Expectations for the Preparation of School Principals in Three Jurisdictions: Sweden, Ontario and Texas/Attentes Concernant la Préparation Des Directeurs D'écoles Dans Trois Juridictions: La Suède, l'Ontario et le Texas

School principals play an important role in the lives of students. Along with teachers, principals can promote educational change, reform, and improvement (Leithwood, Louis, Anderson, Wahlstrom, & Mascall, 2009). However, efforts to take what works in one school leadership situation and utilize it in another context have proven to be challenging (see Bishop & Mulford, 1999; Louis, Leithwood, Wahlstrom & Anderson, 2010). Dimmock and Walker (2000; 2005) argue, in this century, education has ceased to be a national industry, stating, "policy makers and practitioners are increasingly adopting policy blueprints, management structures, leadership practices, and professional development programs fashioned in different cultural settings while giving little consideration to their cultural fit" (p. 147). Part of the process in attempting to decipher what might be mobilized into another context or jurisdiction has led to increased attention to comparative research initiatives, particularly across national borders (see Billiot, Goddard & Cranston, 2007; Fink & Brayman, 2006; Wallin, 2005).As research members of the International Successful School Principal Project (ISSPP) consortium, we are aware of the complexity of comparative international research. The ISSPP, a consortium in existence since 2001, includes participants from approximately 20 countries and has produced over 100 case studies, each using the same theoretical framework and methodological approach. The majority of cases are country-specific and generated by researchers familiar with the jurisdiction. Advanced analysis of these cases consists of comparing leadership across diverse contexts (Day & Leithwood, 2007). In our efforts to compare our cases from Sweden, the province of Ontario (Canada), and the state of Texas (USA), we have been engaged in an ongoing dialogue since 2011 about how to understand the case findings within each context, how to understand the others' contexts and findings, and how to compare these findings. Many of the discussions concentrate on clarifying meanings within particular contexts. This process led us to consider how principals are prepared for school leadership positions and what is expected of them. This study presents a comparative document analysis of expectations for principals within principal preparation programs in Sweden, Ontario, Canada, and Texas, USA. We utilize Dimmock and Walker's Cross-cultural Comparative Framework for Studying Educational Leadership to specifically explore how the various dimensions within societal cultures can be used to examine and compare expectations of principals within principal preparation policies in these three jurisdictions.The jurisdictions in this study had each recently revised their expectations for principals between 2009 and 2014. The expectations stem from different contextual configurations, but aim at the same result: the preparation of school principals who can generate successful schools and successful students. Sweden, a country with a smaller context (when compared to Canada and the USA), articulates the expectations for principals at a national level. Since Canada and the US have regional/state specific expectations, we observed the expectations for principals in the province of Ontario and the State of Texas.Rationale and SignificanceWe purposefully selected the three jurisdictions for a number of reasons. The first reason was pragmatic. All three researchers were part of a larger network of researchers and completed cases that utilized the same theoretical framework and methodologies from each of these places. Each of us was willing to collaborate to seek deeper meaning from our case study findings and we were all accessible to each other. More specifically, each jurisdiction had just recently revised principal expectations. We observed, for example, that during the last two decades, various global economic, cultural, and political forces have had an impact on Swedish society (Daun, 2003). …