Policy and identification: Exploring the influence of identity perceptions on school leader sense-making in the Swedish school-age Educare

Understanding and implementing educational reform policies is a daily practice in the professional lives of school actors. The discrepancy between how reforms are intended and later realised in the local context constitutes an ongoing discussion spanning multiple areas of research. This article adds to prior research by exploring the role of organisational identity perceptions and identification in school leader sense-making within the process of implementing policy in the Swedish extended education system. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with selected school leaders (n = 11). Findings showed that school leaders made sense of the policy in contrasting ways depending on values assigned to perceived core attributes of the managed educational programme. Findings also suggest that school leaders’ identification or nonidentification with traditional identity-aspects of their organisation, and prospective identity-outcomes of the policy, influenced actions taken in response to the policy demands.