I am interested in what happens when big words such as “quality”, “collaboration” and “skills supply initiatives” are written into policy and then need to be enacted in the everyday life of schools. My research often takes adult education as its starting point – a sector that does not always receive the same attention as compulsory and upper-secondary schooling.

In my work, I study how policy, governance and leadership are negotiated, interpreted, and sometimes contested in the interactions between authorities, school providers, principals, teachers, and students. This may concern the exercise of professional judgment, the Swedish Schools Inspectorate’s quality evaluations, or the Swedish National Agency for Education’s systematic quality assurance. It may also involve how principals and senior administrators in municipal adult education (komvux) navigate between national demands and local conditions, how education for skills supply is organized in times of rapid societal transformation, or how internal professional development initiatives are arranged and what happens when requirements for quality assurance intersect with ambitions for quality development.

What drives me is the ambition to understand and make visible these processes – both the conflicts and resistance that may arise, and the unexpected forms of collaboration that can emerge. For me, educational research is about providing a more nuanced picture of educational issues and about highlighting voices and experiences that might otherwise remain unheard.

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

• What is represented as the ‘problem’ in principals’ accounts of flexible and individualised education?

  2025. Johanna Mufic. International Journal of Lifelong Education

  Article

  National policy in Sweden is increasingly emphasising the principal’s responsibility for the quality and development of Municipal Adult Education (MAE). While there is extensive research on principals’ perceptions of their role and work, most of it focuses on principals in primary and secondary schools even though today more students are involved in adult education than attend secondary school. The MAE principle operates under partially different conditions. Adult education is organised differently and places much higher demands on flexibility and individualisation. This study takes a critical approach and addresses the following question: What is represented as the ‘problem’ with flexible and individualised adult education when principals are interviewed by school inspectors as part of a school inspection audit? Drawing on Bacchi’s (2009) critical poststructuralist approach ‘What’s the “problem” represented to be?’, several observations of principals’ interactions with the Swedish School Inspectorate (SSI) during a thematic quality audit have been analysed. The study highlights how policy demands play out in practice and the anticipated, and sometimes unexpected, effects they have on principals, students, and staff.

  Read more about What is represented as the ‘problem’ in principals’ accounts of flexible and individualised education?

• Principals’ perspectives on managing systematic quality work in a decentralised and market-oriented adult education system

  2025. Johanna Mufic. International Journal of Educational Management

  Article

  This study examines how systematic quality work is enacted in the discussions by Municipal Adult Education (MAE) school leaders during a series of educational network meetings. By exploring how MAE school leaders navigate competing demands, this research offers deeper insights into educational leadership within Sweden’s market-oriented, decentralised and fragmented MAE system.

  Read more about Principals’ perspectives on managing systematic quality work in a decentralised and market-oriented adult education system

Show all publications by Johanna Mufic at Stockholm University