The politics of organisational sensemaking: a theory of sensesplitting

School leadership was transformed by the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. In this crisis, principals organised schooling amidst extreme confusion and uncertainty. Using sensemaking theory to capture how leaders identified, interpreted, and acted on this novel situation, this longitudinal qualitative study describes how school leaders, in interaction with stakeholders, generated understanding during the pandemic. We draw particular attention to a set of actors–parents–who elevated their participation in education broadly and sensemaking specifically in ways that have yet to be explored in other educational research. We examine the active role parents played in shaping educational decisions, their interaction with school leadership, and the growing polarisation exacerbated by the deepening political crisis that frames the field of education more generally. Our findings highlight how school leaders and parents held competing beliefs about how schools should be organised, leading to a process of what we call sensesplitting, the growth of two narratives emerging out of the same phenomena. This study offers important insight into how organisational sensemaking in education is increasingly shaped by parents, politics, and school leadership and the impact of this shift on leaders’ decision-making.