The evaluation trend in the global education field implies new professional challenges for school principals. The purpose of this article is to describe and analyse Swedish school principals' experiences of prevailing evaluations and the implications for the profession. Specifically, we examine: a) how principals respond to evaluations and their…

This paper explores the use, functions and constitutive effects of evaluation systems in local school governance, and identifies how contextual factors affect various uses of evaluation in this context. This case study of three Swedish municipalities demonstrates that local evaluation systems are set up to effectively sustain local school…

Sweden has commonly been regarded as a striking example of a social democratic welfare-state regime (Esping-Andersen 1996), characterized by strong state governance and active involvement in welfare matters. In the last two decades, however, the Swedish public sector and education system have been radically and extensively transformed in a…

The Swedish education system has undergone major restructuring since the early 1990s. The new policy, including e.g. decentralisation, accountability, school choice and a tax-funded voucher system, has led to an expanding "school market". This article explores how upper secondary school principals perceive the increased competition among…