Unequal pathways to legitimate school leadership: professional backgrounds and cross-professional collaboration in teacher-dominated cultures

Abstract

This paper examines how educational leaders in Danish primary schools organise and lead collaboration between teachers and pedagogues, focussing on how professional background shapes access to leadership, leadership legitimacy and leadership strategies. The study draws on qualitative, semi-structured interviews with six pedagogical leaders in one Danish municipality. Data were analysed using thematic analysis informed by theories of professional becoming, provisional selves and communities of practice. Three interrelated themes were identified. First, leaders bring their professional trajectories into leadership and draw on them in their role understanding and identity work. Second, legitimacy is relational and unevenly distributed: pedagogue-trained leaders often need to work harder for recognition, whereas teacher-trained leaders benefit from their insider status. Third, these differences shape the strategies leaders use when leading collaboration. Based on a small, context-specific sample, the study provides in-depth insight but has limited generalisability. The findings demonstrate how professional background influences opportunities to access and enact leadership in school settings. The findings suggest a need for leadership development and organisational initiatives that address unequal conditions of legitimacy. Formal qualifications and continuing education alone are insufficient to overcome inequalities rooted in informal status hierarchies. The paper shows that professional background is not merely contextual but plays a significant role in shaping leadership legitimacy and pathways into school leadership.