About SOL

SOL (School Development, Organization & Leadership) is an interdisciplinary environment where researchers with a shared interest in various activities of schools gather. Schools operate in a changing world, which leads to new challenges, and they are constantly subjected to demands for change. How schools can meet the many demands for change is the focus within SOL. Students need to be motivated for studies, be prepared for further education, to be able to participate in a democratic society. This provide reasons for continuous reflection on how it can be done. Children, young people, and even adults are shaped by schools so that they can manage society and nature for sustainable development with good knowledge and a critical approach, and their perspectives are important for the development of schools.

Internal norms and value systems of schools have been found to be difficult to change. Sometimes, older solutions have persisted despite compelling arguments based on systematic didactic knowledge expansion. There is also a growing number of stakeholders examining schools without a deeper understanding of the complexity of schools and learning environments. It is in this context that the knowledge fields within SOL gain their value. For the development of teaching to take its place in enhancing the quality of internal school work, those who work within schools need to achieve agency to initiate, implement, and institutionalize school development. These skills have emerged and are gathered within school development research.

By utilizing theories based on interaction and complex systems, school development research can understand and explain the new dynamics that emerge among the stakeholders in the educational context. An important aspect is that the research takes place in collaboration with the actors in the school, where ethics and equity have their rightful place. Different levels of the system are subject to study – from national-level governance to school leaders, teachers, and students - as well as different forms of schooling – ranging from early childhood learning to adult education in varying degrees of organization. On our project page, you can find examples of ongoing and completed projects.