Ledarskap och ideologi : En textanalys av ledarskapslitteratur för lärarstudenter

Sammanfattning: This thesis is about how ideology affects the way leadership literature measures good and bad leadership qualities. The paper argues that ideological influences in leadership literature, from a teacher perspective, complicate the understanding of leadership in its practice and theory. The methodological tool used in this thesis is an idea- and ideology analysis approach applied on leadership literature that is used in teacher education. A theoretical discussion about the definition of leadership and its possible ideological connotations sets a frame for measuring ideological influences in the texts. The analysis from the textbooks showed clear signs of ideological influences when talking about leadership. The textbooks perspective of leadership was not described in terms of teacher-student or teacher-school class; instead an organizational perspective was used to describe leadership, most often from a business organization perspective but other perspectives included the principal perspective where the teacher’s role is not that of a leader. The most common ideological ideas associated with good leadership were associated with democratic values while bad leadership was associated with autocratic ideas. Other ideological ideas expressed in the textbooks were concerning values associated with class, gender, ethnicity and ideas concerning human nature.