This paper is part of a larger ongoing study which is conducted in a mid-sized Swedish municipality where the students results lie behind the national average and lower than theirsocio-economic background would implicate. This makes the municipality in question quiteunique and the general question is, what makes this municipality so special, what are thereasons behind the deviant results? Earlier attempts to identify and eliminate causes have notyet been successful, maybe because they have been aiming at areas of development in a toogeneral way, such as leadership, study environments or student health.The study which is presented in this paper has the aim to identify more specific andcomplimentary areas of development and improvement to the above mentioned.This will be done by using an inductive research strategy with teachers as informants whohave moved to the municipality during the last two years with prior teaching experiencesfrom other municipalities. (School education is organized by the municipalities in Sweden.The local “school systems” can differ quite a lot, structurally and pedagogically.) Theseteachers are due to their professional history capable of comparing different municipalities,they contribute to the research with inductive comparisons. The study will be able to add apractitioners perspective to school development and improvement work. Structural andorganizational aspects are completed by practical ones. The research is conducted usingletter writing, interviews and focus groups. The paper will include a discussion ofmethodological and data collection challenges and how they could be addressed.