued from a new institutional perspective that the main structures of the Nordic educational model will sustain as long as the deeply rooted Nordic culture survives in the globalised society.