8 1.1. Introduction 1.1.1. Searching for innovation Across the world, school principals, school boards and their organizations, teachers, policy makers, and politicians are searching for innovative ways to improve education. When innovations are initiated, schools encounter many challenges and innovations often do not turn out as intended. These innovations can happen at multiple levels and can relate to different aspects of the educational process. Innovations can be initiated on a national level as nation-wide policy innovations, but they can also happen on regional or local levels, as innovations within schools. Moreover, innovations can focus on substantive elements of educational practices, such as curriculum change, or on improving organizational processes. In the literature, there is an increasing emphasis on investigating how various types of educational innovations turn out (Boyd, 2021; Den Brok, 2018; Fullan, 2008; Vanlommel, 2021; Verbiest, 2021; Wubbels & Van Tartwijk, 2018). In the Netherlands, we have seen multiple nation-wide educational innovations in the last thirty years, which have generally been considered unsuccessful. These unsuccessful innovations prompted a parliamentary investigation, referred to as the ‘Dijsselbloem committee’ (2008), by the name of its chairman. This committee identified a number of problems such as government over-steering in the pedagogicaldidactical domains in schools (Tweede Kamer der Staten Generaal, 2008). This resulted in a lack of professional space for teachers and school principals to play a role in the innovations. Teachers felt the innovations were enforced upon them. On the other hand, the committee highlighted that schools did not always take the professional space that was given to them by the government (Tweede Kamer der Staten Generaal, 2008; see also Van Eck & Bollen, 2014; Wubbels & Van Tartwijk, 2018). A more recent example of a nation-wide innovation is an attempt to renew the curriculum for Dutch primary and secondary education. Even though the coordinating committee of this innovation aimed to put “teachers in the lead” – amongst others, by selecting a number of them to participate in development teams at the national level – most teachers in Dutch schools do not feel that they had a say in the innovations. When professionals such as teachers perceive a low degree of influence on shaping the content and implementation of national policies, such as certain innovations, in schools they can feel alienated from a policy (Tummers, 2012; Tummers et al., 2013). In case of more local innovations within schools, the same dynamic of perceiving too little professional space and influence on shaping innovations can arise. In this dissertation, we analyze whether and how school principals and teachers shape and lead local innovation processes in schools.
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