**2. Twenty-first century challenges**

dialectical relationships between and within the present school cultures. A given school culture can be tightly organized and either shared or not shared, leading to questions of the integration of elements and their degree of sharedness [3]. The strength of a subculture defines by the intensity of its effects on organizational behavior [4]. Central issues are how subcultures appear in the individual and in the social structures of the school organization and how they

Larsson and Löwstedt [6] talk about schools as sites for ongoing organization, rather than institutions with core business of teaching. Researchers trying to establish a holistic approach on school leadership and school culture need to bring together various elements in a coherent analytical model [7, 8]. For Weber, social reality is concerned with the analysis of actual events

Weber's ideal type refer to collectivities rather than to social actions of individuals, but the social relationships within collectivities facilitate the opportunity that many actors will engage in expected social actions [2]. The Weberian ideal type is not an illustration of the absolute or perfect, but an exciting and valuable analytical tool in how to explain and understand the

By reconciling Max Weber with the impact of school culture, I visualize an ideal type for a school leader with a focus on equity and quality in education, in accordance to OECD demands and standards, defined through dimensions of fairness and inclusion. Fairness is personal or social circumstances such as gender, ethnic origin or family background not being obstacles to achieving educational potential. Inclusion is all individuals given at least a basic

School leaders of today should develop strategic visions for their institutions and perform as role models for students and teachers [10]. Maintaining the balance between long-term development goals and a rapidly changing reality is a challenge for every leader. The effectiveness of school leadership depends on how school leaders can adapt to their new roles and how competent they will become in co-designing and co-implementing policies for equity and learning, as well as in encouraging the establishment of participative, democratic school cultures. An important part of school leadership is providing shared understandings about the school organization and its activities and goals that can undergird a sense of common purpose and vision with the education [11]. Contemporary research notes that school leadership is second only to teaching in school-related factors in its impact on student learning, accord-

All school leaders are however neither well selected, prepared or supported to exercise their roles. To strengthen their capacity, they need both general expertise and specialized knowledge. The discussion of motives and values among the members of an organization is often limited by subjective concepts with varying meaning and proximity to the current context [13, 14]. Forming and establishing an organizational policy raises questions if what really happens is a factual scenario represented to the policy makers with more or less logical and empirical accuracy?

Educational institutions evaluate their performance in order to explore and identify new ways of learning. Policy documents enforce that daily school operations must evolve toward

constitute a connected system of meanings [5].

42 Open and Equal Access for Learning in School Management

universal and accepted in a certain context.

ing to evidence compiled and analyzed by the authors [12].

and real structures [9].

minimum level of skills.

Every nation has its own distinctive character. Sometimes we take the complexity of explaining and understanding the characteristics of other nations and ethnic groups too lightly. Knowledge and competence equalize differences between different groups in society and increase young people's opportunities to choose career and achieve quality of life [16]. Without knowledge, categorizations and preconceptions can lead to prejudice and widening gaps between people. School assessors on different levels in Europe agree that students of today need "twenty-first century skills" to manage and succeed in adulthood. These skills contain critical thinking and problem solving, information literacy, global awareness and an overall need for mastery of different kind of knowledge, ranging from facts to complex analysis.

One way to define equity is people's right to education. As a concept, democracy is about equal worth and rights and the possibility for individuals to influence their lives. Bauman [17] argues that the future of democracy depends on its ability to enthuse and engage young people in dialogs on important social issues. The ability to acquire new understanding and insight into society's roles and guidelines is not obvious. Common accepted opinions are neither generalizable nor automatically transferable to every context. Different issues require different approaches to formulate acceptable answers and contribute to the student's willingness to learn something new [18].

A challenge for every school is to develop the activities of teaching and learning from traditional ways of mediating knowledge, to a strong emphasis on student's inclinations and abilities to learn. In these processes, the students will acquire strategies for their studies and professional life, through basic skills and competences. Student active work forms and social training demands the teacher's flexibility and ability to handle conflicts. The teaching profession extends from a mediator of knowledge into a catalyst of the knowledge society [19]. School leaders must similarly be prepared to face cultural and social pressures and advocate for education that advance all students and engage in new ways to promote a deeper understanding of issues such as democracy and equity [20]. Research evidence strongly confirm the impact of school leadership on student learning outcomes, even if leadership and leadership development will remain complex tasks, without simple recipes for success [21]. School leaders with new perspectives on their leadership are potentially architects and builders of a new social order where all students have the same educational opportunities [22].

Nevertheless, the demanding twenty-first century challenges are not so new. Dewey [23] argued that the primary purpose of education and schooling is to prepare students for life in their current environment. To Counts [22], a progressive educator in the 1930s, the purpose of school was to equip individuals with necessary skills to participate in the social life of their community and to change their social order as desired. Adler [24] had an idealistic and egitarian vision that all education should centrally prepare students so that they could earn a good living, enjoy full lives and participate and contribute to a democratic society.

within, and encourages a proactive stance instead of a reactive position from teachers and students [31]. A precondition for successful school development is, as previously pointed out,

The School Leader as Ideal Type: How to Reconcile Max Weber with the Concept of School Culture

http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.71197

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The explicit concept of culture reflects the norms and values of an individual group. Norms are a mutual sense of what is "right or wrong". Values identify what is "good and bad" in relation to the ideals shared by a group of people [5]. According to Parsons [32], culture is a system with its own logic, finding its objective reality in the interactively and coordinated subjective representations of actors and their ability to deal with what helps them to construct and use the rules that help them with their operations. Human behavior has multiple systems of influence, ranging from biological and psychological factors to social, environmental and

Sträng [14] argues that schools are complex establishments whose activities are affected by the shared role of the school as an organization as well as a social institution. Berg [34] has a neo rationalistic view on schools as institutions, established within society by an affinity group in order to fulfill particular interests. The school organization is additionally under the pressure of formal and informal control mechanisms, codified and manifested in the local

Explaining the concept of a school culture is difficult, although there is a general agreement that a satisfactory definition of culture should be attainable within the framework of an elaborated theory of social action [35]. Hodgkinson [13] argues that the individual experience of value can never repeat itself but the larger culture itself changes and transvalues values all the time, which makes organizations always culturally determined. The interaction between overlapping systems will have a significant effect on individuals. Understanding these interactions will provide a better understanding of factors that might lead to development and to failure, for example, in a process of changing school leadership. At the same time, the different systems are not mainly interacting toward or opposed to a certain goal, but overlap and intertwine in complex dynamic and contingent relationships [13]. The school leader may continuously renew and modify the strategies of collective involvement and choice from teachers and

Simultaneous studies of multiple levels from different perspectives clarify questions of decisions and enforcement in complex organizations. An important part of school leadership is to facilitate shared understandings about the school organization and its activities and goals that can undergird a sense of common purpose and vision with the education [11]. Cultural analysis provides a brief basis of knowledge that is useful for the school leader's capability of decision making and developing a new kind of leadership. Schools are sites for ongoing organization, in addition to being institutions with the core business of teaching. The improvement of student learning cannot be an exclusive task for students and teachers but a shared responsibility even for the school leaders. In a formal learning environment, the training or

an active and visible leadership [18].

**4. The concept of school culture**

students, inextricably interwoven with values.

cultural values [33].

school culture [8].

Rotherham and Willingham [25] states that the *new* in the twenty-first century is the extent to which economic and social changes require that collective and individual success depend on having adaptable skills. A starting point for exploring potential educational future is to identify the key variables of the development of twenty-first century educational policy and leadership [26]. If we intend to establish equitable and effective public education systems, skills that have previously been limited and reserved for a few, will become universal. Schools must be more deliberate in teaching skills like critical thinking, collaboration and problem solving. Another crucial prerequisite is a deliberative and future-focused school leadership.
