The Future of Education

Morten Einar Edvardsen, [email protected], Nord University, Norway

 Atle Kristensen, [email protected]  Nord University, Norway

Keywords: legal risk, educational leadership, employment law, organisational practice

Abstract

Leadership in schools and early childhood settings is becoming increasingly legally complex. In the intersection between employer responsibilities, professional judgement and the strong rights held by employees, children and pupils, situations arise where legal risk becomes a natural part of everyday leadership. This is closely linked to values-based leadership and organisational culture (Bang, 2020; Kirkhaug, 2025; Schein, 1987). On this basis, the study investigates the following research question: How do leaders in schools and early childhood settings understand and deal with legal risk in employment and education, especially when relationships make cases difficult?

Analysis of 92 practice-oriented written assignments produced by leaders provides rare insight into which legal areas dominate their everyday work. The findings show that employment-law issues clearly make up the largest part. Dismissal, sick leave, workplace accommodation, organisational change and the limits of the leader’s decision-making authority appear as particularly challenging. These cases are marked by the need for professional judgement, strict procedural requirements and substantial consequences for staff and the working environment. At the same time, education-law themes such as the school environment, the duty to act, and the best interests of the child emerge as a secondary, but still important, field. This is in line with earlier analyses of pupil bullying, the duty to act and the best interests of the child in the education system (Eriksen, 2020; Gilstad, 2025), where absolute rights come into conflict with limited organisational resources.

Findings show that legal risk arises as much from structures, time pressure and documentation demands as from regulations themselves. Leaders describe tension between safeguarding pupil rights and managing cases within organisational constraints. Legal reasoning, emotional pressure and organisational tensions are closely connected. The study underscores the need for leadership development integrating legal competence with educational insight, enabling leaders to connect employment law, education law and professional judgement (Parmann et al., 2023).

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