Organising and Managing Quality and Improvement Work in Local Education Authorities
Short description
Starting from the premise that the local school-provider level remains relatively unexplored, this project aims to develop knowledge about how local education authorities (LEAs) organise and manage quality and improvement work. Adopting an exploratory approach, the project aims to develop knowledge about how LEAs organize and manage quality and improvement work, the officers involved in this work, how principals perceive the activities and processes that they are expected to take part in and carry out and how the relationship between LEAs’ quality and improvement work and the needs of local schools can be described in terms of trust and control.
The project is framed by neo-institutional theory and designed as a comparative case study of six municipalities. The selection is based on municipality size, geographical location, and municipal category according to the classification used by the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions (SALAR).
The project seeks to contribute to the development of knowledge about the relationship between the LEA level and the needs of local schools. From a societal perspective, it is highly relevant that school providers are able to address identified shortcomings in school quality. The project is important because evaluations indicate considerable variation in school providers’ capacity to conduct quality and improvement work. As previous research and national evaluations have shown, close connections between the different levels of the school governance chain are a crucial factor in successful schools. This study — which examines the organisation that bridges national directives and local school units — can therefore make an important contribution.
Participating researchers
Mette Liljenberg (project leader), Department of Education and Special Education
Katarina Samuelsson, Department of Education and Special Education
Klas Andersson, Department of Pedagogical, Curricular and Professional Studies
Publications
Liljenberg, M., & Andersson, K. (2023). Recognizing LEA Officials’ Translator Competences When Implementing New Policy Directives for Documentation of Schools’ Systematic Quality Work. Leadership and Policy in Schools, 23(3), 697–710. https://doi.org/10.1080/15700763.2023.2206882
Liljenberg, M. (2025). Soft governance and notions of accountability: illuminating local education authority practices in systematic quality work. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/00313831.2025.2516443
Liljenberg M, Samuelsson K (2025;), "Contradictory policy demands – perspectives on educational leaders’ shared responsibility for educational improvement". International Journal of Educational Management, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJEM-09-2024-0582