DOI: 10.30828/real.1955644 ISSN: 2564-7261

Navigating the ‘Prospective Principal Phase’ in Sweden: Forming an Ambivalent Voice of Leadership Ambition

Stina Jerdborg
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Personal motivation and readiness, professional and organisational factors, and the ability to navigate a landscape of limitations and possibilities are important for prospective principals. This study explores how individuals navigate the ‘prospective principal phase’ and orient themselves towards principalship while participating in pre-service preparation. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 20 prospective principals in Sweden. The findings show that their navigation occurs in three stages, as they modify their role understanding through professional socialisation and form a leadership voice through personal socialisation. However, this voice shows signs of ambivalence as they engage with how to navigate the educational organisational landscape. Being institutionalised as outsiders in this landscape, they search for cracks in the boundaries of principalship through which to slip. Socialising only with other outsiders in the prospective principal phase was found to reinforce their outsider position rather than support the development of a school leader identity.

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