International Journal of Education and Social Science (IJESS)

In Denmark, schools were partly closed from March 2020 to summer 2022. This article discusses Danish primary school leaders’ experiences with Covid-19. The research question was, What are the long-term consequences of Covid-19 for school leadership? The analysis gave rise to a further question: How is it that experiences with Covid-19 are so different from one school leader to the next? From January–March 2023, 15 school leaders from 6 different municipalities were interviewed about their experiences with the longer-term consequences of Covid-19. The statements in the interviews ranged from statements such as ‘We are back to everyday life’ to ‘Everything has to be reinvented’. Some school leaders pointed out that they learned a lot about leadership and themselves as leaders, while others reported what could be described as limited experiences. The interviews were inductive but nevertheless case-oriented and focused in their questions, particularly regarding themes linked to school leaders’ experiences with Covid-19. Subsequently, a more deductively oriented analysis was conducted based on management theory, institutional theory and empirical studies of school leaders’ experiences with the coronavirus.