New Times, New Practices, New Languages: School Leaders’ Storylines About Supporting Newcomers in Norway

Abstract

This study explores how school leaders in Norway conceptualize and navigate the challenges of organizing inclusive mathematics education in increasingly superdiverse school environments. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 14 school leaders and informed by positioning theory, monolingual habitus, and superdiversity, the research examines how school leaders’ everyday school leadership discourse frames linguistic and cultural diversity. Findings reveal two dominant storylines: one positioning linguistic diversity as a source of educational difficulty, and another privileging monolingual solutions to multilingual dilemmas. School leaders often face systemic constraints and resource limitations, yet demonstrate awareness of the nuanced needs of multilingual learners. However, their responses frequently default to deficit framings and reinforce the dominant monolingual norm. The study calls for a paradigmatic shift in leadership practice and policy—from reactive, language-as-deficit models to proactive, asset-based frameworks rooted in superdiversity. Emphasizing participatory approaches and the development of a multilingual habitus, the paper argues that school leaders must be empowered to foster equity-oriented pedagogies and inclusive school cultures that respond more effectively to the complexities of contemporary migration and linguistic pluralism.

1. Introduction

Working for inclusive educational practices is timely and important. Increased globalization has changed the traditional demographic structures worldwide, and new societal challenges have emerged. Within these dynamics, schools and education play a crucial role in preparing the upcoming generations’ future lives. In Norway, where this study is situated, the population demographics have moved from being a relatively homogeneous population to a diverse, multicultural population over the last 50 years. Traditionally, Norway and the Nordic countries are well-known for their high level of equality grounded in a social democratic welfare state. Within this system, education, “the school for all” model, also labelled the unitary school, has a key role in promoting and sustaining social security and opportunities for all children, regardless of the status of parents, cultural or ethnic background, gender, skills, or physical disabilities (Frønes et al., 2020).

Rapidly changing societal dynamics, however, challenge the traditional ways of organizing schooling with the aim of mitigating social differences and promoting social mobility. As Bascia and Jacka (2001) state, while societal changes happen rapidly in subtle ways, educational changes are slow-moving and fragmented. When these dynamics are not in sync, they create tensions between what the role of education is, which is static, and how to organize it, which needs to be in line with the upcoming generations’ needs, hopes, and expectations. These off-sync dynamics certainly raise challenges for those who are responsible for education and schooling, challenges they are obliged to respond to.

To develop a deeper understanding of how these challenges are met, we analyzed school leaders’ talk about their work for organizing inclusive mathematics teaching and learning. The focus on mathematics education is important within this picture. Several researchers argue for how mathematics plays a crucial role in shaping young people’s future opportunities and for how power issues influence mathematics education (e.g., Aguirre et al., 2017; de Freitas et al., 2008; Gutiérrez, 2013; Valero, 2007). They show how exclusion from mathematics happens more easily for groups of students who have been marginalized by policies, practices, and interactions. In Norway, the unitary school has a strong hold, and streaming systems often used in other countries are not allowed by educational laws. However, exclusion from mathematics is known in Norway, as well. Foyn (2021) argues that exclusion from mathematics in the Norwegian context seems to happen within the mundane activities of schooling, both through everyday actions like participation in classroom talks, but also more significant happenings like free choice of mathematical pathways in upper secondary school. She argues that because it happens in ways that are not apparent to the actors who are engaged in the practices, such as students, teachers, school leaders, and others, it makes it harder for the actors to recognize what is going on. Inscribing this study in the research field means that we take a socio-political stance focused on how school leaders act within the context of education, with power structures that do not distribute students’ opportunities in equitable ways.

2. Background

2.1. New Times in Education in the Norwegian Context

Educational authorities are strongly aware of new challenges in education and schooling for the coming generations. Policy makers in Norway have several times over the years transformed the national curriculum to keep up with the new needs. Traditionally, the humanistic values in bildung have a strong position in the Norwegian curriculum. For example, the Education Act from 1998 emphasizes that students must develop knowledge, skills, and attitudes so they can master their lives and can take part in working life and society (Education Act, 1998, § 1-1 official English translation). It also emphasizes that education must provide insight into cultural diversity and show respect for the individual’s convictions, to promote democracy, equality, and scientific thinking. These guidelines are sustained in the transitions of the latest curriculum.

At the same time, there has been a change in the educational policies and discourses surrounding schooling in Norway. Neoliberal models have become important on both the local and the national levels in the educational context (Gunnulfsen, 2017). Starting with a critique of the cost and bureaucracy of the welfare state and the educational sector, these discourses were also fueled by the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) in 2000, which reported that Norwegian students performed lower than expected. This was followed by a huge focus on school management and teaching, with the aim of improving students’ learning outcomes (Nortvedt, 2018). New Public Management strategies were implemented in educational steering documents, moving education toward an accountability system, with a focus on goal orientation (målstyring), testing systems, results, and learning outcomes. After 2000, schooling in Norway turned to more individualization, more control, and more need for documentation from teachers and school leaders (Imsen et al., 2017). In later years, the two discourses of education, bildung and achievement, went through a move where bildung started to lose terrain to achievement. Indeed, Holmedal (2023) argues that equity plays a more crucial part within the discourses of bildung and that it becomes less crucial within discourses of achievement.

2.2. Equity and Equality in the Norwegian Educational Context

In the Norwegian language, equity and equality are twin concepts that do not have matching terminology. Frønes et al. (2020) argues that the Norwegian curriculum includes both concepts, but underlines that this depends on the lens that is used when equity and equality are the focus. The traditional stories of schooling in Norway include how there are (should be) equal opportunities for all students and that the school system plays an important role in mitigating social differences. However, this story takes another path when we examine students’ learning outcomes as they relate to students’ social backgrounds.

Since international large-scale student assessments have made it possible to rank countries according to their income disparities, Nordic countries have topped these rankings. Nevertheless, a decline in equality has been reported lately. PISA 2023, for example, showed that social differences have more impact on students’ results today than they have previously. According to OECD (2018), for example, immigrant students in Norway perform significantly lower than other students, but the tendency is that second-generation immigrant students tend to do better (Statistisk Sentralbyrå, 2020). However, there are differences within this group of students to be aware of, as boys from immigrant families complete regular secondary schooling to a lesser extent than other students, and are also less represented in university studies (Statistisk Sentralbyrå, 2021). Over time, researchers in Norway have argued that schools reproduce social differences (Kleve & Penne, 2012). Reisel et al. (2019, p. 872) state:

The Norwegian unitary school system is not particularly well equipped to handle student diversity, and this can make it difficult for students with minority backgrounds to fit in. The tradition seems to identify a contested institutional field, where teachers attempt to handle a diverse student body without adequate curricular tools to do so.

These issues do not go unrecognized; indeed, governmental whitepapers state that Norwegian schools reproduce social differences (Meld. St., 21, 2016–2017). Given this situation, this article pursues the following research questions: Which storylines are prominent in Norwegian school leaders’ talk about mathematics teaching in linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms? How do those storylines position school leaders, teachers, and students?

2.3. Literature Review: School Leaders and School Reforms

Within the context of educational reform and changing demographics, such as those brought about by increased migration, the role of school leaders is both pivotal and paradoxical. On the one hand, the socialization process of school administrators tends to maintain the status quo, which can hinder large-scale transformations unless the preparation of educational leaders is fundamentally altered (Hart, 1993). School leaders are often caught between the need to conform to prescriptive national reforms and the need to innovate within their schools. This tension is exacerbated by powerful global neoliberal ideologies that demand performance-based measures of effectiveness, pressuring school leaders to be innovative while simultaneously conforming to rigid standards (Höög et al., 2006).

Previous literature on school leaders’ perceptions of dynamic changes in the cultural and socio-political fabric of the contexts in which they serve has shown that they navigate societal change through three interconnected considerations: caring for teachers’ needs, preserving leadership discretion, and adjusting to the specific realities of their schools (McDonnell & Weatherford, 2013). Research has also shown that school leaders strive to facilitate teachers’ adaptation to national reforms, balancing the external demands with a commitment to their staff’s well-being. This approach is crucial, as positive motivational dynamics within the staff are linked to deeper sense-making and more effective collective action (Maitlis & Christianson, 2014). However, the implementation of reforms is often incomplete, shaped by school leaders’ efforts to frame policy demands in ways that align with teachers’ interests (Young & Lewis, 2015).

Moreover, the decision-making processes of school leaders, particularly in homogeneous districts, revealed a tendency to prioritize equality over equity, whereas districts that had more diverse student bodies sometimes prioritized equity (Herbel-Eisenmann et al., 2018). While many decision-makers focused on providing uniform resources and preparing students for standardized testing, fewer considered equity-related criteria, such as culturally relevant teaching or the negative consequences of tracking (Herbel-Eisenmann et al., 2018; McDonnell & Weatherford, 2013). This highlights the need for expanding leaders’ conceptions of real-life contexts to include students’ cultural backgrounds and for re-evaluating practices like ability grouping that may perpetuate inequities.

In the particular case of Norway, with the move towards neoliberal discourses in education, school leaders’ role in managing schools changed. After 2000, education became decentralized, with the municipality as the school owner and school authority. Hence, school leaders now hold a bridging position between the municipal political level and the school level, a crucial position in managing schools in several ways. Governmental documents (Meld. St., 21, 2016–2017), for example, emphasize that schools are knowledge enterprises, and school leaders oversee realizing the curriculum and ensuring the quality in the work of teaching and learning. In other words, school leaders are responsible for executing national and local political strategies, such as implementing educational legislation, as well as the current curriculum, with local variations. They are also responsible for ensuring teachers’ fruitful working conditions, including guidance and support in their daily work, in addition to attending to teachers’ welfare.

Additionally, school leaders need to meet the needs of parents, and in Norway, as elsewhere (Civil & Bernier, 2006), parental pressure differs based on socioeconomic factors. This means that school leaders work in a field of contradictory expectations, where they need to weigh different and conflicting types of information in the decision-making processes they are involved in and responsible for. Thus, the effective leadership of school leaders within the context of major reforms and demographic changes requires a delicate balance between maintaining conformity to national policies and fostering innovation that addresses the unique needs of their schools and diverse student populations. These objectives are not always congruent with local needs and top-down policy decisions.

3. Conceptual Framework

Our conceptual framework for this research project was guided by three main constructs that we identified as helpful in illuminating the potential inequities implicitly embedded in the ways school leaders discussed themselves and their relationships with others. Positioning theory (Davies & Harré, 1990) enabled us to find common links between participants’ narratives and broader societal narratives related to language, migration, and schooling, which shape how school leaders positioned themselves and others ideologically in terms of responsibilities and curricular and pedagogical alignment. The concept of “superdiversity” (e.g., Vertovec, 2023) helped us interpret school leaders’ broader narratives within the context of complex sociodemographic shifts that challenge longstanding school labels and designations. Lastly, given that this project focused on language diversity and school leaders’ responses to the diversification of school settings, we analysed the interviews through the lens of “monolingual habitus” (Gogolin, 1997), building on Bourdieu (1972/1977). This concept characterizes public schools in general as products of nationalism, a trait not only characteristic of Norway but also of other societies across the globe that are now receiving an unprecedented number of displaced migrants. Below, we briefly expand on these constructs.

3.1. Storylines and Position(ing)

The overarching ideas we draw on come from theorizations of positioning. Rom Harré proposed a set of three interconnected and mutually constituted ideas: storylines, positions, and communication acts. Storylines are “lived stories for which told stories already exist” (Harré, 2012, p. 198). In contrast to “role”, position is a metaphoric concept that has been described as the discursive process in which people use action and speech to arrange social structures through locating people in conversations “as observably and subjectively coherent participants in jointly produced storylines” (Davies & Harré, 1990, p. 37). Positioning happens all the time in conversations, including first-order positioning, which typically occurs when people interact face-to-face; second-order positioning which occurs when someone renegotiates the positioning that is occurring (either implicitly or explicitly); and third-order positioning, which occurs when someone reports on an interaction that took place previously and often the people who are spoken about are not part of the conversation. Communication acts include not only the specific speech acts but also gestures, physical positions, and stances (Herbel-Eisenmann et al., 2015). This theorization of positioning does not assume, however, that everyone has equal access to the various rights and duties to perform any action (Harré, 2012), which only implicitly recognizes potential inequities. All positioning is seen as fluid and negotiable; that is, “people can choose how to act and develop their identities” (Wagner & Herbel-Eisenmann, 2009, p. 3). Such grounding opens a possibility for change.

Davies and colleagues further grounded a theorization of positioning in feminist and post-structuralist work (e.g., Davies, 2008, 2022; Davies & Harré, 1990, 1991; Davies & Hunt, 1994). Drawing on St. Pierre (2000, p. 484), Davies (2008) highlights that bringing in post-structuralism “does not allow us to lay blame elsewhere, outside of our own daily activities, but demands that we examine our own complicity in the maintenance of social injustice.” This theorization embraces being critical of systems of oppression like linguistic discrimination, racism, or patriarchy and encourages attention to contradiction. As Davies and Harré (1990, pp. 44–45) stated:

If we want to talk about ‘sexism’ or ‘ageism’ in the use of language, what we are talking about is highlighting certain past conversations as morally unacceptable exemplars for talking and writing now. The basis on which a cluster of past conversations can be deemed to be objectionable as exemplars for speaking now is not whether the speakers in the past or present intended their speaking to be derogatory of women or the aged. Rather, it is because it can be shown that, as in the past, there can be negative, even if unintended, consequences of those ways of talking.

Developing this further, Davies (2008) describes a view of positioning that emphasizes the ethical necessity of disruptions and centers contradiction. She implores a reflexive examination of what might be considered the common sense of life-as-usual. In this article, we focus on storylines and positionings about language (i.e., monolingual habitus) and superdiversity because they were part of their life-as-usual and a major focus of what school leaders shared with us. We also center third-order positionings because the data comes from interviews with school leaders, in which they were asked about newcomers and mathematics education in their schools.

3.2. Monolingual Habitus

Bourdieu’s concept of habitus is foundational within his sociological framework, describing the deeply ingrained habits, skills, and dispositions that individuals acquire through their experiences in social contexts. Habitus represents the internalized norms, values, and behaviours that unconsciously guide individuals’ actions and perceptions, reflecting the social structures in which they are embedded (Bourdieu, 1972/1977). This concept helps explain how socialization processes lead to the reproduction of social structures, as individuals’ actions are shaped by their habitus, which aligns with dominant social norms and power relations. Bourdieu extended his initial work on habitus to language in Language and Symbolic Power (1991), arguing that linguistic practices are not merely a means of communication but a form of symbolic power that reflects and reinforces social hierarchies. He contends that language serves as a tool for maintaining dominance, as habitus shapes individuals’ linguistic competencies, which are valued differently depending on the social context, thereby perpetuating social inequalities. In a monolingual society, the dominant language is positioned as the legitimate, “normal”, and valuable form of communication, to be adopted by institutions and desired by citizens. While certain forms of “elite multilingualism” (Selleck & Barakos, 2019) may be valued—such as the promotion of English as an international language—the perception of linguistic diversity as a threat to social cohesion and national identity persists.

Building on Bourdieu’s work, Gogolin (1997) sought to illustrate the consequences of institutional monolingualism as a habitus, comprised of implicit assumptions around terms such as “standard language” or “academic language”, and the impact of such assumptions on minoritized languages and their speakers. According to her, schools’ monolingual habitus perpetuates a hierarchy in which fluency in certain forms of a dominant language, or in languages considered valuable, such as English, is seen as conferring privilege. In contrast, speakers of other languages are perceived within educational settings as deficient for not having acquired the so-called “codes of power” (Delpit, 2006) that their peers already possess.

The monolingual habitus embodied by institutional practices across nation-states does not necessarily translate into a rejection of multilingualism (Lippi-Green, 1997; Meighan, 2023). However, this habitus—whether manifesting as monolingualism or discrete forms of multilingualism, such as avoiding language mixing in classrooms—has significant implications for the narratives surrounding multilingual students in public schools. It has influenced, for instance, the instructional approaches and curricula developed by educators, which shape views on the importance of different linguistic expressions for societal functioning.

The monolingual habitus as a dominant ideological force is evident in education policies in Norway that prioritize national languages and often regard other languages as secondary or even problematic. Schipor (2022) and Krulatz et al. (2018) argue that the Norwegian language and the English language tend to be regarded as more valuable than minority languages in Norwegian schools, which resonates with a pattern across Europe. As Jørgensen et al. (2015) observe, language policies fail to reflect the reality of linguistic diversity across many European societies. Policies that promote monolingualism remain rooted in outdated notions of linguistic purity and uniformity, which do not align with the multilingual practices of migrant and minoritized speakers’ communities. The disconnect between the language norms promoted by education policies and the actual language behaviors observed in everyday life is central to the monolingual habitus. Although education systems often assume students should master the standard form of the national language, many students use multiple languages or dialects in their daily interactions. This creates a gap between institutional language expectations and the multilingual realities of modern European societies. As Jørgensen et al. (2015, p. 28) explain, human beings do not learn “languages” … People primarily learn and use linguistic features. While they learn these features, they mostly also learn how they are associated with specific sociocultural constructions called “languages”. Schools all over the world offer classes with the label “English”. What students learn in these classes is, by political or sociocultural definition, “English”. This term turns out to be at best fuzzy if we try to define it as a set of linguistic features or resources … but it makes sense to both students and teachers.

Indeed, decisions shaped by a nation’s monolingual habitus continue to obstruct educational access, as instruction typically positions the dominant language, literacy practices, and genres associated with the elite class as the priority, while marginalizing underprivileged speakers. Although concepts like additive bilingualism—where multiple languages are viewed as resources that enrich students’ learning—are often promoted in educational discourse (Cummins, 2019), the monolingual mindset prevailing in public school curricula continues to position multilingual students from a deficit perspective. Rather than recognizing their linguistic and cognitive strengths, these students are frequently positioned as lacking the necessary skills for academic success (Otheguy et al., 2019). The monolingual habitus of public education significantly influences storylines and positions regarding academic achievement within mainstream educational systems. Pedagogical practices and discourse further entrench monolingualism or rigid forms of multilingualism as classroom norms. Consequently, under the sway of the monolingual habitus, migrant students may position their home languages and cultural identities in deficit ways, which negatively affects their self-esteem and their ability to negotiate their identities as citizens (García, 2020).

3.3. Superdiversity

The intricate and interconnected ways in which migration, language, religion, socioeconomic status, gender, and other factors intersect and shape contemporary societies and institutions reflect societal complexities that demand a response from institutional organizations beyond mere accommodation. Conventional categories for migrant populations are increasingly ineffective in managing the diverse needs of these populations in public institutions, as they resist traditional forms of representation, including how language is understood and addressed within schools. Vertovec (2023) remarks that the ‘superdiverse’ condition of contemporary societies represents a level of social transformation that “cuts across economic, political, social, and cultural terrains as well as macro- to micro-scales. p. 2” This superdiversity challenges institutions to rethink the dynamics of social categorizations that were developed within traditional multiculturalist frameworks for managing diversity—frameworks that often assume the relative stability or homogeneity of categories such as ethnicity, language, country of origin, and religion.

For example, in an educational context, traditional approaches to structuring curriculum and instruction may categorize students based on a single language spoken at home or their country of origin, without recognizing the complexities of multilingual households or transnational identities. A student who speaks multiple languages or who has lived in multiple countries may not fit neatly into these conventional categories, leading to a lack of appropriate support and resources. Similarly, socioeconomic status and gender further complicate these categories, as students may experience different challenges and opportunities based on their intersectional identities. Schools that rely on outdated categorizations may inadvertently marginalize students who do not conform to these traditional categories, thereby perpetuating inequities. As research shows, “children of transient migrants rarely encounter teachers who are equipped with the pedagogical competence or adequate curricular resources to provide [them] with meaningful support to utilize their transnational experience” (Marom et al., 2021, p. 301).

There has been a noticeable paradigm shift in recent sociolinguistic research towards understanding language in super-diverse contexts, which emphasizes the emergence of “new repertoires” among speakers. This shift challenges essentialist perspectives on languages, language groups, and communicative practices. As Blommaert and Rampton (2011) argue, factors such as mobility, mixing, political dynamics, and historical embedding are crucial for studying such practices. Conceptualizations of languages as bounded systems linked to communities constitute but an ideological construct that has served elites in their nation-building and colonial enterprises.

Concerning language groups and speakers, more specifically, a superdiversity framework advocates for a move away from binary classifications, such as “native” vs. “non-native” speakers or “first” vs. “second” languages. These traditional categorizations are based on monolingualism as the norm, treating other linguistic constellations or practices as exceptions. In contrast, the superdiversity approach centers on linguistic diversity as the default condition, positing that individuals possess “plurilingual repertoires”. These repertoires consist of varying degrees of competence across different languages, dialects, or registers, with speakers mastering them to varying extents based on communicative needs (Jørgensen, 2008). The fluid and often fragmentary nature of these repertoires challenges traditional notions of “correctness” and “nativeness”, which fail to account for the complexity of language use in super-diverse settings (Blommaert & Rampton, 2011). Accordingly, the term “multilingual” is employed to describe the collective linguistic composition of groups made up of plurilingual individuals, further illustrating the inadequacy of monolingual norms in capturing these dynamics (Quehl, 2022; Spotti, 2025). As Mehmedbegović (2008) reminds us, the very marginalization of diverse linguistic profiles reinforces “a fallacy that not only is monolingualism the norm, but that everything else is undesirable” (p. 18).

4. Methodology

4.1. Research Context

This research is part of the Norwegian Research Council’s FINNUT-granted project (MIM: Mathematics Education in Indigenous and Migrational Contexts: Storylines, Cultures, and Strengths-Based Pedagogies), a collaboration drawing on participatory approaches to investigate educational possibilities and desires, in times of societal changes and movements. Althugh we focus on tßhe Norwegian context, we recognize that these kinds of societal changes and movements impact many countries throughout the world. With these changes and movements of people, language diversity may be the most obvious challenge in mathematics classrooms, but this reality also connects to cultural differences and conventional characteristics of the discipline.

4.2. Participatory Approach

In this research project, a participatory research approach is employed with the goal of generating knowledge that is directly useful to, and developed in collaboration with, a group of people through research, education, or socio-political action. Rooted in positive psychology (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000), this approach is based on a participatory worldview that integrates action and reflection, theory and practice, in collaboration with others to find practical solutions to pressing issues. Participatory research is not a specific method, but rather an approach that encompasses a set of principles and practices for initiating, designing, conducting, analyzing, and acting upon research (Morales, 2016). In such a developmental process, the renewed and improved vision of the future emerges from the cooperative activities among participants. The collaboration between school leaders, teachers, and researchers fosters innovation and adaptation in learning activities and provides a forum where ideas can be collectively discussed, analyzed, and evaluated, resulting in outcomes that surpass what could be achieved individually. As part of establishing a participatory research relationship, school leaders from the participating schools were interviewed at the outset, and (the author) has engaged in ongoing conversations with them over time. The findings presented here are based on these interviews and discussions.

4.3. Methods

We initially conducted in-depth semistructured interviews (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009) with 14 school leaders in our collaborating schools. Each interview involved two members of our university-based team and one school leader and took place via Zoom due to the pandemic. Each interview lasted 1–1.5 h. The interviews, as well as subsequent in-person conversations during school visits, were recorded, transcribed, and eventually translated into English. We independently read each interview multiple times in either Norwegian (Annica and Trine) or English (Sandros and Beth) and took notes on the various ways teachers, students, and school leaders were positioned by the school leaders in the episodes. We aimed to identify the kinds of storylines that were at play. As we moved back and forth between the literature and our data, the various storylines and positionalities began to emerge. We then met to share the storylines we had identified, along with evidence for each one, and after discussion, reached consensus on a set of storylines to report. As Wagner and Herbel-Eisenmann (2009) have noted, there is no ‘correct’ way to name a storyline because each participant’s perspective may differ. Therefore, we drew on the context of the interview, information we had about the school and community, the educational, historical, and political context of the specific country, and relevant literature to consider how best to name the storylines.

Our ethical protocol was an important part of ensuring open communication from the school leaders. The participants were informed in advance about the study through a written informed consent process before entering into the research. Participation was voluntary, and the participants were informed that they could withdraw from the research without giving a reason and without negative consequences. All names of participants and places were anonymized during the transcription process.

5. Findings

5.1. Storyline 1: Responding to Diversity and Its Compatibility with Schooling

We noticed in our analysis that the school leaders often referred to the fact that there was a diverse group of students that they positioned as having different kinds of challenges and opportunities for schoolwork. The school leaders repeatedly seemed to emphasize a binary among students within what traditionally could be regarded as a unified group of students, as for example the group of “new-comers”. In the interviews, the school leaders emphasized how the schools now need to organize for a broader spectrum of students, and their starting point was often to position students as being either “weak” or “strong” in mathematics. Like school leader Anne Lene said when she elaborated on how she sees this group of students: “What may be the problem is that weak students have very different needs and some of them may come from a cultural context or have language problems, but then there are so many others (students) too.” Often school leaders positioned students with migrational backgrounds together as a homogeneous group with certain problems, hence positioning the students as the ones causing the challenges. However, another school leader, Selma, said: “We have everything from high-achieving students, (…) that are very highly motivated, engaged students, to students with a minority linguistic background and academically (challenged),” creating a binary that positions students with minority linguistic backgrounds and academic challenges as separate from high-achieving students. We noticed through the analysis that to have a migrational background was often seen as being equivalent to having challenges in mathematics, unless you had arrived from certain countries. Overall, the school leaders in this study expressed high levels of apprehension about the schools’ inability to respond to an increasingly diverse population at a systemic level. “Diversity within diversity” was a storyline that surfaced as a common thread across interviews as leaders emphasized the stark contrast between students with different educational backgrounds, cultural and/or linguistic backgrounds, and also how long students had been in Norway.

Importantly, when the school leaders talked about the students’ educational background, we noticed that they did not mean that the students were a unified group, like Pia said: “Some students arrive in Norway without any formal education (….) Others have attended school until they left their home country, completing primary and even some upper secondary education.” Other school leaders, as Ebba, were concerned about the students’ differences in general and were careful not to position students in deficit ways:

They have different backgrounds like all students. Some will go far, and some will come short. It is somewhat individually dependent, while the context has something to say about what they can achieve. But there is a wide range of multilinguals and I think it is important that they get the opportunities they can, to be able to show what they are really capable of, professionally.

In this specific interview, the school leader was concerned about not positioning students with migration backgrounds as being weak. Rather, she recognized that all students have different backgrounds and pointed to the context and the kinds of opportunities that are provided as factors one needs to consider. She also noted that they might have other challenges, like parental pressure:

(…) a student arrives who has done very well in the home country, and (s)he has to go to a new school and [learn] a new language, and perhaps the parents do not recognize the importance of learning Norwegian in order to succeed in Norwegian school. They [the students] get terribly busy and there is a lot of pressure on the students from their parents because they were performing well in their home country and it is hugely important here with subjects, and language skills are not there, it is a bit tricky. There may be a slight lack of understanding that it may be a good idea to take a little extra time.

In this case, Ebba positioned parents as pressuring their children based on their previous success in school, while maybe not understanding the role that a new language (Norwegian) might play in their need to have extra time to learn all the subjects they were learning.

Parents’ attitude to school work was an emerging issue in other school leaders’ talk too, and we found that there were strong differences among the anticipations from parents, and the school leaders’ descriptions about the range of ways parents’ cultural backgrounds might influence their perspectives. As Selma, one of the school leaders, stated, “Many parents with migrational background, for example, have high ambitions for their children in relation to educational careers and mobility in class.” At the same time, however, Selma also commented on the opposite situation: “Many parents themselves have not had the opportunity to go to school that much and are just very happy that the children and the youth are allowed to go to school.” This either-or attitude in Selma’s talk reappears when other school leaders talk about cultural background and how that affects students’ opportunities in schools or not. Some cultural backgrounds are positioned as being more compatible with school than others. Like Synnøve states,

The students who are from [country], for example, who are then third-generation students like them … They don’t have any support at home, right? Because that they so …. yes that … that’s not the tradition for that. So, they often have to solve it alone, or maybe the parents don’t think it’s important either.

Here, students are positioned as being left alone with their schoolwork, and parents are positioned as not being supportive or thinking schoolwork is unimportant. However, this viewpoint is contrasted in Selma’s interview: “We see that we have a good number who come from [country], and their education is more status and then there are parents who support and say that you have to work with the subject.” She goes on to note that:

Among the minority language group there are some who are very motivated, they have good educational capital in their family (…) they are motivated for the way they will go, and they know where they are going. We also have the other groups where the parents may not have education at all, they are refugees, they are illiterate from their home country and they live in small apartments—many siblings, poor.

School leaders’ comments suggest that they view certain students’ backgrounds as more compatible with the school’s expectations than others, something that school leaders recognize affects students’ opportunities and support systems available at home. This dichotomy in parental attitudes is reflected in the way school leaders discuss the impact of cultural background on students’ educational experiences and success. School leader Kristine adds another layer to this issue by focusing on the potential access to educational resources and background, which she suggests is contingent upon whether students come from urban or rural areas. She highlights how the origin of students can influence their preparedness and ability to engage with the curriculum, suggesting that those from rural areas may face additional challenges due to differences in educational opportunities and exposure, compared to their urban counterparts. As Kristine said:

It depends a bit on where, whether you come from a city or the countryside because those who come from the big cities often have parents who also have some education and school background, many of them have, while someone who comes from the countryside has neither parents nor any particular school background.

This further complicates the narrative around language proficiency, positioning it within a broader context of geographic and socio-economic disparities.

5.2. Storyline 2: Monolingual Answers to Multilingual Dilemmas

The school leaders predominantly focused on the importance of using the majority language, which also served as the language of instruction. While they acknowledge linguistic diversity as a potential asset, they express an overwhelming concern for ensuring that education is delivered in the majority language. This emphasis is conveyed in several ways. When the school leaders shared their thoughts on how to organize mathematics instruction, students’ lack of proficiency in Norwegian was consistently positioned as the main challenge. For example, Frida stated, “Yes, so the point is that the language is an obstacle. There is nothing to suggest that they should not have a sense of logic. So, I think that it is the language that needs to be strengthened.” Although Frida acknowledges that students possess logical reasoning skills, she frames their Norwegian language proficiency as insufficient and in need of improvement. She further emphasizes the strong focus on language, noting that:

the biggest challenge we have with some of the children is (…), that we see that they both have a poor mother tongue and Norwegian that is not “good enough” and we see that we cannot have anything bilingual because we have nothing to build on. In that sense, it simply becomes a bit poor language. They [the students] make themselves understood and understand but it is not good language. Then they speak half their mother tongue at home, which the family then understands. We’ve had bilingual teachers who actually hardly understand what’s being said because it’s so … what can I say … not really[language], then.

Frida’s quote highlights what the educational system demands: a limited, monolingual-based repertoire based exclusively on performance that does not map itself onto reality. From this systemic demand perspective on what “appropriate” language for school should be, the difficulty in providing effective bilingual education to children stems from a “lack” of strong proficiency in both their mother tongue and the second language (Norwegian), resulting in overall “poor” language skills and communication challenges. In this case, it is the school system that is encouraging a narrow view of language development and appropriateness.

Importantly, several tensions connected to language and diversity emerge across the interviews, and the way language is used in the classroom is given attention in the school leader’s talk, for example, when Pia is asked about this:

It varies (…), it depends on the students to be honest, because we have seen that some of them do not use it [their own mother tongue] positively. That they use it not connected to the subject they’re learning. It is somewhat challenging when we as teachers, do not understand what is being said. So of course, we strive for one that tries to speak Norwegian in the classroom and, but if there are students who need linguistic support, then of course there is room for that. What is a challenge are those who speak Norwegian quite well, but it is much easier to talk to a friend in for example Turkish. And that will be stopped by the teacher.

Pia reflects on the complexities and varied strategies involved in managing multiple languages within a classroom setting. The quote highlights an awareness of the challenges in balancing the need for a common instructional language with the accommodation of individual linguistic needs. The approach varies depending on student proficiency and specific needs, generally prioritizing Norwegian as the primary language of instruction, while also allowing for linguistic support where necessary. This underscores the tension between maintaining a unified educational framework and addressing the diverse language backgrounds of students.

We also noticed an emergent theme across the interviews: a concern for managing language in classrooms, both connected to students’ well-being and students’ learning opportunities. Several school leaders expressed concerns about the teachers’ control in the classroom based on the management of language. When a teacher does not understand the language, the students are talking in, it can cause worries, as for Anne-Lene, who says: “The teacher loses control about what goes on in the classroom.” This statement implies an anticipated view of teachers’ discomfort in not understanding students in ways that both integrate the student into the monolingual routines characteristic of mainstream classrooms and help assess these students’ needs.

Classrooms invariably require that students’ thinking is made ‘visible’ or ‘audible’ so that teachers may intervene according to a desired learning plan. Not understanding a student’s thinking process often means that an educator will lose control of dual dynamics between student’s learning and the way teachers can monitor the learning processes. The school leaders position teachers as worrying that the students will fall behind. The rationale school leaders presented concerning what they perceive to be teachers’ “tolerance” for languages other than Norwegian responds, therefore, to an institutional position that teachers conventionally occupy.

School leaders also expressed concern about all students’ sense of belonging, and they expressed a warm and caring attitude in the interviews regarding the affordances teachers make in the classroom for students to use their mother tongue. Also, we see that the school leaders focus on the whole group of students and worry about students’ sense of belonging based on language. As school leader Frida explained: “Our teachers mean … they [the students] cannot speak their own language… because they exclude others [who don’t speak their language].” This concern appears to prioritize the needs of Norwegian-primary speakers, the dominant linguistic group, over those of students learning Norwegian as an additional language. The drawback is that this focus can lead to educational practices that cater primarily to the dominant group, potentially marginalizing non-dominant students by failing to address their unique linguistic and cultural challenges.

Beliefs about what mathematics is and its status as a school subject significantly shaped what school leaders expressed in these interviews regarding the primacy of Norwegian. We asked school leaders about their views on the relationship between language development and newcomers’ progress in science-oriented subjects like mathematics, as mathematics’s unique status as a school subject often elevates its instructional priority. On this issue, Pia remarked: “We begin teaching mathematics to all students as soon as they arrive. Their understanding of language and mathematics develops simultaneously. A significant portion of early mathematics education focuses on mastering its specific language.” Pia’s response highlights her recognition that teaching mathematics alongside Norwegian from the outset is an effective strategy, as language skills are critical for grasping and excelling in mathematics within the curriculum. This concern for students’ mastery of mathematical concepts and their ability to articulate these ideas, in accordance with the curriculum, reappeared throughout Pia’s and other leaders’ interviews. As Pia further noted: “Concept training and that part there. There is nothing to suggest that they will not be able to do math as well as… the other children, I think.”

Because mathematical concepts are often communicated through language and require the precise expression of mathematical thinking, school leaders suggest that mathematics teachers take on the role of language teachers as well. However, this is a perspective that not all professionals may share equally, highlighting potential differences in views regarding the integration of language instruction within mathematics education. Our interviews with school leaders suggest a level of awareness concerning the challenge at hand related to the diverse educational backgrounds of multilingual students. Also, with language skills not related to mathematics, but focusing on the specific language of mathematics, we see how this is perpetuated through the ‘Mathematics as culture-free myth’. Yet when asked if broader discussions about language and culture-related issues were prominent in professional development meetings, some school leaders during individual interviews divulged that such discussions were not part of the agenda, as Anne Lene replied: “We have not discussed that at our school.”

It is not surprising, therefore, that most of the school leaders we interviewed expressed skepticism about the ability of newcomers to the Norwegian language to thrive in monolingual mainstream classrooms. This concern is particularly relevant given that these students often receive no more than one year of instruction before being integrated into mainstream classrooms, which may be insufficient. Refugee groups have diverse schooling histories and needs; some have experienced severe interruptions and possibly trauma in their education, while others may be more accustomed to traditional patterns of school socialization. As a result, the routines of mainstream curriculum and instruction may be more or less accessible, leading to varying degrees of success in facilitating both language and content learning.

The school leaders interviewed in this study identified another challenge in accommodating a growing number of linguistically diverse students: the varying ways in which parents wish to integrate their children into mainstream school culture. The influence of parents’ desires regarding their children’s integration with the dominant language is evident in the interviews. As Kristine explained:

In our school culture, the bilingual teachers, who are relatively new to Norwegian, are often seen as setting the students apart. They inadvertently increase the visibility of these students, which is the opposite of what many of them want, especially the teenagers. Many of our multilingual students’ desire to blend in with their peers, to be just like everyone else. So, having a bilingual teacher in the classroom can make them feel uncomfortable. They don’t want to stand out; they prefer to be less conspicuous.

Kristine’s words illustrate how newcomers to the Norwegian language often aspire to blend in and may show reluctance to being placed in arrival classes. Similarly, the presence of bilingual aids in the classroom does not always align with students’ comfort levels or their desire to appear less conspicuous, potentially impacting their learning experiences and the additional efforts required from teachers beyond what is outlined in policy.

Appearing in tension with parental desires for their children’s integration, school leaders emphasized the need for teachers to support this integration in culturally responsive ways, a challenge made more complex by the predominantly monolingual habitus of the Norwegian school system. According to the school leaders, many migrant families express a desire for their children to integrate into mainstream classrooms, which often results in varying attitudes toward the promotion of Norwegian as the medium of instruction. As one school leader, Johan, mentioned in his interview, it is common for migrant families to view welcoming classes or bilingual teachers as highlighting their children’s “difference” in ways that may feel alienating to the youth. Johan explained: “We often see that being taken out of an ordinary class too much can be inhibiting in relation to language development.”

5.3. Resulting Third-Order Positioning: Teacher and Students Caught in Monolingual and Superdiverse Storylines

The two primary storylines above resulted in particular positionings of teachers and students, which we highlight here. Teachers were positioned as needing to be “fire-soul” educators—highly passionate and dedicated—and the reciprocal positioning of students was as a burden due to the additional work teachers must do to meet their needs. While articulating systemic concerns about schools’ ability to swiftly and effectively meet the needs of diverse newcomers to the Norwegian language, school leaders mirrored teachers’ concerns regarding what their main professional expectations were and the anxieties around increased workload associated with managing a super-diverse context. One school leader, Ebba, noted: “Getting multilingual students into the class is not hugely popular [among the teachers], and it’s not about being unsupportive of providing assistance.”

Ebba’s observation aligns with a broader trend familiar to educators worldwide, where teachers are increasingly expected to do more with fewer resources. As Selma notes:

The first thing I would wish for is to find one or two mathematics teachers who were truly passionate about transforming teaching, willing to experiment with entirely new methods or approaches, and so dedicated that they would have students come here for Saturday school or during the winter holidays, a real lighthouse. I could wish for that.

Selma’s remark highlights the expectation for extraordinary teachers, a demand that arises from the system’s inability to provide adequate support for addressing the challenges intensified by migration patterns. This sentiment is echoed in interviews with other school leaders, who similarly articulate the need for ‘fire-soul’ professionals—those with exceptional passion and dedication.

Indeed, Norway’s growing and rapidly diversifying linguistic and cultural landscape presents significant challenges for teachers transitioning students from arrival classes to mainstream classrooms or directly into the mainstream classrooms. In this regard, the consensus is that teaching linguistically diverse newcomers goes beyond the usual responsibilities of the classroom. As Ebba remarks:

[teaching newcomers to Norwegian] is often perceived as an additional burden because students arrive with expert assessments, for example, from child and family services, and there may not be available resources for them. Teachers feel distressed because they believe they cannot fulfil their duties independently. Also, there is a shared belief that newcomers to Norwegian require something different and extraordinary from other students, something for which there is no space within what they perceive as the parameters of ‘ordinary’ teaching.

Ebba’s statement concerning teaching newcomers to Norwegian, presenting an additional challenge, likely stems from the perceived need for extra resources, time, and specialized skills required to teach these students effectively, rather than from a resentful attitude toward the newcomers themselves. The term “burden” used above, as we understand it in the context of the interviews, is not intended to lay blame on the newcomer. Rather, it implies an overwhelming sense of responsibility or strain caused by the system’s inability to attend appropriately and expediently to the needs of those who serve, namely, teachers. Ebba reports that teachers feel inadequately prepared or supported to meet these additional demands. This concern is underscored by references to “expert assessments” from child and family services, highlighting that newcomers often have complex backgrounds and needs beyond academics. These needs are not fully captured through standard academic assessments and demand specialized attention to structural needs, such as bilingual classroom aids.

6. Discussion

As the school leaders interviewed for this project indicated, they are increasingly expected to radically redefine their schools while passing along this positioning to teachers, as discussed above. The socialization process of school administrators, however, tends to lean toward preserving the status quo (see, for example, Herbel-Eisenmann et al., 2018). In this respect, our findings confirm what previous studies have suggested concerning the tension between the transformative leadership roles expected of school administrators and the traditional socialization processes that often push them to maintain the status quo. In addition, we don’t note any traces across the interviews where school leaders talk about ‘pushing back’ to the level above them. It is as if they accept that the challenges they experience must be solved within the framing of their schools. As Cline and Necochea (2000) observed, this tension leads inevitably to a paradox in which school leaders are expected to innovate and meet the evolving demands of globalization, technology, and demographic changes, while their education and professional socialization often limit these possibilities, thereby reinforcing conventional practices. As the responses from school leaders in this study suggest, large-scale transformations are unlikely without rethinking the very lenses through which policies are interpreted and negotiated—a shift that redefines what leadership means in complex contexts where teachers and school leaders act as de facto policy-makers (see Shohamy, 2019; Menken & García, 2010). As scholars have previously argued, deep consideration of how something is framed, in this case “superdiversity,” is necessary because framing contributes to who or what is held responsible for a problem, whether it’s an individual, a group, or a system. (Coburn, 2006, p. 344).

Our analysis of the data highlighted a common theme running through the interviews. When the school leaders talked about organizing teaching for the students, they often described themselves as positioned within difficult challenges. Several school leaders point to limited economic resources and how that hindered teaching in ways that would meet the students’ needs. They also expressed a wish for more money, more staff, and more specialized staff so the students can have more attention in smaller groups and closer follow-up. They identified parents as a stakeholder, but noted some of the inconsistencies in what parents want for their students and how they support them. Interestingly, not one school leader indicated that they were close to finding a good solution for how to organize the teaching for the students or how to think differently about the issues they face. This is likely because of how they interpret their roles within schools. The general attitude we found was that the school leaders are positioned to mostly identify what is not working in terms of what the students need or what they bring. They are keen on recognizing that one size fits all does not apply to present school contexts and can no longer accommodate modern categories of language, ethnicity, religious affiliation, etc. Yet these are the categories with which policy tends to “think with” and which school leaders must interpret.

Curiously, when the school leaders we interviewed described their struggle with organizing teaching that provides for what the students need, they often struggled to find a position for themselves as supporting agents. They seemed to be strongly aware that they were not providing for the students’ needs, leaving a pessimistic impression that school leaders do not know how to navigate this almost unsolvable task. School leaders, in turn, are strongly affected by what they perceive as the overwhelming challenges of the superdiverse context in which they now serve. For them, not only does language become an issue to be addressed as a problem, but the schooling experience also encompasses a range of plural experiences among linguistic minorities, which embody different forms of knowledge that often conflict with the monolingual habitus of institutions. These experiences challenge the conventional understanding of multicultural curricula, which tend to treat language and culture as easily cognizable and relatively stable constructs (Otheguy et al., 2019). It is important to acknowledge here, however, that mathematics education research offers a broad repertoire of strategies for supporting diverse learners beyond language scaffolding, including culturally relevant pedagogy, use of manipulatives and visual models, and practices that foreground mathematical discourse as multimodal rather than strictly linguistic (see, for example, Chval et al., 2020). Yet the fact that these approaches were largely absent from the school leaders’ narratives is itself telling. Their discourse consistently positioned mathematics instruction as a problem of language acquisition, thereby reducing mathematics to linguistic competence. We argue that this absence highlights a critical discursive gap: if leaders see mathematics primarily through the lens of language, then policies and practices risk overlooking the wider set of resources that could foster inclusion and equity in mathematics classrooms.

Lastly, our analysis further revealed that school leaders generally view language management as the responsibility of the teacher and express trust in the teacher’s ability to manage language in the classroom. While these leaders are aware that monolingual approaches may marginalize or exclude non-Norwegian-speaking students or those from different linguistic backgrounds, they also equate equal opportunities within the school system with opportunities to acquire the dominant language, Norwegian. Consequently, most efforts are focused on supporting teachers in achieving this goal. Ultimately, regardless of how school leaders described diversity within diversity, equitable instruction presents a dual challenge for districts. On one hand, they are expected to tailor their support systems to subpopulations of students with diverse needs; on the other hand, teachers themselves may not be entirely clear about the system’s expectations beyond the conventional duties for which they have been prepared, which tends to revert to the status quo (Cline & Necochea, 2000).

7. Conclusions

The need to develop a shared language or “superdiverse vocabulary” to address language as a “problem” in the context of changing linguistic demographics in schools compels us to consider the role that school leaders envision for themselves in leading coordinated responses to this superdiverse context. This context requires that school leaders and policymakers develop new ways of thinking about diversity, particularly in relation to the monolingual habitus of the nation and how schools and institutions might more effectively respond to these changes. Addressing such complexity requires approaches that avoid romanticizing diversity or adopting the same type of neoliberal pragmatism that reduces differences to mere assets (Vertovec, 2023).

While the evolving purpose of schooling has reflected shifts and adaptations over time, contemporary societal complexities, driven by intensified global migration and technological advancements, have exceeded the capacity of traditional educational institutions to accommodate effectively. These institutions struggle to adequately meet the needs of “new citizens” and to navigate the heightened differences that have emerged. In the past, “zones of contact” served as spaces where conventional categories were insufficient to describe emerging diversities and the negotiation of identities and languages (Pratt, 2012). Today, this paradigm transcends “peripheral” geographical boundaries, challenging schools to rapidly adapt to an expanded sphere of interaction where zones of contact are no longer confined to national borders. This underscores the urgency of engaging in research-practice partnerships (e.g., Coburn & Penuel, 2016) and using participatory approaches (e.g., Herbel-Eisenmann et al., 2024) that bring together key stakeholders and prioritize the histories and voices of those most impacted by these storylines—newcomers and their families. These approaches can make headway toward developing new educational frameworks capable of managing diversity more effectively and building equitable collaborations with families and communities (see, for example, Ishimaru, 2020).

As the interviews and experiences reported in this paper illustrate, to achieve meaningful change, educational policy needs to reflect approaches to thinking about and managing diversity that move beyond emergency responses. This is so because, as Jørgensen et al. (2015, p. 36) note, “the very basis of language is that it enables us to share experience, images, etc. Our relations to the socio-culturally constructed phenomena called “languages”, etc., are thus social categorizations, not naturally given relations, and certainly not a consequence of the nature of language.” Based on the experiences narrated by school leaders herein, a shift towards an asset-based perspective on adaptation also presents a significant challenge to school leadership and the bureaucratic mechanisms that often slow the pace of their response. In this context, we suggest school leaders have a role to play in spearheading local initiatives that go beyond a language deficit and emergency response framework. They must create conditions across at least four factors that “shape the availability, distribution, and nature of opportunities to learn” (Herbel-Eisenmann et al., 2018, p. 6) in relationship to their decision-making: curriculum resources, human resources (i.e., development of professional expertise), organization and structure of learning, and how learning is assessed. For example, decisions they make can help develop their own and teachers’ expertise, which can support teachers to engage with the curriculum and develop instructional strategies that critically address society’s current superdiverse conditions, while also deconstructing the long-standing monolingual habitus embedded in educational systems.

Critiques about superdiversity have tended to characterize the term as a trendy new concept that looks at the same old phenomena. Yet we argue that its conceptualization as a tool to study and theorize leadership has the potential to become a key concept for a paradigmatic shift in the way languages, language skills, and plurilingual speakers are perceived within education and societies. In this regard, research and participatory work that draws on superdiversity frameworks can offer a way to promote a “multilingual habitus” (Gogolin & Duarte, 2017) that encourages the development of curricular and instructional practices that mirror the dynamic shifts in migration and diversification of school populations that are now part and parcel of society’s new processes of hybridization across the globe, requiring shifts in how institutions attempt to accommodate diversity. We note, too, that Osibodu et al. (2023) argue that participatory work necessitates the active and ongoing inclusion of historically marginalized communities (here newcomers to Norway’s schools and their families). Not to prioritize such perspectives, experiences, and histories in creating new policies and practices runs the risk of further perpetuating inequities.