This thesis has aimed to study steering process and institutionalization in the context of educational policy work. This has been conducted by using empirical material from the political decision-making process that preceded the implementation of a new national program on how principals should be educated and certified. By using an aggregated theoretical point of view containing new institutionalism and traditional Swedish curriculum theory, the process was analyzed from different perspectives. The results depict a process that contained several actors who tried to shape the principal education program differently. From the theoretical perspectives, the decision-making process could be understood as an act of both self-interest as well as trust in their own beliefs and cultural values. The result also tells us how an institutional environment is created and what that implies for actors who are parts of that environment.