School Boards as Communities of Practice: Learning and Working Toward School Improvement

• In Event: Roundtable Session 18.
  In Roundtable Session: Everybody Learns: Professional Learning Communities and Student Improvement

Abstract

Abstract: In the last 30 years, the educational landscape has turned to one of hyper accountability. This environment has changed the way school boards govern with accountability and political and economic pressures constraining and shaping board behavior in new ways. There is a growing body of research that investigates the school board’s role in improving academic achievement but research on the collective behavior of school boards is thin and often lacks a theoretical lens. This paper proposes that Etienne Wenger’s (1998) Communities of Practice framework provides a unique and insightful structure for better understanding the sociocultural aspects of school boards and their impact on the success or failure of school improvement initiatives.

Author

• Becky Gundrum, Marquette University