Leadership, Power and Democracy in and around Schools

The purpose of this article is to examine the connection between school democracy and a strong principalship. The point of departure is taken as the Danish Folkeskole, the aim being to extract some general trends from this Danish case. It is shown how international trends have influenced the Danish situation, making it possible to speak of a convergence between British and Scandinavian development. The issue of school democracy has changed so that the influence of some parts of the so-called small democracy have been diminished to the advantage of the so-called big democracy. The strengthening of principalship has, however, not led to the diminishing of the small democracy. It is, on the contrary, argued that a strong principalship may enhance the possibilities of a well-functioning local democracy in the school.