Collaborativeness as the core of professional learning communities beyond culture and context: evidence from Canada, Finland, and Israel

ABSTRACT

Professional learning communities (PLC) have been widely accepted as effective with respect to good atmosphere, adequate leadership practices, and functional working practices. However, the outcomes for school improvement depend on case-specific issues. To identify less culturally and contextually bound issues in 3 PLC settings in Canada, Finland, and Israel, we examined our cases through the notion of “collaborativeness”. It refers to a systematic and shared process consisting of efforts, ideas, and activities that aim at achieving synergy. By combining the 3 data sets and applying a special model, we were able to distinguish, through qualitative content analysis, ingredients of collaborativeness beyond culture and context that we consider particularly essential. The crucial factor proved to be a dynamic relationship between mutual and deep learning, realized through 5 different ways. We further believe that our results could serve other organizations striving for school improvement in other kinds of cultural and contextual settings.

KEYWORDS:

• collaboration
• professional learning community
• school improvement
• leadership
• dynamics

Acknowledgement

The study was funded by the Academy of Finland.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Aini-Kristiina Jäppinen

Aini-Kristiina Jäppinen works as Professor of Educational Leadership in the Faculty of Education in the University of Jyväskylä in Finland. During the time of conducting the study, she worked as Academy Research Fellow in the Finnish Institute for Educational Research. Her main research interests are collaborative leadership as a complex system and process and leading within an educational change.

Martine Leclerc

Martine Leclerc, PhD, works as Professor of Educational Administration in the Department of Educational Sciences of the Université du Québec en Outaouais in Canada. Her research interests are professional learning communities, leadership, and school administration.

Dorit Tubin

Dorit Tubin, PhD, educational sociologist, is a faculty member and the head of the Principal Training Program, Department of Education, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel. Her main interests are educational organizations, successful school leadership, innovative learning environments, and cultural aspects of schooling.