Keywords

The point of departure in this volume was the observation that the current state of the art in research on leadership in and of higher education is associated with challenges. A major part of HE leadership research often depart from either organisation theory or policy research. Other strands point to generic leadership models. A dilemma with these approaches is that they conceptually oversee the ultimate object of HE leadership (teaching, studying and research). While some of this research does consider the context and societal task of higher education, it is seldom guided by anything resembling a theory of education. We argue, therefore, that the leadership of learning in educational institutions is of a very different nature than the leadership of learning in, for example, the private sector or in public service institutions. In addition, as has been demonstrated in this volume, the idea of what constitutes a ‘university’ has changed dramatically throughout history. Any attempt to theoretically ground pedagogical leadership in and of higher education must not overlook this fact. Yet, research often does so. Irrespective of how elaborate the model, object and context neutrality characterise most of the previous approaches. This volume recognised a need to raise questions regarding the content-related what-aspect and context-related why-aspect of higher education leadership.

A third bothering aspect is that much of the existing HE leadership research deals with influencing the development of capacities and competencies at the individual and organizational levels but fails to thematise the pedagogical character of such leadership activities. Humans naturally learn everywhere, from all kinds of interactions, but what about the qualities of leader initiatives that intentionally aim to support others’ learning, either directly or indirectly? There is obviously a pedagogical dimension or aspect to such leadership activity. In addition to the ‘what’ and ‘where’ questions, we saw a need to raise questions about the pedagogical how of higher education leadership.

Influencing learning refers only to one part of the interactive learning process—namely, the ‘influencing’ as such—while other approaches focus on the opposite—the learner’s activities. When research on leadership for learning is grounded in learning theory or learning research alone, this results only in practical recommendations of how leadership for learning should be carried out in different contexts. Reaching for practical advice is valuable, but this strategy omits how we conceptually may describe features of the pedagogical, interactive dimensions of leadership and studying. In this volume, we argued that a theory that opens pedagogically driven learning activities cannot be limited to either the leadership activities or the learning process, but rather must approach these processes relationally.

The argument of this volume was that, ultimately, the content of higher education leadership is always related to teaching, studying and research, but in a mediated fashion. Even though leadership may be primarily focused on, for example, economical aspects or facilities, these are always understood in relation to the end object of HE leadership: HE teaching, studying, learning and research. Thus, leadership of HE institutions is to be understood as a multi-level and rhizomatic undertaking. For example, the board of the university only indirectly leads teaching and learning. The same holds true for the rector or provost of the university, who primarily leads other leaders of the university, who in turn more closely lead teachers, who lead their students.

The volume introduced the challenges of current strands of theoretical grounding of higher education leadership research. As we see it, these challenges relate to the capacity to deal with a) the object of HE leadership, namely teaching, studying, research and leadership; b) the societal task of education and research that point to the aims or the why-aspect of higher education; and c) the pedagogical dimensions of higher education leadership, namely those characterised by an ambition to influence the ways in which an Other learns, matures, qualifies and constructs an academically based professional identity, all of which support the individual’s ability to successfully act in the world. In the introduction, we formulated these observations via three critiques of contemporary HE leadership research.

In the first critique, we pointed out that many contemporary positions face challenges relating education to other societal fields of practice and thereby risk either subordinating education to serve contemporary conservative needs (i.e. reproductive education) or subordinating education to predefined and normatively closed ideals of a future (i.e. transformative education). In our second critique, we pointed out that many contemporary approaches have challenges dealing with HE leadership as a multi-level phenomenon in a coherent manner. Many approaches focus on isolated phenomena on isolated levels of leadership, and in doing so miss the big picture. Others grasp the big picture but do it using a general theory or conceptual language, thus missing the object of leadership: education. Our third critique pointed out that most contemporary approaches lack a language for pedagogic influence and interaction. This is a twofold challenge. First, it means that these positions lack a nuanced understanding of the end object of HE leadership, namely the relational teaching–studying–learning process. Second, it means that these positions lack the language to talk about the pedagogic influence that occurs within the leadership process itself at different levels of leadership, wherever this leadership entails intentionally trying to influence an Other directly or indirectly to transcend their current way of understanding or being in the world. This form of influence is inherent in all forms of developmental work.

This volume was based on an aim to explore the extent to which the non-affirmative theory of education can overcome these challenges and provide a theoretical point of departure for approaching the pedagogical dimensions of HE leadership in a coherent manner. This point of departure comes with two important limitations. First, our approach to exploring the capacities and limits of the non-affirmative theory is guided by a non-affirmative approach to the theory itself. Our mission is thus not to advocate for NAT in an affirmative manner; instead, our approach is guided by an ambition to test the usefulness of the theory while simultaneously trying to avoid the kind of normative stubbornness that would hinder us from seeing the limitations of the theory. Our search for the limits and capacities of NAT is in no way finished, and future responses to this volume will undoubtedly sharpen our view on the limits and capabilities of NAT. Second, it is important to acknowledge that our point of departure is that NAT may indeed contain a potentiality and capacity to deal precisely with the pedagogical dimensions of HE leadership. NAT is thus not proposed as a general theory capable of covering all aspects and dimensions of HE leadership.

Educational leadership thus remains a broad phenomenon that covers far more dimensions than a theory of education can handle. For example, organisation theory casts light on important dimensions of higher education leadership beyond its pedagogical qualities. Our argument is, however, that a theory of education can on the one hand work as a fundamental point of departure that sheds light on the role of education in a liberal democracy, while on the other hand be able to provide a language for the pedagogical influence that occurs within education and the leading thereof.

In this concluding chapter, we aim to sum up the main results and implications of our exploration of the capabilities and limitations of NAT described in the previous individual chapters. The chapters of this volume should be seen as attempts to deal with examples of pedagogical phenomena on various levels of HE leadership. Naturally, one volume is not capable of covering all the pedagogical dimensions of all levels of leadership, and the examples provided here are a limited few. In the introduction, we formulated three critiques and sketched how NAT could be capable of overcoming them. We focused on the theoretical points of departure in relation to previous positions. To provide a transition between the theoretical elaborations in the introduction and the specific but limited examples in the following chapters, we designed chapter two with a more pragmatic approach that drew on contemporary HE research to offer an overview of the various ways in which pedagogic interactions can emerge in multi-level HE leadership.

Chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 did not follow the levels of HE leadership in an orthodox way, given that many of the phenomena discussed stretch over several levels and occur in various forms. Nevertheless, the chapters roughly follow the logic of moving from the macro levels down to the micro level. At the same time, we want to reiterate that the ‘where’, ‘what’, ‘why’ and ‘how’ questions of HE leadership occur at all levels. In principle, we may at least differentiate between three types of contexts. On the lowest level we find teachers pedagogically leading students. At a following contextual level we find leaders leading teachers, while a third level identifies leaders leading leaders. All of these leadership levels feature pedagogical dimensions. Thereby, while the questions are the same on all levels, they emerge differently. While the lower levels of the multi-level model focus on teaching and studying, the levels in between deal with the leadership of leadership and only indirectly with the leadership of teaching and studying. It has become increasingly clear that in multi-level organisations, all leaders’ professional development is crucial. Leaders at different levels of higher education institutions need to continuously develop a wide variety of educational leadership competencies. Intentionally supporting leaders in their professional development, regardless of which competencies we discuss, is a pedagogical undertaking. Thus, we discuss the pedagogical leadership of leaders’ learning and developing in the field of educational leadership. It then follows that pedagogical leadership be one of the competencies included in educational leadership. Consequently, pedagogical leadership is an object of pedagogical leadership. The argument of this volume has been that although the pedagogical ‘how’ question of HE leadership may receive different shapes at different levels, it still features characteristics that we can express using similar vocabulary across the levels (recognition, non-affirmative summoning to self-activity, Bildsamkeit/Bildung).

In moving from the macro levels to the micro level, the point of departure of Chap. 3 is at the global level; specifically, the argument that the condition of the Anthropocene is challenging contemporary education on a global scale. This relates to the globopolitan dimension of education. While the question raised in Chap. 3 queries how education is supposed to deal with the Anthropocene, topics related to the environment and sustainability are only a few of many legitimate claims to HE curriculum. These come alongside topics such as economic competitiveness, social justice and qualifications for employability. All are topics that HE must deal with. They need to be recognised due to their importance, but when these topics are dealt with pedagogically, universities as critical institutions should not affirm them. To affirm any such societal interests in higher education teaching would reflect indoctrination of varying degrees. Affirming some of these claims would risk instrumentalising education to serve external interests and thereby subordinate education to them, which would risk jeopardising the education of critically reflective citizens for the open future of democracy. This is the general position of non-affirmative education theory. Chapter 3, however, questions the validity of such a point of departure. Lili-Ann Wolff et al. claims that the environment cannot be viewed as merely another field of societal practice to be affirmed or not affirmed. Rather, the environment is better seen as the fundament on which all fields of practice rely, and without which they cannot exist. In this respect, the fundamental character of the environment has been something of a blind spot for NAT. Therefore, in the chapter, Wolff et al. suggest that the environment should be seen as a fundamental frame of reference to which all fields of societal practice must relate. This argument may seem intriguing. However, it is merely a statement that education must relate to the environment; it has not answered how education should deal with nature. Wolff et al. argue that the environment must be recognised as the foundation for the existence of mankind. The question of how current and future generations are supposed to deal with this relation of dependency is, however, an open one. To pedagogically deal with humankind’s dependency on the environment would thus be to raise the topic for scrutiny and elaboration but avoid uncritically affirming any predefined contemporary or future solution to the problem. Instead of focusing on providing predefined solutions, the focus should be on understanding the question that the solutions are meant to answer, thereby opening the possibility to develop new perspectives and solutions previously unimagined. The importance of a sustainable relationship with the environment must thus, in a way, be affirmed or recognised, but the topic itself needs to be approached pedagogically and non-affirmatively from the perspectives of various scientific disciplines.

In Chap. 4, Jussi Kivistö et al. focused on the national level by exploring the pedagogical dimensions of national funding of HE. The chapter argued that national funding is one of the major ways in which the political sphere of society influences higher education. This relationship is an example of the relation between politics and education. Kivistö et al. argue that in HE funding, HE is always recognised as something, or as being endowed with specific assignments. The logic behind the ways in which funding is allocated has different implications for HE. In national models characterised by large proportions of ‘pillar one’ funding (i.e. stable funding based on the size of the university, for example), HE is recognised as an autonomous actor capable of defining the aims of education, as well as the focus of research in various fields and disciplines, in dialogue with the rest of society. Such a funding model would reflect a non-affirmative approach to funding because it safeguards the autonomy of the university and does not aim to use funding as a mechanism for influencing decision-making or agenda setting in HE. National models that emphasise ‘pillar two’ funding (i.e. models where funding is based on predefined key performance indicators (KPIs)), the recognition of HE tilts towards emphasising universities as producers of predefined ‘products’, such as exams, study credits, research or funding grants. A substantial focus on KPIs forces universities not only to recognise the KPIs but also to affirm them, as non-compliance would have dire consequences for the universities’ funding. The pedagogical element in this lies in that the funding models force universities to change the ways in which they perceive themselves and their role in society, their relationship to politics and their relationship to the economy, as the KPIs not infrequently focus on targets related to labour market relevance or aspects of university–business relations. In this case, HE funding appears as an intentional act of summoning universities to affirm the logics and values that underlie ‘pillar two’-based HE funding models, reducing university autonomy. This chapter thus brings a new perspective on HE funding by revealing how funding has clear pedagogical dimensions. It can be used as an instrument for influencing how HE institutions and academics perceive themselves and their role in society, which consequently leads to changes in how they act.

In Chap. 5, Jussi Välimaa et al. adopted a historical perspective on HE governance to identify how three broadly defined ideals of decision-making, collegiality, democracy and managerialism reflect the historical period in which they emerged. When approached from a non-affirmative framework, collegiality, democracy and managerialism exemplify how the first regulative principle relates to the second. The first regulative principle focuses on the relationships between different fields of societal practice, pointing out that the aims of education are created in the tensions, relations and dialogues between different societal fields. The second regulative principle of NAT deals with how these aims are transformed into pedagogical practice through governance, leadership and curriculum work. The chapter portrays a transition in HE governance from earlier forms of collegial decision-making to decision-making based on democratic ideals, then further towards decision-making characterised by managerialism. These transitions loosely correspond to shifts in societally formulated goals for education, with emphasis on democracy in the 1960s, and our current emphasis on a competitive knowledge economy. The societal focus on democracy in the ‘60 s corresponds with reforming governance in HE based on democratic ideals, whereas the latter focuses on a global competitive market that corresponds with strengthening managerialism in HE governance, exemplified by the New University Act of 2010 in Finland. How universities are governed (i.e. regulative principle 2) thus appears to relate to how the aims of HE form on a societal level. Whereas both collegialism and democracy as ideals for decision-making recognise the academic—and more broadly, the university—as capable of and responsible for formulating aims and deciding on procedures for HE, the current emphasis on a neoliberal and accountability-focused managerial mode of governance, to a larger degree, recognises academics and universities as implementers of externally decided agendas and as producers of commodities. In contrast to such a position, non-affirmative theory reminds us to recognise academics and universities as capable of critical reflection and of taking responsible action given various societal needs. Such a view reserves space for HE to recognise legitimate societal and individual interests but autonomously decide on the line of action, thereby also actively impacting society. Again, to recognise HE as an accountable implementer exemplifies an affirmative approach. This demands that HE both recognise and affirm external expectations and interests, thereby reducing the role of HE as an autonomous actor in society. From this perspective, it thus appears as if HE governance has moved from an autonomous and non-affirmative mode of decision-making towards more affirmative governance, leadership and managerial modes. At the same time, however, even if a managerial ideal of decision-making prevails at present, none of the previous forms have disappeared. On the contrary, collegiality remains a guiding principle for the research community, and democracy still exists (e.g. in the democratically elected bodies that remain). We thus find many layers and modes of decision-making on top of each other in the current HE, which create a spectrum of more or less affirmative logics of decision-making.

In Chap. 6, Ingunn Dahler Hybertsen and Björn Stensåker take on quality assurance and quality management in HE. In this context, external quality audits can be seen as summons for HEIs and professionals, as these audits always include the goal of influencing the institutions’ practices and perceptions regarding what quality is and how quality is managed. Quality assessment thus includes an element of pedagogic influence. Traditionally, quality management literature has identified two dimensions of quality assurance: one focused on accountability, and one focused on improvement. The accountability approach emphasises holding HE institutions accountable to the external actors that define the quality criteria and administer the evaluations. Quality work here is characterised by managerial control on all levels. Interpreting this phenomenon from a NAT perspective, this entails recognising the HEIs as subordinate and as not having the capacity to be trusted with autonomously defining and ensuring HE quality. The externally defined quality criteria thus represent conceptions of quality that HEIs are forced to affirm if they intend to pass the evaluation. Accountability enforced by external quality assessment thus comes across as an example of affirmative summoning.

The improvement approach to quality management emphasises quality in HE as something that is developed from within the organisation by HE professionals. From this perspective, quality is not so much about living up to externally defined standards as it is about working to reach a common understanding about what quality is and how it can be achieved in various local contexts. This entails recognising HEIs and the professionals therein as trustworthy and responsible actors who are capable of taking responsibility for quality. In this context, quality assessments come across as non-affirmative summons that aim to stimulate internal quality processes by directing the attention of HEIs towards certain topics without serving predefined solutions or criteria to live up to. Quality work in this context partly consists of creating spaces for collaborative elaboration and learning.

The two main approaches to quality assessment identified in the literature thus appear to correspond to, on the one hand, a more affirmative approach, and on the other to a more non-affirmative approach. In their empirical study, Hybertsen and Stensåker examined Nordic evaluation reports to determine what kind of quality management approach the reports communicate. Their results revealed that the reports emphasised the internal processes of collaborative quality work, and thus acknowledged the HEIs’ capacity for dealing with quality issues. The results thus imply that a trust-based non-affirmative approach is present in Nordic HE quality assessment, but also that the accountability aspect is in no way absent. Nordic quality assessment thus appears to balance between the accountability and improvement approaches (i.e. between an affirmative and non-affirmative approach).

In Chap. 7, Jan Masschelein and Maarten Simons problematised what universities, students, science and university studies are in contemporary society. They pointed towards the challenges associated with the recognition of universities as producers of research or degrees, the recognition of students as autonomous and unattached ‘learners’ and the recognition of academics as detached and entrepreneurial producers of research outputs. The authors posed the question as what students, academics and universities are recognised as. Masschelein and Simons argued that overemphasising the individuality of students and researchers is at odds with the fundamental relational character of university study and academic research. This points towards the importance of recognising that an analytical lens focused on the teaching–learning relationship is too limited; it misses the key activity of studying. Conceptualising the relationship as a teaching–studying–learning relationship brings the importance of studying to the foreground. Identifying the object as teaching–studying–learning can be translated as the notions of summoning to self-activity and Bildsamkeit/Bildung described by non-affirmative education theory. Masschelein and Simons thus emphasise the relational nature of pedagogic interaction and point to the importance of acknowledging the impact of contextual factors such as the site, space, modalities or mediums of study in the act of summoning, as well as the collective dimension of relational influence. The individualisation of learners and researchers is de-centering science, which Masschelein and Simons argue has a fundamentally collective character and thus risks dissolving the fundament of the university. University leadership thus needs to have an elaborate understanding of the object of HE leadership, namely that of academic studying and academic research. Masschelein and Simons remind us that these phenomena are in constant transition and are constantly challenged by societal developments. These developments are not necessarily carrying positive long-term consequences for the university, so it is important that HE leadership have a reflected and nuanced perspective.

Chapter 8 by Romuald Normand et al. showed how sociological theory and educational theory can complement each other in approaching the changes in professional roles and work conventions to which academics have been subjected in recent decades. The sociological perspective captures the shifts and developments in the societal roles of academics, as well as the shifts in their relationships to other societal stakeholders. This perspective points out changing work conventions, providing us with a better understanding of how the mechanisms of policy initiatives come to form the operational spaces that frame subjective identity construction. These transformations of academic work over the past decades have resulted in academics accommodating new working environments and creating new professional identities in the process. These are outlined in the chapter as mandarin, peer, expert and entrepreneur, exemplifying how academics navigate and respond to changing policy contexts. The sociology of tests is a useful way of illuminating how these changes operate by subjecting academics to new tests, either of strength or of justification. These tests influence the self-formation of the academic’s professional identity, as well as the networks and relationships that make up academia.

The concept of tests as seen from the sociological theory and the concept of summoning as seen from the educational theory both aim to explain interventions that, at least partly, aim to influence the self-formation of the individual. Both concepts acknowledge that these interventions can be more or less ‘open’ in character. In sociological theory, tests are divided into tests of strength (closed) and tests of justification (open for deliberation). In educational theory, summons can be affirmative (closed), non-affirmative (open for deliberation) or something in between. Sociology and education complement each other. Sociology can point towards the societal processes from which the tests emanate, as well as, to some extent, their outcomes. Educational theory provides a more elaborate language for the relational dimensions of these tests/summons, as well as a foundational point of departure for approaching tests in the context of education. NAT complements the sociology of tests by providing a language to talk about the character of tests from a relational perspective; it asks to what extent and how these tests and challenges recognise the autonomy of academic staff and students and to what extent these framings are strategically manipulative or instrumental (i.e. how affirmative the tests are in character). It also provides a language to talk about the premises for this relational interaction. Maintaining the difference between education and Bildung provides a more detailed way of approaching the intentional ways in which academics’ self-formation and work conventions transform.

The sociology of tests and NAT both use the concept of recognition. They highlight that the individual is always recognised as something, and this affects the nature of the pedagogic summons and the input to the process of self-formation that this summons provides. In tests of strength, an individual is generally recognised as an implementer of the test, as a means to an end that is external to him/herself and external to higher education. Tests of justification, on the other hand, leave room for interpretation and recognise the individual as a co-creator of direction with individual autonomy and the opportunity to influence the outcome of the test. The tests or summons directed at the academic community affect the constant self-formation of academics, as well as the work conventions in the university and the scientific community. Individual academics are thus summoned to redefine their professional identities and their professional conventions of work in a more or less affirmative way, depending on the character of the tests to which they are subjected.

Final Words

The above discussion demonstrates that pedagogical summons (i.e. summons that aim to influence how an Other perceives him/herself, some aspect of the world or their relation to this world) emerge in many different forms at many different levels of HE leadership and governance. Aims and expectations for HE occur in dialogues between different fields of societal practice. These aims and expectations always include recognising HE, academics and HE students as something. The formulation of aims and expectations based on this recognition includes the more or less explicit intention of influencing and changing the perceptions and actions of HE and HE professionals. As the provided examples show, approaching summons using the affirmative concept as an analytical tool reveals that summons can be more or less affirmative (i.e. recognising HE and academics as more or less responsible and autonomous), which leaves varying space for autonomous decision-making and action. The operational space of HE and the professionals within HE is constructed by a multitude of summons, all of which aim to influence actions and perceptions in a more or less non-affirmative manner. Using the concepts of recognition, summoning, affirmativism and Bildsamkeit could, in our view, provide a coherent language to analyse the myriad of influences to which HE and academics are subjected. This would enable the pedagogical influence to be talked about on all levels with a coherent language, irrespective of whether the summons take the form of policy initiatives, funding, societal developments or global environmental challenges. NAT thus comes across as a promising point of departure for approaching the pedagogical dimensions of HE leadership and governance.

Although the chapters in this volume point towards the possibilities of NAT, they also identify weaknesses and blind spots. In Chap. 3, Wolff et al. argued that the humanistically focused non-affirmative theory is not explicit enough in describing the relationship between societal fields of practice and the environment as a fundamental frame for human existence. The Anthropocene era thus challenges NAT to, in a way, decentre the human being by recognising and affirming the fundamental role of the environment. Recognising and affirming that the relationship between societal fields of practice and the environment is fundamental does not entail affirming any predefined vision of how this relationship is supposed to be dealt with, however. In HE, this relationship can be approached in very different ways and across different scientific disciplines. The discussion in this volume demonstrates that it is fruitful to complement NAT with other theoretical points of departure. NAT is limited to talking about pedagogical influence and education on a fundamental level; it lacks the capacity to talk about all the other aspects of educational leadership. Combining NAT and sociology, economy or organisational theory, for example, as has been done in this volume, thus brings the added value of different theoretical perspectives that can shed light on different parts of the same phenomena. Combining theoretical perspectives can also work to safeguard against expanding the use of NAT beyond its boundaries; in other words, it is a safeguard against the risk of NAT being used as a general theory. There is a limit to what objects NAT can explain, and beyond these boundaries NAT needs to be complemented with other theoretical perspectives. As long as the object of research is education, however, the general aspects of NAT (i.e. the two regulative principles) are valid as points of departure. Further, as long as the object of study is some form of pedagogical influence, the two constitutive principles are valid, irrespective of in which context the pedagogical influence takes place. The two regulative principles are thus restricted to an educational context, whereas the two constitutive principles can be applied to pedagogical influence in any societal field of practice.

The aim of this volume was to adapt core concepts from pedagogical theory and apply them to explain pedagogical dimensions at different levels of educational leadership. While the pedagogical core notions developed within non-affirmative education were originally developed to elucidate the intersubjectivity that constitutes the pedagogical teaching–studying–learning process, this volume demonstrates that their validity extends beyond this teacher–student relationship. Understanding pedagogical influence in a non-affirmative sense opens the door to applying these pedagogical core notions to other contexts, including different leadership levels within higher education.

In conclusion, when leadership aims to support the development of an Other’s competence, qualifications, insights, identity and the like, regardless of whether we are talking about students, teachers or leaders at different levels, then we are talking about the pedagogical qualities of leadership for learning. As previous HE leadership has only addressed this topic to a very limited extent, we propose that this volume contributes to the field of higher education leadership by identifying the pedagogical qualities of leadership and offering a new theoretical foundation for grounding such research in the non-affirmative theory of education.