When top-down planned reforms meet educated and independent professionals in Norwegian schools
Master thesis
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http://hdl.handle.net/11250/184636Utgivelsesdato
2010Metadata
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Sammendrag
Presented here is a qualitative study of what happens when top-down planned reforms meet
educated and independent professionals in Norwegian schools. The Kunnskapsløft in Norwegian
primary schools is used as an example of such a reform/strategy, with the sampled participants
(teachers and principals) for personal interviews representing five different schools from the
municipality of Sandnes. The study is based on the theoretical viewpoints of Mintzberg, viewing
primary schools as compliant with Mintzberg´s configuration of professional organisations, in
which professional behaviour is guided by standardised skills, and decisions are made in a threelayer
model with regards to strategic behaviour. Mintzberg further views strategy as emergent
bottom-up patterns of action, in which the workers in professional organisations and their
knowledge and skills largely influences their behavioural patterns and thereby the strategy. Due to
this proposed influence of the workers, I question the usefulness and actual implementations of topdown
strategies such as reforms. I therefore expect a discrepancy between the formulated reform
and the behaviour of the operating core, different working strategies between schools as a result of
different operating cores, and possible redefinitions of existing behaviour to comply with the
Kunnskapsløft, in order to allow for continuing the existing working strategy as based on
professional skills and knowledge, while not being interrupted by top-down demands. Results
support all of the hypotheses, suggesting considerable influence of the professionals on strategy,
and that top-down strategies may not be appropriate for professional organisations.
Beskrivelse
Master's thesis in Change management