Decentralization, Localism, and the Role of Professional Learning Communities in Supporting School Collaborations in Wales

• In Event: 18.046 - Teachers Leading Education Reform: The Power and Potential of Professional Learning Communities

Abstract

Objectives or Purposes

This paper considers attempts within the Welsh education system to develop regional and national networks of professional learning communities (PLCs) that would align and cohere local capacity in order to develop a self-improving system (Hargreaves, 2102). The papers focuses on the role played by PLCs in one region of Wales in developing distributed system leadership capable of mobilising participation and engagement in collaborative reforms efforts by groups of schools.

Perspectives

The theoretical framework focuses on the role of PLCs in re-culturing and re-structuring an education system as a precondition for establishing collaborative reform efforts. PLCs are constructed as socio-culturally determined knowledge communities whose developmental role is primarily one of generating different forms of human and social capital. Capacity development being based upon the generation of new collective understandings, internationalities and inter-relationships, the ‘collaborative intentionality capital’ Engstrom’s (2005) required to bring about change.

Methods and data sources

The paper is based on year-long case studies of three cross-school improvement groups (SIGs). These studies involved semi-structured interviews with individual school leaders and practitioners from twenty schools, three focus group interviews with SIG members, and analysis of documentation generated by SIGs. The analysis explores the extent to which attempts to create networks of PLCs resulted in teacher leaders developing into system leaders in these cases. The case analyses are then set within a consideration of the wider structural and cultural factors that have influenced PLC development at a regional and system level.

Findings

The paper concludes with a series of findings as to

a) How different strategic approaches to developing networks of PLCs affected the nature of the challenges school leaders and teachers faced in deepening their collaborative working.
b) The role of PLCs in developing collective agency in order to effect changes to professional learning and classroom practices across groups of schools
c) How engagement in PLCs provided opportunities for their members to renegotiate aspects of their professional identities with regard to becoming system and teacher leaders.

The findings are discussed with regard to the international research literature on the role of school networks and school-to-school collaboration as a means of bringing about systemic reform (Hadfield and Chapman, 2009; Rincon-Gallardo & Fullan, 2016).


Engeström, Y. (2005). Knotworking to create collaborative intentionality capital in fluid organizational fields, in: M. M. Beyerlein, S. T. Beyerlein & F. A. Kennedy (Eds) Collaborative capital: creating intangible value Amsterdam: Elsevier.
Hadfield, M. and Chapman, C. (2009). Leading School Based Networks. London: Routledge
Hargreaves, D.H. (2012). A self-improving system in international context. Nottingham: National College for School Leadership.
Rincon-Gallardo, S. & Fullan, S. (2016) Essential features of effective networks in education. Journal of Professional Capital and Community 1(1), 5-22.

Author

• Mark P. Hadfield, Cardiff University