School principal re-positioning in a system of professional relations: the case of newly appointed principals in Sweden

ABSTRACT International research has focused on changing the criteria for being considered a successful school leader. Principals’ recent professionalisation project, accelerated through education within the framing of New Public Management, might engender a role in conflict with teacher roles and needs further focus. This empirical study approaches newly appointed principals in how they experience their role and relate to other school professionals in an attempt to explicate historical traces of principals’ positioning. The findings revealed principals’ social contract to be resilient across time as their position within a system of relations changed. In practice, this meant becoming marginalised in attempts to fulfil their social contract. Embracing the position as a social agent of the teachers made new alliances possible. Principals’ professional project is understood as linked to a system of relations and principals’ role-taking over time, providing an analytical generalisation of how a ‘war of position’ might function concerning school professionals.


Introduction
International research has focused on changing criteria for being considered a successful school leader during recent decades (e.g.Day and Leithwood 2007;Huber 2010).Scholars have argued that increased public accountability influences demands and expands the roles of principals across nations based on neoliberal market approaches (e.g.Yilimaki and Jacobson 2013).Sweden is often described as a formidable example of applying market economy thinking to education (Blossing 2022;Lundahl 2002), and is therefore an interesting context of study.Thus far, little is known about the challenges and consequences posed by this changing governance for newly appointed principals in Sweden in their daily work and in their professional relations (Brauckmann, Pashiardis, and Ärlestig 2023).That is, the relationship between system reforms and school leadership has not been fully explored (Pashiardis and Brauckmann 2019;Stone-Johnson and Weiner 2022).
CONTACT Stina Jerdborg stina.jerdborg@ped.gu.seDepartment of Education and Special Education, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden In Sweden, the role of the principal has changed from being responsible for stability in a highly state-regulated school to leading processes of change and being accountable for student results in a decentralised and market-oriented school system (e.g.Brauckmann, Pashiardis, and Ärlestig 2023;Höög, Johansson, and Olofsson 2009).However, a recent tendency towards re-centralisation is now prominent in Sweden (Blossing 2022).Moreover, Nordholm and Andersson (2019) pointed out that newly appointed principals in Sweden tend to question market-oriented logics and instead favour state regulation and governance.
Within this sort of changing educational landscape, Moos et al. (2011) showed the importance of school principals' values and pathos linked to capacity building for teaching and learning.Furthermore, in the international school leadership literature, school leadership is often highlighted as highly relational, in that leadership and capacity building among professionals operate as mutual-influence processes (e.g.Hallinger 2018).Within such a framing, school leadership is of particular interest because of its inherent political and ideological nature-that is, that school leadership is practical, normative, and politically defined (Bøje et al. 2022;Uljens et al. 2013).However, values and professional roles (expressed through professional ethos) are affected by changes in governance, as is also the case with relations between professionals (cf.Ahlström and Danell 2019).Consequently, further focus on how new principals in Sweden experience and give prominence to values as they relate to other professionals would be of great value, not merely to increase national knowledge but also concerning the international body of research, because 'there still appears to be a need to expand understanding of how professionals experience large-scale reform over time and how it impringes on their decisionmaking, especially when it comes to principals' (Nordholm, Wermke, and Jarl 2022, 3).
In this light, this study approaches newly appointed principals in Sweden in how they experience and attempt to create values in their leadership role and what that means for how they relate to closely related professionals and other stakeholders.As this study assumes that professional groups in schools have bonded over time in a historically dynamic process, it explores how such a process continues to take place through professionals' actions in schools' everyday practices.The focus is on newly appointed principals as they attempt to grasp their school leader role while taking part in leadership practices and school leader education during their last year of three in the speciality training programme for principals, the national principal training programme (NPTP).Newly appointed principals in Sweden are obligated to complete this programme; however, their novelty as principals can be of diverse degrees, as some principals have extensive experience as assistant principals, while others are completely new in their roles (Jerdborg 2022).This study approaches how they take on the responsibilities entailed in principalship, regardless of their degree of novelty.Consequently, how newly appointed principals in Sweden understand and attempt to make sense of their roles in creating positions and values in their leadership is explored.This aim is addressed by the following research questions: 1) How do socio-historical traces of principals' role over time influence principals' role-taking in the contemporary school?2) How do new principals understand and make sense of their roles and relationships with school professionals in the contemporary school?
Further, this study presents and explores a theoretical framework based on Gramsci (1971) for investigating principals' positioning in a system of relations with the intention of contributing to the research field of school leadership.The basis of this study is the principal position as is regulated in governing documents.How new principals understand and take on their duties within such a position is termed role-taking.The theoretical framing helps focus on principals' role-taking within a societal system of relations (Gramsci 1971), in which professional relationships are considered mutually influential, dictating what role-taking becomes possible.This process is termed positioning in this study.The article is structured as follows: First, the research supporting the themes briefly introduced above will be further elaborated and contextualised.Moreover, the Swedish educational context and what that means for being a newly appointed principal in Sweden are further contextualised.Then, the theoretical and conceptual underpinnings are outlined, and the methods are described.Thereafter, a historical framing based on the theoretical underpinnings is introduced and presented in terms of historicising the Swedish case together with a display matrix.This is followed by the results of the study, ending with a discussion of the studied case situated in the context of previous research.

Roles, values, and relations in changing times
Political initiatives inspired by New Public Management (NPM) have reoriented the governance of schools, both in Sweden and internationally, highlighting the leader's role as very important.Such initiatives have meant that schools need to be concerned with educational decisions as well as account for their results (Lundahl 2002;Peruzzo et al. 2022;Yilimaki and Jacobson 2013).Whereas Ackroyd, Kirkpatrick, and Walker (2007) found that NPM reforms have not influenced professional values and institutions to any large extent in the United Kingdom, in Scandinavia, welfarist professionals were found to experience pressure, making them defensive and struggling to maintain historic notions of professionalism (Brante 2015).Aili and Hjort (2010) showed that Scandinavian welfarist professionals have developed a competence of prioritising, using a diversity of values, such as professional values, bureaucracy, and market-oriented values.Several researchers have confirmed that conditions for teachers and principals have changed, such that trust in professional assessments has been replaced by document-based control and management (e.g.Moos et al. 2011).Peruzzo and colleagues (2022) found NPM-inspired politics to profoundly change regulative mechanisms that govern schools and professionals, their autonomy and interdependence, their responsibilities, and the possibilities for collective action.This influences relationships in schools, eroding trust and localising as well as individualising power struggles.
Against this backdrop, it seems important to further explore how newly appointed principals in Sweden experience and attempt to create values in their leadership role, and what that means for how they relate to other professionals in their everyday practices, in connection to the changing educational landscape over time.In Sweden, the school system has long been highly centralised.In the early 1990s, decentralisation reforms were initially implemented with goal management in focus rather than result steering, as was the case in other countries (Lundahl 2002).However, later, Sweden turned to an approach of result steering and recentralisation (Blossing 2022;Yilimaki and Jacobson 2013).Exploring the results of NPTP examinations, Nordholm and Andersson (2019) found that new principals in Sweden had difficulties describing what the large-scale reforms of centralisation, decentralisation, state regulation, and market orientation had meant and that their descriptions of the school system of today and its intentions were quite blurred.Ahlström and Danell (2019) investigated how principals in the NPTP handled recent reforms implemented by the government directed directly towards teachers, bypassing the principals' decision-making.They found that these reforms challenged professional relationships between principals and teachers, influencing their collaboration and shaping tensions in daily work.Taken together, this implies that changing demands and governance over time have created confusion among school professionals and what their role-taking should include.
Professional relationships in Sweden have long been based on regarding principals as part of the teaching profession.Teachers have been organised in teacher teams to promote creativity, egalitarianism, democratic values, and student learning, based on the idea that the task of educating and fostering youth is a collective task for principals and teachers in Sweden (Ahlström and Danell 2019).However, Jarl, Fredriksson, and Persson (2012) concluded that principals gradually separated from teachers due to 'being leaders of public education'.Jarl (2018) found that some principals nowadays identify with the superior level in the school system rather than as colleagues of the teachers.According to Jarl (2018), this means gaining legitimacy from managing a political mandate, and being separate from teachers becomes a merit.Thus, the relationship between principal and teachers is affected by the principal's managerial role, which evolved through changes in governance (Jarl 2018;Persson, Andersson, and Nilsson Lindström 2005).Yet, Nordholm, Wermke, and Jarl (2022) found only a minor degree of conflict in Swedish schools during the accountability era, according to the surveys of Swedish principals in 2005, 2012, and 2019 that they analysed.However, what principals define as conflicts in these surveys is unclear, and principals might not have reported on possible tensions.Thus, we lack valuable insights into how the influences of professional relationships are experienced in everyday practices, highlighting the prominent need to explore governance in terms of relationships (cf.Ahlström and Danell 2019;Nordholm, Wermke, and Jarl 2022).
Internationally, school principals' work in the NPM era is generally characterised by both increased autonomy and increased accountability (Keddie 2015).Several researchers have found that NPM reforms result in a de-professionalisation of principals and teachers (e.g.Peruzzo et al. 2022).For principals, this means that their work is assessed using non-professional criteriathat is, the criteria for other professions (Bøje et al. 2022).Nordholm, Wermke, and Jarl (2022) recently confirmed that Swedish principals' autonomy is restricted by administrative and financial tasks, while Nihlfors (2010) pointed to a lack of qualified professional support functions that would allow principals enough time for leadership enactment.Overall, scholars have argued that NPM enhances the professional status of managers, and even functions as a catalyst for their professional projects, as they tend to get legitimised through a separation from the teacher profession (Murphy et al. 2016).Swedish principals have been presented as an exemplary example of this outcome (Jarl, Fredriksson, and Persson 2012).In line with this separation, principals have just recently been termed an emerging profession (Bøje et al. 2022;Stone-Johnson and Weiner 2022).Furthermore, formalised school leader education is argued to support principals' professional projects in a general sense (Bøje et al. 2022;Jarl, Fredriksson, and Persson 2012).However, Uljens et al. (2013) concluded that principal professionalisation projects through education within the framing of NPM might engender a role that is in conflict with teacher roles, at least in the Nordic setting.Moreover, Bøje et al. (2022) addressed potential disadvantages of a Nordic principal professionalisation project through education, namely that principals might develop a 'secret language' and grandiose ideas of managing schools by themselves, forgetting about their backgrounds as teachers and the collective societal purposes of schools.However, this statement needs further empirical exploration, not least in the case of Sweden.

Becoming a principal in Sweden
In Sweden, the appointment of principals is made by municipalities and boards of independent schools.The principal assignment is, however, formally regulated by national governing documents.In the past decade, the Swedish government has focused on principal training in terms of the NPTP.The NPTP was made mandatory in 2010, and all newly appointed principals are to begin the training within one year of taking up their first principal position (Jerdborg 2022).Assistant principals are not obligated to complete the programme, although they are approved and can choose to do so.This means that several school leader functions meet in the NPTP.Most participants in the NPTP are new in their role while attending the programme.However, some participants might even have extensive experience as assistant principals or similar roles when entering the NPTP.Jarl and Rönnberg (2015) argued that the NPTP reinforces the view of the principal as a state representative with responsibility for results and goal fulfilment.In Sweden, this part of a principal's assignment is often discussed in terms of pedagogical leadership.How pedagogical leadership is to be enacted is yet open to interpretation (e.g.Ståhlkrantz 2019).In Ärlestig and Törnsén's (2014) view, this means focusing on core processes, results, and perquisites regarding teaching and learning.Principals in Sweden often state that administrative tasks take time from and hinder their pedagogical leadership work (Leo 2015;Swedish National Agency for Education 2011;SOU 2013:30).However, several researchers indicate that the role of pedagogical leader appears to be difficult for principals to realise within the Swedish school system (Jarl 2012;Jerdborg 2023;Leo 2015).This study seeks an alternative theoretical framework for investigating these issues.

Theoretical frame
Parsons (1991) stated that professionals are important for the maintenance and reproduction of societal norms and values.This highlights the 'social contract' that professional groups have with society (Parsons 1991).Parsons (1939Parsons ( , 1991) ) meant that professionals' altruism reflected the values of society, expressed through their professional ethos, and mediated through their action.Consequently, the newly appointed principals' ethos is an important aspect to identify in the study.Focusing on principals' societal roles also means focusing on how they relate to stakeholders and closely related professional groups, such as teachers and superiors.
One way to approach relations between societal values and norms and professional groups is to consider school professionals, such as principals and teachers, as professional intellectuals handling stable, transmissible knowledge and societal norms, representing information they are trained to pass along (Gramsci 1971;Tickle 2001).Gramsci (1971) concluded that intellectuals have important social functions within prevailing hegemonies.Conflict between groups is about confrontations between different worldviews through ideological struggles.This means that the social contract include governance through hegemony, spreading to all parts of society through socialisation and social institutions, becoming implicit in people's consciousness as 'common sense' (Salamini 1974;Maisuria 2016).In this study, it is important to investigate how the social contract is experienced by principals and how they interpret that their social contract coincides with or differs from the social contract of teachers.Gramsci's theorisations of intellectuals have been widely used to describe social development and relationships between groups, democratic processes, and hegemony, relationships in educational settings, and educational systems formation (e.g.Choi Tse 2007; Elliott 2003;Peruzzo et al. 2022;Tickle 2001).Gramsci (1971) classified traditional intellectuals as either purely intellectual, that is, those that create ideology, or practically oriented intellectuals, that is, those closer to practice.Principals could be termed practically oriented within such terminology, while principal educators could be termed purely intellectuals.Groups of traditional intellectuals (i.e. even if practically oriented or purely intellectual) claim to be free of class, represent the common good, general knowledge, generally good language, and good taste while being linked to a historical continuity of intellectuals forming their own 'class' (Levinson 2001).Teachers are usually seen as such a group (Ramos 1982;Tickle 2001;Olsaretti 2014).In addition, vertically oriented intellectuals, classified as specialists, organise, and manage activities in society (Olsaretti 2014).Gramsci (1971) was specifically interested in the mechanisms that created and organised relationships between social groups and how their relationships are maintained or changed over time.Thus, changing relationships over time within the school system between principals and teachers are important dynamics to identify in this study.The dominance of one group is about which worldview should prevail.Therefore, any change must be preceded by cultural and intellectual reformations that can lead to the transformation of people's consciousness.Consequently, counter-hegemonies may rise from 'the sphere of production' (i.e. in this study, school practice), becoming absorbed and incorporated into hegemony through a 'war of position' (i.e.changing positioning within the school system) (Maisuria 2016).An important focus is, therefore, which counter-hegemonies are engaged in by principals and teachers (cf.Olsaretti 2014).Gramsci (1971) stated that social change is dependent on a peripheral 'feeling that' coming forward, challenging the dominant hegemony.That is, hegemony becomes a blend of different groups' interests, interacting into a unified ideological system-a hegemonic principle (Ramos 1982).To organise the knowledge and feeling from the periphery, representing those standing outside the dominant elite and creating a counter-hegemony is a task for organic intellectuals (Parker 2000;Elliott 2003).That is, each fundamental class creates its own organic intellectuals, acting as social agents with the task of formulating an articulating principle (Ramos 1982).Organic intellectuals are closer to economic functions and can create unity for the class they represent, giving awareness of its function and value in society (Olsaretti 2014).Historical events can be used within this process, thus becoming a tool for action and change (Salamini 1974).Whether the principals in the study take a position as organic intellectuals or if they, as a class, shape their own organic intellectuals is thus an important aspect to identify.

Methods and data
The study used a qualitative design and took a practice perspective approach, zooming in on principals' everyday practice concerning making sense of their role (Nicolini 2013;Salamini 1974), drawing on Gramsci's (1971) theoretical constructs.Moreover, the design involves zooming out to explore professionals' positions in historically conditioned contexts.Accordingly, it focuses on the lived reality of the moment and the continuous struggle at the socio-cultural societal level, as well as social transformational strategies and consciousness (Maisuria 2016).Thus, the study explored new principals encountering a history of positioning of principalship through working in contemporary principal's practice and participating in principal education in terms of the NPTP.The 14 principals in the study all worked in a compulsory school while taking their third and final year of coursework during the 2018-2019 school year.The coursework was attended in three different university settings and course groups using a methodology of comparable case selection: a selection of sites, groups, and individuals on the same characteristics over time and place, that is, a replication strategy (Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña 2014).The sampling frame for the selection of principals was made to represent the average compulsory school principal (or as close as possible, as the three selected course groups limited the possibilities): an even distribution between grades, 80% municipal schools and 20% independent schools, two-thirds women, and one-third men.The participant background variables can be found in Table 1.
Data were collected through semi-structured individual interviews with principals, first in their educational setting and later in their workplace setting.In addition, they were interviewed in groups in their respective educational settings.Moreover, a few of their teachers were interviewed in schools.The interviews, which lasted 60-100 min (shorter in the case of teacher interviews), were semi-structured, digitally recorded, and transcribed verbatim.In interviews with principals, the interviewees used Post-it notes to list topics of their work and illustrate their priorities and relations by sorting the notes, as well as unfolding their thinking and acting in relation to these specified areas of work.Interview protocols from the 31 interviews with principals (i.e.28 individual interviews and three group interviews) served as the main data for this study, and were further analysed.As secondary data to the interviews, the principals were shadowed (i.e.followed on the move) during a workday, and their course group in the NPTP were observed (lectures and group conversations) during their engagement in the third course year.Group conversations were observed in full by the researcher, who took a 'passive' role.All observations were recorded into protocols of five themes: situation, content, tools, instruction, and engagement.Even though their main function was to contextualise principals' views and utterances, the observations also added to the methodological design in terms of triangulation.The observations were important for gaining an understanding of the relationships between principals and teachers in schools-that is, how the principals are encountered by teachers while moving around the school site might give clues to their professional relations.Thus, these observations served as a base for the teacher interviews, together with the interview guide.The teacher interviews and the principal observations in education and work served as important secondary data for the study, broadening the understanding of their respective situations and contextualising work relationships.This extensive reading provided verifying information for the principals' views.Neither the teacher interview protocols nor the observation protocols were specifically used in the analysis process described in this study.The principals and schools in the study are further contextualised in Table 2.
To enable the exploration of newly appointed principals' professional roles in historically conditioned contexts, a historical framing based on the theoretical underpinnings of the study was constructed by drawing conclusions from a limited literature review.A selection of the literature was made based on the aim of the study: framing principals in the Swedish education system over time.This condensation is used as a framework for conducting the empirical analyses and is not intended to be a focused literature review study.

Analyses
The analytical framework was constructed based on Gramsci's (1971) theoretical constructs of war of position, hegemony, and counter hegemony in relation to a system of relations between different societally important groups of intellectuals, as described in the theoretical section.This is considered an abductive analysis (Levin-Rozalis 2010).
The analyses followed a structured process of (1) condensation, (2) display, and (3) conclusion (Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña 2014).This was carried out in relation to the history of principalship in Sweden.This structured process was later carried out in relation to the empirical data.Condensation refers to the focusing and selection process of making data strong and solid, while display refers to organising and compressing data into overview modes, such as a matrix, model, or table (Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña 2014).Conclusion refers to constructing an in-depth illustration or thick description (Tracy 2010) to explicate and account for the conclusion from findings, for example, through constructing narratives.
In reviewing the literature on the history of principalship and the reform of the school system in Sweden, the literature was framed by the theoretical underpinnings of the study.This is detailed in the next section, 'A historical framing based on the theoretical underpinnings', which resulted in a joint framework (Table 4) serving as a reference to the empirical study.The focus was on educational reform and the dynamics of changing professional relationships and reformation of professional roles over time (cf.Gramsci 1971).The constructs of intellectual groups in terms of traditional intellectuals, vertically oriented intellectuals (specialists), and organic intellectuals, as well as dominant views, counter-hegemony, ideological struggle, and war of position (Gramsci 1971), were used as criteria.The intellectual groups were operationalised into aspects.For traditional intellectuals, aspects such as representing the common good and representing responsibility for values such as 'a school for all' while linking/belonging to historical continuity to an intellectual/occupational group.For specialists, aspects refer to representing specialised functions of managing education for the sake of society in terms of administering, taking control of budgeting, registering students, and so forth.Aspects for organic intellectuals were to act as a social agent for others, formulating articulating School A is a large 4-9 school owned by a large independent education-providing company.The school is located in a small town and is housed in several buildings with good continuity in management.Although newly appointed as principal, Erika, has worked for a long time in the school in various roles, including teaching and management work.School B is a large 4-9 municipal school located in a municipal central town in a metropolitan region.The school is housed in several school buildings.The school is described as having an ever-changing management organisation.The principal, Alexander, has previously been the assistant principal and deputy principal in the school.School C is a large F-6 municipal school located in the countryside but relatively located in a metropolitan region.The school is housed in several school buildings and has three principals responsible for different units of the school.
According to the teachers, the school has had many principals over time.The current F-3 principal, Kajsa, has changed responsibility areas within the school several times during the first years of principalship.School D is a medium-sized F-6 municipal school located in an urban area that is relatively far from any metropolitan region.The school has two new principals.Over time, the school has had a stable structure in terms of management and organisation.The current 1-6 principal, Caroline, is novice as principal and is also new in the school but has stayed in the principal position at this school during the first three years of principalship.School E is a F-3 municipal school located in an urban area outside metropolitan areas.The school was previously organised in a different way concerning age-spans, and the new F-3 principal, Klara, was appointed in connection with the new arrangement.The principal is a novice as a principal, new in the municipality, in the school, and in F-3 schooling.School F is a small F-6 municipal school located in the countryside, just outside a metropolitan area.The principal's responsibility includes another small school located elsewhere.The F-6 school is housed in several school buildings.
The school has had several ground-breaking changes of principal.The current principal, Sune, has worked in the principal's role for two years at the school.The principal is new in the municipality and school but has extensive experience in both F-6 and school management work.School G is a F-9 municipal school located in a small urban area in the countryside.The principal's responsibility includes several other small schools located elsewhere.The school has several principals responsible for different units of the school.Over time, the school has had many different principals.The current F-5 principal, Margaretha, is a novice and has been given increased responsibilities in terms of more schools running several times during the first three years of principalship.School H is a large F-9 municipal school located in a small town.The current principal has been in the school for only a few months.The school has previously had a stable management organisation, but in recent years, many changes of principal have taken place.The current principal, Ester, is a novice, has been placed in different schools and towns, and has changed responsibilities several times during the first three years of principalship.School I is a F-9 municipal school located in an urban area.The school is housed in several school buildings.The current F-3 principal has been principal in this school for six months.The principal's responsibility includes another small school located elsewhere.The school is described as having changed management every 3-4 years.The current principal, Pia, has extensive experience in assistant management work in a similar type of school in another municipality.School J is a small, independent, single F-9 school located in the countryside, relatively close to a metropolitan region.
The school has had a relatively stable continuity of management.The current principal, Nilla, is a novice but has worked a long time in the school in different roles, including teaching and management work.School K is a large F-9 municipal school located in a suburban area to a large central town.The school is led by several principals with different areas of responsibility.All of them are novices who participate in the NPTP.The 4-9 principal, Bengt, participating in the study came new to the school, municipality, 4-9, and role as principal but has stayed in the school during the first three years of principalship.School L is a medium-sized F-6 school located in a densely populated suburban municipality in a metropolitan area.The novice principal, Alina, was appointed to the school one year ago, which has had the principal position vacant for several years.School M is a F-6 municipal school located in rural areas outside metropolitan regions.The school has changed principal at regular intervals, and the current principal has been principal in the school for almost two years.The principal, Liv, has previous experience in teaching and assistant management work in a similar type of school in another municipality.School N is a rural F-6 municipal school located close to a metropolitan region.The school is housed in several school buildings, one of which is far from the other.According to the teachers, the municipality holds novice principals responsible for three-year intervals at the school.The F-3 principal participating in the study, Annika, is novice and new to the school and municipality.This principal changed areas of responsibility within and between schools during the first three years of principalship.
principles for those one represents, creating counter-hegemony, creating unity within a professional group, and giving awareness of function and value for those one represents in relation to power structures in society.Overall, these operationalisations, displayed in Table 3, point to how the social contract is experienced.The selection criteria of dominant views, counter-hegemony, and war of position were important in the display phase of the analysis, and conclusions were drawn, as displayed in Table 4.A description narrative was constructed and depicted as a historicisation of the Swedish case.
The purpose of the interview analyses was to deepen the understanding of principals' role-taking.The condensation of interview data was conducted with the aid of NVivo.Professional positioning, relations, and approach to the societal mission were used as criteria for selection and were consequently encoded.In the display phase of the analysis (Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña 2014), the operationalisation of the intellectual groups into aspects was used once again, now regarding the interview data.Utterances were also examined concerning common-sense hegemony and counter-hegemonic utterances (Gramsci 1971).Common sense was understood as dominating views that the principals experienced either as natural or as cogent in their role, while counter-hegemony was understood as arguments that the principals experienced as in opposition to dominating or cogent views.The principals' utterances were also related to the historic positioning of principals.
In the conclusion phase (Miles, Huberman, and Saldaña 2014), the principals' voices were merged into one integrated (though multi-voiced) narrative of the group, that is, an analytic narrative (Silverman 2010), and the data were organised into a structure of processual character.In the conclusion phase of the analysis, an ongoing process in the positioning of principals emerged in terms of stages: 1) positioning relative to historical forms of role-taking, 2) adaption to prevailing hegemony, and 3) taking a counter-hegemonic stance.This was made explicit through thick descriptions (Tracy 2010).The theoretical framework was thus used to frame the narrative in terms of hegemony, relation to historical positionings, the trying of new positionings, and experiences of 'feeling something needs to change' that emerged in the analysis as important concerning professional relations.Quotes were selected to explicitly show and nuance the process narrative (Tracy 2010).This means that the quotes from principals should be understood from the perspective of the analytical narrative.The quotes presented were selected to exemplify the main results, showing a variety of individual stances.In this unified analytical voice, the narrative is presented as if the war of position has evolved over time because-the principals' individual stories, recollecting their first three years in their position, were interpreted as such.Although this does not represent what every single principal experienced in a detailed sense, the narrative is a collective of the principals' common encounters in this process.An overview of the analytical framework is presented in Table 3.

A historical framing based on theoretical underpinnings
This section provides a condensed review of the literature on the history of principalship and reform of the school system in Sweden in terms of the principals' role in the Swedish school system over time-that is, school reforms and values as part of the socio-historical heritage which connect to the principal while he or she enters a profession and its evolution over time in relation to changing societal structures and governance.Thereafter, this historical framing is related to the theoretical underpinnings of the study and merged into a joint framework (Table 4), serving as a reference for the empirical study.

Historicising the Swedish case
When the educational institutions of Läroverk 1 were established during the early nineteenth century, the principal's assignment was a circulating mandate among the teachers, according to the 'primus inter pares' (foremost among equals) tradition, a legacy from the cathedral schools.A principal was to write annual activity reports, grant leave, keep records, distribute services and schedules, maintain order, manage finances and bookkeeping, and keep matrices and grading catalogues.When the Läroverk went through a reform in 1927, principals complained that their assignment had shifted from education and Bildung to administration.The principal became a state official with fixed eligibility regulations dating from the mid-1850s.The assessment criteria were teaching skills documented through a dissertation, academic qualifications, and tenure as a senior lecturer.These requirements remained for more than a hundred years (Ullman 1997).Consequently, the dominant view of a principal was to be an organic intellectual to the traditional intellectual group of teachers.
In parallel, the first compulsory school, Folkskolan 2 , was introduced in Sweden in 1842, based on demands for general education.A school board with the vicar as chairman held an obligation to maintain permanent school premises and employ trained teachers.There were no leaders in these schools, but over time, three parallel leadership positions emerged: state inspectors, municipal inspectors, and headteachers, also called first teachers (Ullman 1997).The state inspectors visited schools to give advice and instructions and to provide written documentation to cathedral chapters and ministries (Richardson 2010).The municipal inspectors were anchored locally.The inspectors believed that teachers did not have the competence to assess the work of schools, while the teachers believed that an inspector did not know the schools' core activities.Beginning in the 1930s, headteachers became compulsory in the Folkskolan districts.As seminarytrained schoolteachers, they declared school leadership a separate profession and engaged in organising their own union and education in administration (Ullman 1997).That is, they took a counter-hegemonic stance.However, it was not until the 1950s that discussions about transforming headteachers into principals were initiated (Ullman 1997).
The parallel school system was segregated by social classes.In the 1950s, the education system became an important institution in building a welfare statethat is, developing a democratic state based on equal opportunities for education for all (Blossing 2021(Blossing , 2022)).The 1950s was a trial period that introduced a nine-year comprehensive school to replace the parallel school system.Headteachers from Folkskolan could become leaders if there was an academically trained study leader by their side.This later became common practice, with the titles changed to 'principal' and 'director of studies'.In 1958, headteachers We are the foremost among equals and drive educational development.
We are not teachers; we are specialists in administering education.
We are a group of our own, that is, leaders and managers of schools.

Identified (dominant) counter hegemony / war of position
We are not teachers; we should be considered specialists in administering education.
We should be considered a group of our own, that is, leaders and managers of schools.
became the largest proportion of principals.Ideological struggle emerged as their union demanded a vocational principal education-that is, to become vertically oriented specialists-whereas the principals of Läroverk union were already academically trainedthat is, organic intellectuals of the intellectual group of teachers.In the mid-1960s, the Board of Governors (Skolöverstyrelsen) was asked to arrange principal training inclusive of personnel management and administration, organisation, and school statutes.In 1967, the first courses were offered (Ullman 1997), which was considered an answer to the interests of the different groups and, consequently, termed a hegemonic principle.
During the 1940s and 1950s, the principal's administrative function increased such that they demanded administrative assistance.The administrative focus reshaped who applied for the positions.The debate during the 1950s and 1960s was characterised by the dilemma of wanting to be a good principal but being forced to devote time to administrative tasks.The number of applicants decreased, and the formal eligibility requirement was lowered in 1953 and again in the mid-1960s (Ullman 1997).Consequently, the role of principal turned from the organic intellectual of teachers into a specialist function of education administration.
Compulsory school was introduced in 1962.It was declared that all schools should have equal access to resources, facilitate interactions between pupils from different social backgrounds, and facilitate inclusion (Blossing 2021(Blossing , 2022)).During the 1970s, the investigators of a state school enquiry indicated that administrative tasks and the leading of pedagogical activities should be coordinated within the pedagogical leadership (Ullman 1997).The teachers started to work in collaborative teams, and extra resources were elicited to support all students.In the 1970s and 1980s, students' leisure time became linked to their schooling.The intentions of 'a school for all' were reinforced in the 1962 and 1969 curriculums (Nordholm, Wermke, and Jarl 2022), which can be termed reinforcing the social contract of school professionals.
Decentralisation reforms were implemented in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and the responsibility of schools was transferred from the state to the municipalities and eventually to independent school organisers.In 1980, a new national curriculum was implemented, putting responsibility for principals' and teachers' professionalism within the 'school for all' framing (Blossing 2021;Lundahl 2002).Being used to rules and regulations, principals and teachers did not have the prerequisites to meet their new responsibilities.In 1994, a new curriculum with a goaland result-steering focus was implemented.A strong and influential school inspectorate was introduced in 2008, focusing on inspecting teaching and results, study order, inclusion, parents' rights to be involved, quality work, and principals' leadership (Nordholm, Wermke, and Jarl 2022).Blossing, Imsen, and Moos (2014) identified ideas about 'a school for all' as sustained even while meeting NPM policy.Throughout the NPM era, principals experienced autonomy and high decision-making capacity.Low degrees of value conflicts were reported concerning how the reforms affected relationships.However, principals experienced a higher degree of conflict with their superintendents at the municipal level because of increased forms of control over principals' work (Nordholm, Wermke, and Jarl 2022).That is, principals turned into their own group of traditional intellectuals in terms of being managers and leaders of schools, representing the common good of such leadership within the 'school for all' ideal.However, re-centralisation brought new accountability rules, 'forcing' principals and teachers to act on outcomes and develop the school.State authorities offered general advice on how to plan, document, and accomplish teaching and achieve quality work.The demand for qualified teachers was responded to with the implementation of teacher certification.A new School Act was introduced in 2010, and a more detailed national curriculum was implemented in 2011.Student rights were strengthened (Blossing 2021).The principal's pedagogical responsibility was sharpened and clarified, leading to an increased need for principal education (Jarl 2018).Accordingly, the three-year national principal training programme (NPTP) became mandatory in 2010.Further, principals were supplemented by first teachers, who were (re)introduced into Swedish schools in the 2010s.However, schools still varied in education quality and were socioeconomically segregated.Inequities worsened between 1998-2011.Several quality assessments showed that principals did not prioritise pedagogical leadership (Blossing 2021).Before discussing how the current group of principals position themselves, the position of the principals in a system of relations via the historical view is interpreted into a joint framework, as shown in Table 4, serving as a reference to the empirical study.

Results
In the following results section, the results are presented under two subheadings.First, principals' ideological struggles in terms of role-taking and positioning are presented.This relates to the first research question: How do socio-historical traces of principals' role over time influence principals' role-taking in the contemporary school?Second, their feelings of 'something needs to change' and their attempts at new positioning are presented, addressing the second research question: How do new principals understand and make sense of their role and the relationships between school professionals in the contemporary school?This means that the research questions, together with the theoretical framework, serve as a structure for presenting the findings.Quotes are presented to illustrate the findings.Third, the analytical interpretation of the identified current principal positioning in a system of relations over time is summarised in Table 5.

Hegemony of the current time: disowning historical positionings
Approaching the ideological struggle of positioning, principals seem to be conscious of the importance of history and of their practices as a way of positioning 'the principal'.According to one principal: I think about the school's mission.Who you work for has become clearer, as has the historical aspect of the principal's assignment-how it has varied over time and where we are now.It helps to set course towards, and to become part of your vision so that you don't end up in just an administrative role.(Nilla) Principals react against the historic positioning of principals as the foremost among equals.Overall, it is clear that this is not their identity or the way they like to position themselves, as shown in the following quote by one principal: It is difficult to lead the first teacher group.It's like leading the absolute best teachers, and I'm not.I mean, you're not a principal because you were the best teacher [but because you were better at other things].So, it becomes quite difficult to tell them, 'You should do this,' or, I mean, they're well-grounded in their stuff.(Alexander) These findings indicate that historical traditions are used by principals to create awareness of their situation, thus becoming a tool for action and change, that is, ideological work in terms of positioning.Consequently, they position themselves as anti-foremost: neither a teacher nor an educational administrator.The debate about whether principals should allocate time for pedagogical leadership or administrative work has put pressure on school organisers to ensure administrative support.The results show that principals are aware of and position themselves as bothered by administrative duties that they should not have to do.One principal states: There is a lot of administration-everything from ordering towels to clicking and approving invoice payments and salaries and payrolls, writing contracts, and a lot of stuff that you just think should go away from principals.(Klara) There is little evidence that principals experience themselves as educational administrative specialists.Rather, what is made clear is that superintendents create support for principals: You have a small staff up in the administration who work with these sloppy issues that need to be prepared and processed.It's everything from support around school transport to larger systematic work around abusive treatment.All that stuff is up there, and it's such a good support department that I can say I have not met such a good department before.(Sune) Almost all principals in the study report having support.Some of the support is generally administrative, but others are highly skilled and highly specialised.For example, the principals generally state having good access to HR support, financial support, and legal support.They still have administrative tasks as managers, but they do not need to be specialists in all areas.As one principal puts it: This municipality provides us with economists.I'm ultimately responsible for the budget and for deciding how resources are used.But someone else counts and makes the tables and decides on the key figures and all that.They introduce the calculations to me.So, I don't need economic knowledge in my everyday practice.Someone else does this kind of work.(Alina) The results show that principals experience themselves as their own group, having a social contract to ensure students' right to receive high-quality education, equity, and democracy.Their beliefs and values are highlighted as an important matter mediated through their actions.
It's about a belief in knowledge, and the more you know, the greater the opportunities to create a better society.For my part, it is quite value-based, about tolerance and all people's equal values and rights, opportunities, and what guides decisions and the leadership actions one takes.(Nilla) Experiencing belonging to their own group-that is, being traditional intellectuals-the principals clarify how their contract separates them from teachers.Thus, they sometimes take a stance in opposition to teachers, marking their belonging to their own group by making distinctions between themselves and the teachers.This positioning is verified by their teachers, who recognise principals as a separate group.One principal states: It may happen that I must do things to a teacher that are not easy for the sake of the students.My mantra goes even a little deeper […], for student achievement and results.For me, it's always about what kind of learning will happen in the teaching, and how much influence will the students have?(Margaretha) Explaining this further, another principal says: I think this is difficult to explain to the teachers.Because the teachers would like the principal to be their guarantor.And so I am.But I usually say that I am employed for the sake of the students.The school law is based on the student.Not the teacher.(Bengt) This pinpoints a break with the former historical positioning as organic intellectuals of teachers.In these respects, the principals separate as a group of their own.This fits well with them referring to 'common sense' (hegemony coming from above), from which they claim their authoritative responsibility.Their NPTP training strengthens principals as a group and affects the teachers' understanding of the principals as belonging to their own group.
Principals must ensure that decisions are made such that the students have their right to education, regardless of what the teacher thinks.(Klara) Furthermore, teachers are described as having 'wrong' values and not being able to lead or provide equal opportunities for all students.Alina says: I see that the teachers are not quite up to their tasks.Now, I am grossly generalising.I think the newer ones.Now, I don't know how the teacher training is nowadays, but the newer ones have difficulty handling difficult students.[…] When I went to teacher training, I got the tools I needed for meeting these children as a teacher in the classroom.Know how I should think and act.I don't know.Do teachers get enough of it today?(Alina) That is, a principal discourse appears: 'If only the teachers treated the students better and redesigned their teaching, our problem would be solved'.Moreover, it becomes clear that principals have become part of the superior level of the municipal organisation, defining them as separated from teachers (who are instead considered to belong to the school, even if both parties are formally employed by the same school organiser or municipality).In the words of this principal: I am included, as a principal, in a different context than my staff.I am not employed by the school.I am employed by the municipal administration and, in turn, politicians.That means I belong to a different college than the one I have here.[…] And I'm not here all my time [at the school].I'm also at the location of the municipal administration, or where we have meetings with the superintendent.(Klara) Principals are directed to take part in the municipal administration, seemingly taking up a lot of their working time, both by attending municipal meetings and also by receiving special tasks and responsibilities concerning areas outside their local school.This use of their working time is confirmed by teachers.However, principals also choose to devote more of their working hours at the municipal location, so that they do not 'get disturbed by teachers at the school'.However, some principals consider this allocation of their working time a disturbance: After all, we spend twenty percent of our time on administration.One whole day a week.
[…] And you sit there for discussions about the new full-time agreement for municipal workers, for two hours, when I don't have any municipal workers in that sense, but I'll still have to be there.So, that can be a frustration.I know it's a frustration with the teachers too, that all principals are gone for a whole day each week, because your presence in your school is important.(Bengt) A feeling that something needs to change: trying a new positioning The principals indicate that the teachers have huge demands on the principal to deliver resources and organisational support for the school to function.One principal describes being the responsible manager in charge: When I came, every single work team meeting I held was horrible.Or full school meetings, or other joint forums.It was a plague and pain because as soon as we in the school management opened our mouths, it was us and them.It was a direct attack from the personnel group, and they did not have any trust in us.The assistant principal refused to hold meetings with teachers because they got together, and you didn't know how to deal with the resistance.(Alina) Even if a principal turns to superior levels, the issue lands back on the principal's desk as the one responsible for the school.
According to the School Act, the school principal is responsible for basically everything education, and even when the municipality is responsible, it is delegated to the school principal!If I call the municipality or my boss, they will say to me, 'What have you done about it?'That's the question I get.'What have you done, and what do you intend to do, and why did it happen?'So, I don't experience that principals get support from their superiors.There are administrative support functions, but I think the principal is very much left alone in the mission.(Alina) These results clearly underscore the feeling that 'something needs to change'.This could eventually challenge the current dominant thinking of the principal as belonging to their own group.One characteristic is that principals become lonely due to the way they position themselves, marginalising them in all directions.That is, principals, as their own group, do not seem to manage to create their own organic intellectuals to act as their social agents.Although principals may seem to be close to economic and political interests, they do not feel that their voices are heard in these contexts: Here, we have a superintendent and development department and the deputy head of administration, and school principals don't meet them.So, coming into a larger organisation, I thought it would make work easier.But it became more difficult.My voice is somehow less heard.The focus ends up on your own unit [i.e.school], and there I feel that I have really been given almost too much space, because I am the only leader at the school.(Klara) Principals also experience being bypassed, that is, not being the one sought out to solve issues, gradually seeming to lose influence both with the municipality and with teachers.Teachers have their own forums at the municipal level: IT forums, project forums, and leadership forums for team leaders and first teachers.The municipality and the state bypass principals to drive development and systematic quality work directly with teachers.This means that doubts emerge as to whether the hegemonic culture is reasonable.Different counter-hegemonies become apparent; for example, principals acknowledge the difficulties teachers face in their assignments and that principals need to interact and cooperate with teachers.Thus, principals conclude that they need to create a united voice with teachers because just about everything in the schools depends on collaboration with teachers.
I can't ensure the students' education if I don't have staff who feel well and want to come to work.A lot of time goes into ensuring teachers' working conditions and making sure they can participate in things related to their schedules or services or their work in the classroom.It's actually the same thing as supporting students.(Esther) One principal expresses doubts about acting as 'the lonely leader' concerning instructional leadership.
None of my former principals have had time to observe teaching.There is also a feeling of scrutiny, that is, a bit of control.I don't want it to be like that.I want the teachers to attend each other's lessons to give feedback.But we don't really have that culture yet.My superintendent says we'll just do it.But it must also feel good for the person being observed!(Erika) The results show that in practice, principals experience being defined as a separate group to be negative.That is, their social contract, in fact, leads to a dead end simply because to ensure pupils' rights, principals are dependent upon teachers and superiors.Moreover, principals begin to declare their affiliation to teachers, concerning themselves with teachers' experiences: I wrote on teaching experience, or pedagogical professional knowledge, and it is about leading the pedagogical development at the school, keeping up with and deciding on collegial efforts, collegial learning and leading discussions with the teachers.I think that is difficult to do without having your own teaching experience.(Nilla) The results clearly indicate that principals invite teachers into their world, even if not as full equals: It is very important that the staff are involved.And not just in a cliché, something you say way.Because it doesn't matter if I write nice plans or know the school law if the staff do not also understand how to transform it into practice.It's not enough for me to come as manager and say, 'Now we're going to do this!'They must be on the train to see the need and be involved in developing the solutions.Even if they don't see the best solutions, and I see that right from the start, we must work it out in a process.(Esther) Thus, principals reframe their social contract to include taking care of teachers' voices and caring for teachers' situations.Otherwise, they cannot achieve results in their jobs.One principal expresses: Basically, you are also a teacher; you have stood in that classroom, feeling closer to a teacher than in administration, even when having an administrative assignment.So, you try to bring in the teachers' perspective in meetings with the municipal administration, explaining what practice looks like from a teacher's perspective.And I think it is needed.Because the politicians and those who sit in the administration are quite far from the school units.They may have been teachers at some point, but you actually forget what it is like to stand in that classroom with thirty students with different needs.(Alina) This indicates that principals are reclaiming a role as social agents, or organic intellectuals of teachers rather than claiming their own group's interests.In this positioning, principals claim an identity as experienced ex-teachers: It feels necessary to have a teaching background to stand for the things that you say so that you can instil confidence that we principals know what we are talking about because we ourselves have worked for so many years as teachers.(Pia) To summarise, the identified current positioning of principal in a system of relations is shown in Table 5.

Summary of results
The first research question of this study addresses historical traces of principals' roles over time and how these influence principals' role-taking and positioning in the contemporary school.The results show that principals are conscious of former positionings and use history to approach their practices to support new directions.Consequently, they deliberately distance themselves from being positioned as 'the foremost among equals' as well as administrative specialists.Instead, they try to position themselves as their own professional group in line with current hegemony-hat is, becoming traditional intellectuals by highlighting their social contract to ensure students' rights.Not identified***** *Organic intellectuals.These are closer to the economic functions and can create unity for the class they represent, giving awareness of its function and value in society.Principals were positioned as teachers in terms of primus inter pares or headteacher.** Intellectual specialist in terms of vertically oriented intellectuals, classified as specialists, organises, and manages activities in society.Principals were positioned as specialists in administering education.*** Traditional intellectuals.Principals, as a group of traditional intellectuals (i.e. even if practically oriented), claim to be free of class, represent the common good, general knowledge, generally good language and good taste while being linked to a historical continuity of intellectuals forming their own 'class'.Principals were positioned as a group of their own as managers and leaders of schools.**** New organic intellectuals, the principals in the study, do not shape their own organic intellectuals out of being a group of traditional intellectuals, as could be expected.Instead, they position as organic intellectuals of teachers, although in a new fashion than in the time span before 1950-that is, in the current time, as 'the experienced exteacher'.***** This is an empirical question for future studies to engage in.
The second research question addresses how new principals understand and make sense of their roles and relationships with school professionals in the contemporary school.The results show that the vision of 'a school for all' is still the principals' main ethos.Overall, principals' social contract seem resilient across time, though their position within a system of relations is changing.This means that they have to make sense of their social contract in new ways because their position in the system of relations changes.The relationships between school professionals seem fundamentally changed.Issues of confusion, conflict, and power are all part of principals' day-to-day relations, as other school professionals seem unsure of the position from which the principal should be approached.Being in charge of teachers has been discussed as a possible obstacle for principals.However, management does not feature as strongly in the principals' stories as one might expect.Rather, they tend to problematise their mandate.
The descriptions and analysis of how principals experience and try to create values in their leadership role and what that means for how they relate to close professionals and other stakeholders indicate that principals attempt to make sense of their social contract through different positionings, but encounter structural resistance.Resistance from specialised educational administration is due to municipalities and independent school organisers already appointing other specialists meant to function as support for the principal.Letting go of such tasks affects power relations and shakes up who is in charge of schools, putting principals at risk of being marginalised.In their attempts to make sense of their role through separation, principals also encounter structural resistance from stakeholders.At superior levels, they experience the silencing of their voices, while their teachers pose as an opposition group.The relationships with other school professionals are consequently affected.In practice, this role leads to a dead end because principals become marginalised in attempts to fulfil their social contract.However, when principals attempt to make sense of their role by positioning themselves as linked to the teachers, taking an identity as experienced ex-teachers, and striving together with teachers for the common good of education, they come to a passable resolution.This is because by positioning as social agents, or new organic intellectuals of teachers, principals are able to foster new alliances between themselves and teachers.

Discussion
The results of this study show that a new understanding of principals' 'professional project' as linked to a system of relations is indeed prominent, showing how a 'war of position' might function concerning school professionals in contexts of structural school reform over time.This contributes to the knowledge on the relations between system reforms and school leadership (Pashiardis and Brauckmann 2019), specifically in the Swedish setting, and analytically in the field of research on school leadership in times of change (Day and Leithwood 2007;Huber 2010).The choice of theoretical framing and analyses brings an alternative way of approaching issues of professional relations and social contracts that might open up new ways of thinking about being a school leader in systems of changing governance (Nordholm and Andersson 2019).As this study approaches newly appointed principals in Sweden, the theoretical framework needs to be explored in further contexts and among experienced principals.The limited number of participants in the study also limits the conclusions that can be drawn.However, the study makes novel contributions to the literature in spite of its limited scope.
As demonstrated by the outcomes discussed above, it is possible that education in terms of the NPTP could have functioned to strengthen principals' professional projects and consequently their becoming traditional intellectuals (Jarl, Fredriksson, and Persson 2012;Jarl 2018;Murphy et al. 2016;Uljens et al. 2013).This might have increased tensions between school professionals (Ahlström and Danell 2019;Peruzzo et al. 2022).However, being accountable in the NPM era has already been found to increase tensions (e.g.Keddie 2015;Uljens et al. 2013), as well as new reform agendas (Ahlström and Danell 2019).Furthermore, we do not yet know the source of the new identity as ex-teachers (cf.Murphy et al. 2016).The NPTP may have contributed by focusing on pedagogical leadership, supporting principals in relocating towards the core practice of teaching and learning (Brauckmann, Pashiardis, and Ärlestig 2023;Leo 2015).In any case, the results show a tension between principals positioning themselves apart from or close to teachers (Bøje et al. 2022;Murphy et al. 2016;Stone-Johnson and Weiner 2022).Therefore, the ex-teacher position might mediate the negotiation of the principal's identity on a distance to closeness scale, which is an interesting and important finding.This builds on to the current discussions on school leaders' relational capacity (e.g.Hallinger 2018) that lead to core processes of teaching and learning (Day and Leithwood 2007;Leo 2015) as well as principals' professional project (e.g.Stone-Johnson and Weiner 2022) in the international research community.Further, the results indicate a reaction in practice to the effects of the separation between principals and teachers (Brante 2015;Jarl, Fredriksson, and Persson 2012).Scholars have argued that principals achieve a better position and greater influence in economic matters through decentralisation (Persson, Andersson, and Nilsson Lindström 2005).However, as this study shows, this argument seems relegated to history, as principals' voices indicate being devalued, while specialists control economic and managerial duties (cf.Nihlfors 2010;Peruzzo et al. 2022).The principal seems to function as an intermediator, shuffling information between other stakeholders, seemingly lost in their position as professionals in the system of relations (Nordholm and Andersson 2019).Their closeness and loyalty to the municipal or independent school organisation (Jarl 2012)that is, principals being arm in arm with their superiors in counterparty to their teachers-still seemed to be a way of trying to make sense of the principal role.However, it also leads to negative consequences (Bøje et al. 2022;Uljens et al. 2013).Consequently, the principals' practice uncovered in this study aligns with Jarl, Fredriksson, and Persson's (2012) conclusion that their role as managers and the close connection to the superior steering levels make daily work more complicated.
However, the principals in this study seem to participate in a new wave of counter hegemony in the war of position, in Gramscian words, stemming from 'the sphere of production' in terms of their daily work in schools, where they find themselves 'wing clipped' and unsatisfied as traditional intellectuals (cf.Ackroyd, Kirkpatrick, and Walker 2007;Aili and Hjort 2010;Höög, Johansson, and Olofsson 2009).Thus, they position themselves as experienced ex-teachers, reinventing the principal as a 'new' organic intellectual by linking with teachers (Murphy et al. 2016).Structural changes in work routines might free up time from administrative duties (Leo 2015;Nihlfors 2010), and school leader education might provide knowledge on how to lead change.If all time and knowledge are not allocated to serving the superior level of administration, which this study identifies as a risk, principals might have room to manoeuvre and take on more pedagogical leadership work focused on teaching and learning in collaboration with teachers (cf.Ahlström and Danell 2019).This is an important finding, although it needs to be considered in relation to the specific selection of participants in this study.

Conclusion
This study contributes to the literature by exploring how newly appointed principals in Sweden understand and attempt to make sense of their role as they create positions and values in their leadership, framing the changing work of principals as a structural and ongoing 'war of position'.This framing promotes a new understanding of principals' 'professional project' as linked to a system of relations.The knowledge contribution specifies the role-taking of Swedish principals in their socialisation into the profession but also analytically generalises how a 'war of position' might function concerning school professionals.Theoretically, this article contributes to the research field of school leadership by presenting a framework for investigating principals' social contract and position in a system of relations.This framework can be used to explore principalship in diverse contexts.The study has limitations that are important to consider, such as a limited number of participants.Further studies should build upon the results of this study and further investigate the role of the contemporary principal within a system of relations.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contributor
Stina Jerdborg is a senior Lecturer at the Department of Education and Special Education, University of Gothenburg.Her research interests include school leadership, professional development, and school improvement.She is an educator for the Swedish national course for further professional training for principals.She has worked with teaching, school improvement and professional development for teachers and leaders.

Notes 1 .
Educational institutions in Sweden 1849-1965 corresponding to secondary and upper secondary school.2. Educational provider of compulsory basic education.

Table 2 .
Contextualisation of principals and schools in the study.

Table 3 .
Exploring educational reform and dynamics of changing professional relationships and reformation of professional roles over time.Analytical framework.

Table 4 .
Principals' positioning in a system of relations until 2015.

Table 5 .
Principals' positioning in a system of relations up to the present time.