The Role of Professional Learning Communities in International Education

8
The Role of Professional Learning Communities

In International Education
JAMES C. TOOLE
School of Social Work, University of Minnesota and Compass Institute
KAREN SEASHORE LOUIS

College of Education, University of Minnesota
"... The relationships among adults in schools are the basis, the precondition,
the sine qua non that allow, energize, and sustain all other attempts at school
improvement. Unless adults talk with one another, observe one another, and
help one another, very little will change." (Barth, 1990, p. 32)
INTRODUCTION
Hollywood films such as The Blackboard Jungle, To Sir With Love, Goodbye
Mr. Chips, Dead Poet's Society, Stand and Deliver, Dangerous Minds, and
Mr. Holland's Opus all follow what is now a remarkably predictable story line.
Good teaching is shown to be the result of individual character and will, while
schools are portrayed like out-of-touch churches that either ignore or persecute
their own saints. Similar images of schooling exist in non-U.S. movies: In the
recent French film, Butterfly, a village teacher is portrayed as a highly effective
educator of children, but is left unprotected by the local population when World
War II begins.
Film portrayals of the lone teacher hero reinforce an educational research
tradition that attributes classroom success or failure to an individual teacher
variable, such as personal characteristics, subject-matter knowledge, pedagogical
competence, or decision-making skills (McLaughlin & Talbert, 1990). The
problem with these movies, however, is that while the lead characters thrive
through personal creativity and commitment, those in the adjoining classrooms
or schools often flounder and rarely benefit from the nearby brilliance.
Lortie foresaw this problem in his groundbreaking 1975 work Schoolteacher.
He documented that the typical result for teachers working in isolation, each
behind a closed classroom door, is the reinforcement of a culture of "presentism,
245
Second International Handbook of Educational Leadership and Administration, 245-279

K. Leithwood, P. Hallinger (eds.)
© 2002 Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
246 Toole and Seashore Louis
individualism, and conservatism." This condition is not limited to the United
States. Scholarship from the Netherlands suggests that many teachers, rather
than lamenting this predicament, actually choose isolation over collaboration
(Bakkenes, de Brabander, & Imants, 1999). Moreover, it has been shown in
Pakistan that educational leaders may oppose the prospect for greater
collegiality when it challenges existing status arrangements. (Ali, Qasm, Jaffer, &
Greenland, 1999). Despite these obstacles, educational leaders are increasingly
being asked to take the role of "culture-builders" of collegial work environments
seriously (Bishop, 1999; Deal & Peterson, 1999).
This chapter examines five questions that possess theoretical and empirical
significance for school administrators who are asked to create learning cultures
among teachers: 1) What is a professional learning community? 2) What is its
importance to school improvement efforts? 3) What is its relevance to
international education at this time in history? 4) What are the inherent tensions
involved in its development? And 5) What role can leaders play to manage these
tensions?
Previous reviews and critiques of the concept (Louis, Kruse, & Bryk, 1994;
Fuhrman-Brown, 1998) have typically focused on the experience of teachers in
Western countries. That is not surprising given that the great majority of school
context research has occurred in countries where Lortie's culture of
individualism has strong historical and cultural roots. But interest in the effects
of school culture on school improvement has emerged in international
scholarship in countries as diverse as Canada (Hajnal, Walker, & Sackney, 1998),
Ghana (Pryor, 1998), South Africa (Abrahams, 1997), Japan (Shimihara, 1998),
and Mexico (Tatto, 1999). In order to add to this worldwide perspective, we have
also mined writings from various countries on teacher education, professional
development and school change that allowed us to speculate further about the
potential receptivity and need for professional learning communities elsewhere.
This chapter therefore takes an international perspective to explore, beyond
anyone culture, the wide potential and meaning of what it means to be collegial.
Chinese educator Liping Ma and American Lynn Paine (Paine & Ma, 1993)
illustrate the importance of such a comparative view. In responding to Paine's
comments on her native Chinese system, Ma confided that: "I was surprised that
some features outstanding in her eyes were so regular and so common for me
that they had not drawn my attention ... Working together constitutes the
circumstances or environment in which Chinese teachers work; like the air in
which we live, it seems to be too common and too customary for people to notice
its existence" (p. 677). The authors point out that: " ... Chinese teachers ... have a
decades-long tradition and well-articulated structure for teachers collaborating"
(p.675).
The cultural variance expressed by these authors illuminates two opportunities
to reconsider teacher collaboration. First, standard professional learning
community terms like collegiality, collective responsibility, reflection, and even
school improvement are all culturally laden. What they mean and how they are
interpreted will vary culture by culture. Secondly, a comparative discussion of
The Role of Professional Learning Communities in International Education 247
professional learning communities offers the opportunity to see familiar
problems in a new light. Samuel Johnson's famous dictum that he who only
knows England, knows not England, underlines that only by leaving our own
worldview can we clearly see ourselves for the first time. The focus on Western
schools in the literature has obscured the potentially broader understanding
available through examining the role of collegiality in diverse countries.
The Concept of Professional Learning Community: What is it?
While Liping Ma finds Chinese teacher community so "regular and common"

that she may overlook it, Western writers have struggled to make sense of the
concept. Little (1990) explains that from the beginning of the American
movement, constructs were "conceptually amorphous" (p. 509). The most
common term in the early educational literature was collegiality, which was often
confused with congeniality - a friendly faculty that enjoys each other's company
(Barth, 1990). Westheimer (1999) argues that theories of teacher communities
are "under conceptualized." Furman (1998) calls them "confusing," a "mismatch"
with postmodern life, and providing "little guidance for practice."
The initial problem facing research on professional learning communities
therefore is not methodological (i.e. how to measure one), but conceptual (i.e.,
what it is that we should be measuring) (Rosenholtz, 1991). The challenge, as
British writers Nias, Southworth and Yeomans (1989) explain, is translating
"what has hitherto been represented as intangible (being described, for instance,
as 'atmosphere,' 'ethos,' or 'good relationships') into the details of day-to-day
practice" (p. 9). Adding to the confusion, researchers use a variety of terms to
describe how to organize schools for teacher learning: collegiality (Barth, 1990;
Little, 1982, 1990; Sergiovanni, 1994) collaboration (Nias, et ai., 1989; Rosenholtz,
1991; Zellermayer, 1997), professional community (Louis & Kruse, 1995;
McLaughlin & Talbert, 2001), discourse communities (Putnam & Borko, 2000),
teacher networks (Lieberman, 2000),professionallearning community (Hall & Hord,
2001), democratic communities (Kahne, 1994), and schools that learn (Leithwood,
2000; Senge, Cambron-McCabe, Lucas, Smith, Dutton, & Kleiner, 2000).
By using the term professional learning community we signify our interest not
only in discrete acts of teacher sharing, but in the establishment of a school-wide
culture that makes collaboration expected, inclusive, genuine, ongoing, and
focused on critically examining practice to improve student outcomes. The term
integrates three robust concepts: a school culture that emphasizes profession-
alism is "client oriented and knowledge based" (Darling-Hammond, 1990); one
that emphasizes learning places a high value on teachers' inquiry and reflection
(Toole, 2002); and one that is communitarian emphasizes personal connection
(Louis & Kruse, 1995). The hypothesis is that what teachers do together outside
of the classroom can be as important as what they do inside in affecting school
restructuring, teachers' professional development, and student learning (Louis
& Kruse, 1995).
From an international perspective, this hypothesis may be surprisingly
heretical in many countries (a point that we will return to again several times).
In studying teacher development programs in Pakistan, for example, Ali, et al.
(1999) note that the governmental school systems have traditionally been "highly
hierarchical." The teachers' role is to obey the district officer who in turn receives
instructions from the director. Those things that most affect teachers' work (e.g.,
curriculum, textbooks, modes of examination, and professional development
topics) are prescribed. The authors write that: ':Any consultation or grouping
among teachers was viewed with suspicion, not only by the head but also by other
teachers. Collegiality was an unknown creed" (p. 738).
Although the idea of professional learning communities might appear more
accepted in many Western countries, its practice challenges a fundamental
assumption about school improvement as governments enact it and how the
media frequently reports education. Barth (2001) recognized a remarkable and
often overlooked bias in his review of the school reform literature published
since 1983: "It dawned on me that behind the models, the rubrics, the principles,
the analyses of the problems, and the prescriptions for improving them was a
very chilling assumption: schools are not capable of improving themselves. Those
who labor each day under the roof of the schoolhouse ... (were not seen as)
capable of getting their own house in order. Else, why do you need these outside
interventions" (p. xxi)?
The concept of professional learning communities rests on a very different set
of assumptions about the nature of teaching and about how teachers learn.
These include: that teaching is inherently a non-routine and complex activity (i.e.,
teachers will need to continue learning throughout their career); that there is a
great deal of untapped knowledge already existing in schools; that the challenges
teachers face are partly localized and will need to be addressed "on the ground,"
and that teachers improve by engaging with their peers in analysis, evaluation,
and experimentation.
Professional Learning Community: What Does One Look Like?
Not all schools have a strong sense of community, and those schools that do may
not have a learning community. McLaughlin and Talbert (2001) point out that
strong school cultures create and reinforce common beliefs among multiple
teachers - for better or for worse. They cite the example of two math departments
in the same town. One department held a commonly shared belief that student
failure resulted from a lack of ability (creating a self-fulfilling expectation that
students would fail), while the other department believed that students' low
performance resulted from poor "content pedagogy" (creating an ongoing
search for better instructional methods). These departments illustrate that
communal school beliefs hold the potential to shape teacher behaviors in ways
that either support or hinder students' opportunities to learn. By itself, the
concept of community is not inherently positive.
What then does a genuine learning community look like? It is easy to be
fooled. Having a happy faculty lounge or teachers sharing their favorite bag of
tricks is not sufficient. It is necessary to look not only if teachers collaborate and
share practice, but also at what forms and purposes those activities take. Fullan
and Hargreaves (1996) talk about "comfortable collaboration" that is bounded
in ways that protect norms of privacy and exclude deep investigation into
teaching and learning. Little (1990) points out that the following three types of
collaboration by themselves represent "weak ties:" 1) scanning and storytelling
(e.g. telling classroom anecdotes), 2) offering help when asked; and 3) sharing
ideas without critically examining or refining them. Here, collegiality may simply
reinforce bad habits.
Strong professional communities, in contrast, will typically produce frequent
disagreements and disequilibrium because teachers are continually questioning
and debating issues of practice (Fullan & Hargreaves, 1996). They are involved
in a critical school-wide focus on teaching and learning that Little (1990) labels
"joint work."! Deep teacher learning involves not just mastering new behaviors
or techniques, but surfacing and critiquing core assumptions and beliefs about
students, how they learn, and the role of teachers. For this type of challenging
faculty inquiry to happen, as Leithwood and Louis (1998) note, schools must
simultaneously become places of trust (communities) and places of risk-taking
(learning organizations).
Kruse, Louis and Bryk (1995) designate five interconnected variables that
describe what they call genuine professional communities in such a broad manner
that they can be applied to diverse settings. The variables are: shared norms and
values, a focus on student learning, deprivatized practice, reflective dialogue,
and collaboration. The authors also cite a series of "preconditions" that enable
or facilitate the development of professional communities. In the area of human
and social resources, they list openness to improvement, trust and respect, access
to expertise, supportive leadership, and socialization. In the area of structural
supports, they list time and places to meet and talk; interdependent teacher
roles, communication structures, teacher empowerment and school autonomy.
Researchers can and do vary on the exact list and number of key variables, and
those variables can only act as general descriptors. Little (2000) points out that
there is no simple checklist or template that will ever adequately guide the
construction of professional learning communities. But the central idea of the
model is the existence of a social architecture to school organizations that helps
shape both teachers' attitudes and practice. Toole (2002) describes this social
architecture as possessing three different categories of "building materials":
1. norms or an ethos that govern behavior (e.g., system thinking or collective
responsibility); 2. forms of ongoing collegial interaction (jointly studying student
work or observing other classrooms); and 3. environmental conditions (e.g.,
supportive principal or social trust). Together, these form what Little (2000) calls
"a set of obligations, opportunities, and resources for teacher learning" (p. 257).
They become manifest, as Nias et al. (1989) found, in an in-depth study of British
schools, throughout the tiny, day-to-day details of teachers' work lives.
Research reinforces that the components of professional learning communities

often work only in combination with each other (i.e., as a system) (Louis & Kruse,
1995; McLaughlin & Talbert, 2001). A good example of how different elements
of the social architecture interact with one other is in the area of teacher time.
Educational leaders that want to increase teacher collaboration might predictably
focus on creating more time for teachers to meet. But time by itself does not
necessarily lead to more collegiality among teachers. Hargreaves (1994) found
that increased preparation time is an important resource, but without the
presence of an ethos of collaboration, teachers imbued with a strong individu-
alistic sense will perceive extra time only as an occasion to work more on their
solitary classroom.
The professional learning community variables, because they simultaneously
stress both relationships and student learning, transcend recent criticism that
compares the effectiveness of communitarian versus academic cultures (Phillips,
1997). The type of professional learning communities that we envision are
intended to integrate simultaneously a focus on teacher affiliation, teacher
learning, and student achievement. When Bryk, Camburn, and Louis (1996) talk
about professional community, it is as a "key organizational capacity necessary
to promote the faculty development and instructional improvements required to
advance 'rigorous intellectual work by all students.'"
Do Professional Learning Communities Matter?
When entering a classroom in any country, one usually sees a teacher and his/her
students - the heart of the educational enterprise. What one does not see,
however, are the rings of invisible contexts surrounding the teacher-student
interaction (McLaughlin & Talbert, 1993). Like the Russian dolls that fit inside
each other, the teacher's instructional program exists within conscious and
unconscious rings of influence by parents, principals and headmasters, unions,
school culture, national culture, organizational structures, micro-politics,
professional networks, community educational values, and district, regional and
national policies. (Blase & Blase, 1998; Rosenholtz, 1991).
If such contexts influence teachers' work, then it is not possible to fully
understand what is happening in any classroom (e.g., teacher changes in practice)
without looking outside of it. Teachers' thinking, commitment, disposition,
practice, content, risk-taking, student expectations, and even discipline policies all
may reflect wider influential circles inhabited by teachers. Practice and context are
inextricably bound. What contexts matter most for teachers' practice? Researchers
are increasingly looking at a school's social organization and culture (Angelides
& Ainscow, 2000; Louis & Kruse, 1995; McLaughlin & Talbert, 1993; Rosenholtz,
1991). Professional learning communities are being viewed as a form of school
culture that can provide a critical context for school improvement.
Authors emphasize different aspects of professional community because they
have embraced it for varied reasons. Westheimer (1999) points out that "Reformers
have failed to confront whether (teacher) community is outcome-oriented or a
significant goal in its own right and what it would mean not to sidestep the latter"
(p. 98). Is it a means to an end, an end in its own right, or both? It is important
to note, as Little (2000) warns, that we do not yet have the "serious comparative
and longitudinal studies" of professional learning communities that are needed
to detail how they work and under what conditions. At this point, Little (2000)
explains: Ｇｾｳ･ｲｴｩｯｮ＠ about the relationship between school organization and
teacher learning rest in large part on theoretical work in the area of social and
organizational learning, studies of the implementation of innovation, and studies
of the workplace conditions of teacher efficacy and adaptability" (p. 235).
Still, the emerging evidence consistently points in positive directions and asks
for further exploration in research and practice. Each of the three rationales that
follow, although not mutually exclusive, reflect different hopes for professional
learning communities. They concern teachers' work lives, teachers' learning, and
organizational improvement.
1. TEACHERS' WORK LIVES: Schools require professional learning

communities to create supportive teacher work environments and career paths
to facilitate recruitment and retention
Teacher recruitment is an international problem. The Organization for

Economic Cooperation and Development (2001) points out that a number of
countries face a growing "time-bomb" in terms of aging teaching staff. In its 30
country pool, one third of lower secondary teachers are 50 years or older. Where
teachers are most needed, in high-demand subjects such as math and science and
in certain urban or rural areas, the shortages are even worse. In the United
States, for example, school districts are getting ready to hire a projected
2.2 million new teachers over the next decade (Johnson, 2000). Moreover, the
problem facing many countries includes teacher retention as well as teacher
recruitment (Kyriacou, 1987).
Given these issues, how do we construct rewarding career patterns and
cultures for teachers? Job satisfaction in many occupations is associated with
formal structural arrangements such as paid incentives and promotion. In the
typically "flat" career structure for teachers, what is the source of professional
rewards and advancements? McLaughlin and Talbert (2001) found that teachers
in different high school departments and schools did experience and talk about
their careers in markedly distinct ways. The critical variable turned out to be
their relationships with students, other staff members, and coursework. These
variables, in turn, were strongly mediated by the type of teacher community in
which teachers worked. Weak school communities tended to produce a sense of
a stagnant or declining career pattern. Especially in poor urban areas, teachers
tended to burn out trying to succeed on their own and became disengaged from
their careers. Teachers in tradition-bound communities tended to produce a
divergent career trend (i.e., rewards varied based on teaching assignments, status
and credentials); and strong learning communities tended to produce shared

｣｡ｲｾ･＠ progress (i.e., teachers experienced collective growth and success).
This power of collegial norms to shape teachers' professional rewards is
exemplified by McLaughlin and Talbert's (2001) study of an English and Social
Studies department in the same high school. Although the two departmental
teachers taught the same students in the same environment, the enthusiasm
characteristic of the collaborative English department was far away from the
frustration and disengagement of the non-collaborative Social Studies teachers.
There is other research to suggest that authentic learning communities may act
as a partial buffer against the conditions that cause people to leave the profession
early. Community in the form of interdisciplinary teaching teams has been shown
to increase job satisfaction (Pounder, 1999), as have teacher study groups (Scribner,
Cockrell, Cockrell, & Valentine, 1999). What Huberman (1993, 1999) terms "sus-
tained interactivity" between researchers and teachers has a similar effect on
both groups. Rosenholtz (1991) found that teachers who collaborate with one
another have more confidence and less uncertainty about their classroom practice.
The importance of professional learning communities to teacher career
patterns may be even more important in the future. Susan Moore Johnson (2000)
points out that the current beliefs we hold about teacher recruitment and reten-
tion in the United States have been formed from research with those who will be
retiring. The job market and career context for everyone today, however, is
changing. We now face a generation that is growing up in a new and global
economy with different expectations. For example, when she asked in the United
States what public education would have to look like to attract today's potential
teachers, one of her five answers was "schools would be organized to promote
teamwork rather than solo practice." Other studies suggest that teachers' sense
of community may be particularly important during the induction period, when
teachers make up their minds about a permanent commitment to the profession
(Rust, 1999; Weiss, 1999).
There is therefore significant support for the importance of professional
learning communities to teachers' work lives. Wenger and Snyder (1998) capture
this personal dimension of positive workplaces: "Communities of practice should
not be reduced to purely instrumental purposes. They are about knowing, but
also about being together, living meaningfully, developing a satisfying identity,
and altogether being human" (p. 134). The importance of teachers experiencing
a sense of school community may be magnified by the contemporary, worldwide
historical context in which geographic mobility, uncertainty about meaning,
changing family structures, and the loss of traditional neighborhoods have created
a void in many people's lives (Phillips, 1997).
2. TEACHERS'LEARNING: Schools require professional learning communities

to help foster deep and ongoing improvements in teacher practice
Substantive change in what teachers actually do in their classroom has been the
most elusive goal of school improvement efforts (Elmore, 1995; Louis, Toole, &
Hargreaves, 1999; Stigler & Hiebert, 1999; Tyack & Cuban, 1995). Perhaps the
core argument for the development of professional learning communities is the
presumed link between a school's social organization and the ability to make
transformative changes in the classroom. 2 Until recently, little research has
existed to directly connect the two.
In a large federal study in the U.S. about teachers learning how to use
"teaching for understanding" pedagogy, McLaughlin and Talbert (1993, 2001)
found that faculty polarized into three distinct responses to today's students.
One group of teachers didn't adapt (i.e., they taught as they had always taught
and blamed the students for not learning), and a second group adapted
negatively (i.e., by lowering standards). Both of these teacher groups felt that
what was wrong with schools today lay in student deficiencies. In the third group,
however, teachers diagnosed the problem of poor performance in the lack of fit
between traditional classrooms and contemporary students. These teachers
found new ways to teach high standards and engage students.
Why did this third group react differently? How were they able to make deep
and adaptive changes in their classroom practice? In a speech to the National
Staff Development Council, McLaughlin (1996) explained: "Every single one of
them - and I say that as a card-carrying social scientist - without exception,
belonged to some manner of learning community. Not one of them across states,
district settings, who was able to engage and sustain these kinds of classrooms
was an isolate."
Further evidence of the links between professional learning communities and
deep teacher change emerged from another major federal American study at the
University of Wisconsin's Center on Restructuring Schools (CORS). The CORS
study reported that higher levels of professional community were linked by
quantitative and qualitative data to: 1) the development of a school culture that
supported: authentic pedagogy and the intellectual quality of student learning;
that provided teachers with increased opportunities for technical help with
implementing the innovation; and that strengthened teacher commitment
(Louis, Marks, & Kruse, 1996; Louis & Marks, 1996; Marks, Doane, & Secada,
1997); 2) significant positive effects on both authentic student achievement and
standardized test scores (Louis & Marks, 1996; Newmann & Wehlage, 1995);
and 3) an increase in staff collective responsibility for student learning (Louis,
Marks, & Kruse, 1996).
Other research also suggests that instruction is more effective in schools where
norms of collegiality and continuous improvement are established (Little, 1982;
Rosenholtz, 1991). A Dutch study of highly innovative and less innovative
secondary schools indicates that the former were characterized by cultures that
we would describe as professional learning communities, a finding replicated in
primary schools (van den Berg & Sleegers, 1996; Gijsel, van den Berg, &
Sleegers, 1999). Briscoe's (1997) intensive analysis of professional development
for science teachers indicated that: " ... collaboration facilitates change because it
provides opportunities for teachers to learn both content and pedagogical
knowledge ... encourages teachers to be risk takers in implementing new ideas,
and supports and sustains the process of individual change in science" (p. 51).
These findings reinforce Rosenholtz' (1991) conclusion from studying different
work cultures, ''All of this means that it is far easier to learn to teach, and to learn
to teach better, in some schools than in others" (p. 104).
3. ORGANIZATIONAL IMPROVEMENT: Schools require professional

learning communities to make significant and lasting organizational
improvement. Culture predates and affects all school change activity
The third rationale is that professional learning communities are critical instru-
ments for substantive, long-term cultural change in the organization. McGinn
(1999) underlines the differences between the second and third rationales: "Two
kinds of changes take place during reforms. Most familiar are changes in the
behavior of individuals whom we ask to take on new practices. Less obvious and
harder to assess are changes in the organizations that carry out reform" (p. 7-8).
Senge (et aI., 2000) calls school culture the domain of "enduring change."
The relationship of school culture and school improvement is one of circular
causality (Toole, 2002). As suggested by Figure 1, the existing professional
learning community predates and influences the outcomes of school
improvement efforts, but each school improvement effort in turn influences the
professional learning community. They are both continually cause and effect of
each other. Schools that have strong, healthy cultures therefore have a head start
when they tackle new projects. This fits Fullan's (1999) comment that: "Culture
allows us to recognize, value and build in ... advantages over time." (p. 7).
Professional learning communities have built-in attitudes and practices that
support innovation, inquiry, and improvement.
What Fullan does not say, however, is that weak cultures build in disadvantages
over time. This helps explain Farson's (1996) maxim that "Organizations that
need help the most will benefit from it least" (p. 85). Some schools simply do not
have the organizational capacity to support successful innovation. In the language
of international development, this is a dimension of "absorptive capacity." This
does not mean that schools need to be passive victims of their cultures. Cultures
are living ecosystems that are constantly changing within and without. How
schools implement innovations feeds back into and changes the existing culture
(i.e., they can either strengthen or fracture professional communities) (Toole,
2002). Even in dysfunctional cultures, leaders can model new norms and
capabilities that then start to affect how people think and act in the culture.
Toole (2002) documented how the implementation of service learning
proceeded in markedly different ways in two schools with contrasting levels of
professional learning community. The school with the stronger social bonds was
able to create greater agreement about a shared purpose, more support for
change leadership, higher staff participation and ownership, more shared
learning, less political conflict, less structural tensions, and better
communication. The end result was that, although both schools were receiving
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Figure 1: A Systems Perspective on School Improvement
national attention for their outstanding service-learning work, the school with
the stronger professional learning community had achieved a significantly higher
level of institutionalization. Service-learning had become integrated into the
culture and identity (i.e., the realm of enduring change) of the first school, where
it remained contentious in the school low in professional learning community.
To say that professional learning communities can aid in lasting change is not
to say that it is automatically so. Faced with potential conflict over "who we are and
how we work," it is not unusual for teachers to withdraw from school improvement
efforts. Individual teacher characteristics, as shown in the middle of Figure 1, can
have a positive influence on improvement efforts, but they will be interpreted
and evaluated within the wider context of the school culture (Toole, 2002).
The Relevance of Professional Learning Communities to Education

Internationally
What is the relevance of professional learning communities to international

education at the turn of this century? The forces of globalization, technological
innovation, immigration, nation-building, and economic restructuring are
causing widespread and deep changes throughout the world. China is moving
towards a much more open economic system; Eastern Europe and the former
Soviet Republics are involved in a new round of nation-building; South Africa is
undergoing the transition to a post-apartheid society; Western Europe continues
to integrate politically and economically under the European Union; and Mexico
is exploring new directions after the end of many decades of one party rule.
In the face of these rapid world changes, many nations are looking to
educational policy as an important instrument for political, economic and social
transformation. This has obvious implications for classroom practice. As Rohlen
and LeTendre (1998) explain: "For premodern societies, 'How do you teach?' or
'What do you learn?' are, as a rule, nonquestions. But for societies undergoing
rapid change, such questions strike at the heart of the process of adaptive
change" (p. 2). The "how" and the "what" of teaching are increasingly viewed as
having national importance.
If educational systems hope to be transformative, they will ultimately have to
rely on teachers' acquiring the skills and knowledge of transformation. It is
possible therefore to argue that professional learning communities are becoming
potentially more important to nations. How does a young teacher in South
Africa, raised and educated under apartheid, gain the ability to educate his
students for a non-racist, peaceful, democratic society (Samuel & Stephens,
2000)? As China's "open door" economic policies foster a more entrepreneurial
approach to business, how will the educational system provide the human
capital, mindset and skills to meet that opportunity? How will Eastern European
teachers, after years of communism, prepare their students for participation in a
more democratic society?
The types of changes listed above are paradigmatic, not incremental. They
involve redefining the roles of teacher and student in the learning process, the
content of what is worth knowing, how students learn, and the ideological goals
of education. Teachers typically have to change not only what they teach, but the
assumptions and beliefs that guide how they teach (what Toole, 2000, has called
teachers' "learning grammar"). This type of deep level change can involve
painful challenges both at the individual level (Ball & Rundquist, 1993) and at
the school level (Caine & Caine, 1997). If countries are going to implement such
changes, we believe that it will not be possible without the active cooperation and
collaboration of teacher-learners. For that reason, we think it is critical for
educational leaders to consider questions involving how to form and manage
such professional learning communities.
The Tensions in Forming Professional Learning Communities
While examples of professional learning communities have been identified and

described in the literature (Louis & Kruse, 1995; Nias, Southworth, & Campbell,
1989), the fact that they are so rare in many countries raises the question of
whether they could ever become the norm. If professional learning community is
a "desirable, even irresistible, objective," Huberman (1993) then asks "why so
little of it appears to be going on at present and, when it has gone on, why it
seems so difficult to sustain" (p. 12). Argyris (2000) points out that the world of
management and organizations is much better at describing "theory espoused"
(what we want to have happen) than "theory-in-use" (what actually happens
within schools) (p. viii). Even where there is widespread agreement about what
twenty-first century organizations should look like, Argyris argues that "most of
the advice is - most of the time - simply not actionable."
We think that one of the reasons that professional learning communities have
often not seemed "actionable" is that they contain a set of inherent tensions that
must be identified and managed - by school teacher leaders - for them to exist.
In the real world of schools, we are forced to move from a more naIve to a more
complex portrait of what is required to build professional learning communities
(Achinstein, 2001). We assert that the following 10 "tensions" (adapted from
Toole, 1998) must be addressed for implementation to succeed.
1. The Tension Over a Nation's Cultural Values: Do they support or constrain

collegial relationships?
2. The Tension Over Educational Priorities: How important are professional
learning communities to school improvement internationally?
3. The Tension Over Top-Down Policy: Can teachers be professionals when
educational systems are highly prescriptive?
4. The Tension Over Boundaries: Where do we look for a professional learning
community?
5. The Tension Over Conceptualization: What is a good colleague?
6. The Tension Over Authenticity: Is the professional learning community
genuine?
7. The Tension Over Students' Voice: Do they have a role in teacher learning?
8. The Tension Over Teacher Autonomy: Is individuality valuable too?
9. The Tension Over Control and Power: Whose professional learning com-
munity is it?
10. The Tension Over Implementation: Are professional learning communities
possible?
1. The Tension Over a Nation's Cultural Values: Do they support or constrain

collegial relationships?
One of the chief reasons that it is difficult to transplant exemplary educational

practices from one country to another is that they are often sustained by a deep
set of invisible cultural assumptions. Like the Russian dolls mentioned at the
beginning of this chapter, schools in each country reside within the larger contexts
of the dominant cultural values of those who live there. In developing profes-
sional learning communities, educational leaders may experience a tension
between the norms of the larger society and the norms required for collegiality.
Hofstede (1991) points out there is a wide difference between cultures that
emphasize cultural tightness and collectivism versus those that emphasize loose-
ness and individualism. As the National Research Council (1999) concluded:
"The results of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS)
show that teachers and systems in different countries tend to solve similar
problems in different ways. In turn, these solutions often reflect the beliefs and
assumptions that teachers - and those who influence teachers - hold about
teaching and learning" (p. 45).
China and Japan are examples of countries that have strong collectivist
traditions underlying their educational systems and providing cultural support
for joint teacher work. Collegial practices like the Chinese jiaoyanzu (teacher
research group) and the Japanese kenkyuu jugyou (the research or study lesson)
(Lewis & 1Schida, 1998; Stigler & Hiebert, 1999) have deep national roots. As
Paine and Ma (1993) point out: "Chinese teachers' working together is shaped not
only by organizational and structural practices, but by long traditions of philo-
sophical and cultural thought." Paine and Ma attribute the "persistence and
pervasiveness" of Chinese teacher collaboration not to favorable structural
conditions, but to cultural assumptions about teachers' role, teacher knowledge,
teacher expertise, and the relationship between expert and novice teachers.
While the exact structural arrangement varies among schools, the commitment
to joint work is uniform. Collaboration, Paine and Ma argue, represents "not
practices, but ideals."
In contrast, individualism has been a dominant American ideology. When
Bellah and a team of sociologists looked into America's collective heart in the
1980's, they found that the contemporary commitment to individualism over-
shadowed the country's republican and religious heritage focused on the
common good (Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, & Tipton, 1985). In this view,
the isolation of U.S. teachers may be embedded not only in the traditional, egg-
crated structural organization of American schools, but simultaneously in the
larger societal culture. This observation is confirmed by recent studies, such as
Hofstede's (1991) examination of workplace values. Other countries that score
high on individualism in Hofstede's work also find evidence of teacher isolation
as a preferred rather than a structurally imposed condition (Bakkenes, De
Branbander, & Imants, 1999). This cultural value has significant implications for
school improvement. Toole (2002), for example, found that 48% of the American
elementary and middle school teachers in his seven-school study agreed with the
statement that "Colleagues are generally protective of instructional materials or
activities they've developed." In one K-6 school, the percentage was 80%. Sharing
was frequently viewed as a loss rather than a gain.
Reflections for Educational Leaders on Cultural Values
Educational leaders interested in creating professional learning communities

will need to be cognizant of and adapt for the cultural meaning and level of
support for collaboration that exists within each country. Hofstede's research
indicates that the issue of the individual versus the group is one of the
fundamental cultural differences in work-related values among countries
(Hofstede, 1991). While countries clearly can and should learn from one another
in this area, cultural differences preclude any international "paint-by-number"
plan that educators can follow.
Large-scale school improvement initiatives in many countries, Fuller and
Clarke (1994) argue, have failed because they overlooked how strongly local
culture influences implementation. Samoff (1999) offers such a critique of
education sector studies conducted throughout Africa. In pointing out that the
reports and recommendations treat virtually all countries the same, Samoff wryly
notes: "It is, of course, possible that more than 50 countries are experiencing the
same problems in the same way at the same time and need the same
reform .... But it is more likely that the similar findings reflect common approach
and methodology and, more deeply, the nature of the aid relationship and
funding arrangements and the dominant role of the external agencies in this
relationship" (p. 253). Educational leaders will need to be much more sensitive
to local context to successfully shepherd professional learning communities.
Hallinger and Kantamara (2001) offer a detailed description of how educational
leaders in one country (Thailand) might foster culturally-sensitive school
innovation. Since change in collectivist cultures is a group process, for instance,
they suggest that the common Western practice of "seeding innovations" would
be inappropriate. Teachers would not want to stand out and be different. Change
processes would need to involve the whole staff and school community. Hallinger
and Kantamara point out that the potentially intriguing result is that imple-
mentation in traditional cultures may be slower than in Western countries, but it
may also be deeper and less subject to faddism and shallow implementation.
2. The Tension Over Educational Priorities: How important are professional

learning communities to school improvement internationally?
From an international perspective, it is necessary to ask whether professional

learning communities are critical to current definitions of school improvement.
Harber and Muthukrishna (2000) argue that "Means can only be judged in terms
of the desired outcomes of schooling and these vary from context to context,
from school to school and even from classroom to classroom" (p. 422). A con-
tinuing criticism of the global school effectiveness research is that it has largely
overlooked the diversity of nations' ideological goals.
The case of South Africa is pertinent. South Africa ranks 89th out of 174
countries on the United Nations Development Index (United Nations
Development Programme, 1998, pp.128-130, quoted in Harber & Muthkrishna,
2000). Many South African children attend poorly resourced schools that are
often physically unfit or unsafe. Harber and Muthkrishna (2000) cite government
reports that most schools in South Africa do not have electricity, many lack
toilets, 82% lack media equipment, 66% have no formal teaching materials, and
most lack even one typewriter or computer for school business. 3
In thinking about the important contexts for school improvement, it is striking
that one key problem facing educators in South Africa's Kwa-Zulu - Natal is
that: "It is very likely that some of these children ... are affected by worm
infestation resulting in poor concentration, a slowness to catch on in lessons and
the inability to absorb information. This also has the effect of nullifying much of
the government's school pupil-feeding programme ... " Perhaps the most
important educational issue in this area would be teaching children to wash their
hands often, wear shoes, and keep alert to the possibility of worm infestation.
Teachers might also work to gain the resources necessary to have electricity,
build a security fence, or construct a dirt road to the school. All of this is to say
it is necessary to look closely at the meaning of school improvement in any
particular national context.
Beyond these infrastructure and health issues, there are other reasons to think
that the concept of professional learning community also has importance and
relevance to South Africa. As the country is trying to improve the physical assets
of its schools, it is simultaneously attempting to transform the authoritarian
educational model that existed under apartheid to a model based on participa-
tion that fosters democracy, racial equality, and peace (Samuels & Stephens,
2000). This is the type of paradigmatic change that we cited earlier as a
compelling rationale for professional learning communities. The South Africa
Department of Education recently wrote in its official publications: "The new
curriculum does not provide details about content. ... Educators are recognized
as professionals ....who can make curriculum decisions in the best interests of
learners and who do not have to rely on the dictates of a centrally devised
syllabus (quoted in Harley, Barasa, Mattson, & Pillay, 2000). Such policies provide
a fertile context for the necessity for and development of professional learning
communities.
Reflections for Educational Leaders on Educational Priorities
The lack of physical resources in many countries provides two challenges to the
establishment of professional learning communities. One is that educational
leaders must spend an inordinate amount of their time acquiring the basic
materials that they need to run an effective school. Secondly, the lack of
materials penalizes not only student learning, but also teacher learning. Little
(2000) notes that: "Schools most conducive to teacher learning supply as rich a
soup as possible of information, consultation, and materials both inside and
outside the school" (p. 241).
Nonetheless, there are reasons to think that professional learning com-
munities presently have wide potential and applicability internationally. We
think that countries will only be successful if they focus simultaneously on issues
of access and quality. This presents obvious but not insurmountable challenges.
Teachers in developing countries that were formerly part of the Soviet Union, for
example, have shown surprising forms of professional community given the
absence of supportive material conditions, including writing their own textbooks
to replace outdated Soviet models (personal observation by the second author).
Educational leaders occupy a key position, as a number of studies have demon-
strated, in focusing professional learning communities on "what matters." Bryk,
Camburn and Louis's (1999) analysis shows that the development of professional
community and a collective sense of responsibility for student achievement are
particularly dependent on both encouragement and pressure from principals.
These findings suggest that improving teacher morale and productivity within
schools is unlikely to occur in the absence of specific efforts by principals to
encourage the development of supportive cultures.
3. The Tension Over Top Down Policy: Can teachers be professionals when
educational systems are highly prescriptive?
As countries attempt to use educational policy to address pressing social or

political needs, a tension is created between the directive nature of many policy
initiatives and the environments that teachers require to transform their teaching
(Cohen & Barnes, 1993). Current prescriptive policies, in the eyes of many
critics, have reduced teacher autonomy and discretion, as Hargreaves (1994)
notes, "in the circumstances and with the children they know best" (p. xiv). Tatto
(1999), for example, points out that Mexico's national, centrally-generated
pressures for rapid reform conflict with its own efforts to create reflective
communities within schools.
Cohen and Barnes (1993) challenge this existing "pedagogy of educational
policy" as "didactic and inconsistent." Policymakers in many countries often
command teachers to make far-reaching and deep changes in a short amount of
time. Cohen and Barnes write: ''And in each case policymakers have acted as
though their assignment was to dispense answers, not to provoke thought, ask
questions, or generate discussion .... As policymakers taught, they created few
opportunities to listen as schoolteachers and other educators tried to make sense
of new demands (p. 226)." Scott, Stone, and Dinham (2001) found that this
erosion of professionalism created a common pattern of discontent among
teachers in Australia, New Zealand, England and the USA.
Reflections for Educational Leaders on Top Down Policy
School administrators may value the continuous improvement culture embodied

in the professional learning communities literature, but be simultaneously faced
with the fact that schools are embedded in larger policy settings. The leadership
dilemmas are particularly unsettling in countries where educational policies and
programs are very prescriptive, or where they change frequently. Bishop (1999)
found that trust between principals and teachers may erode while implementing
externally required reforms.
Policymakers often intend to promote teacher professionalism, but are simul-
taneously at odds with that goal. Even when state and national policies and
programs seek to strengthen rather than dictate individual teacher skills, they may
have little impact on the school's capacity for collective professional learning and
change (Youngs, 2001). School leaders everywhere have the difficult task of
educating and influencing policymakers about more productive and realistic ways
of meshing policy and practice. They must help policymakers see the limitations
of what Ball and Cohen (1999) note is the "widely held belief ... that teachers'
practices change as a product of changes in curriculum, standards and assessments."
4. The Tension Over Boundaries: Where do we look for professional learning

community?
The CORS (Louis & Kruse, 1995) and CRC (McLaughlin & Talbert, 1993)
research teams strongly agree that professional learning communities play a
critical role in teachers' ability to make significant changes in classroom practice.
They disagree, however, as to the primary location of that community. Louis and
Kruse's study focused on the school as the unit of analysis, while McLaughlin and
Talbert studied multiple sites in and out of schools where teachers' are likely to
forge identity and pursue professional growth. One reason for this difference
may be that McLaughlin and Talbert studied only high schools, where school-
based professional community faces larger obstacles (e.g., overall school size,
departmentalization, staffing differentiation), whereas Louis and Kruse research
focused on elementary and middle schools that are typically considered more
structurally hospitable to an organizational community ethos.
The answer to the location debate depends on which question is asked. If we
ask, "Where do teachers find their meaningful affiliation and sense of com-
munity?," the answer, as Little and McLaughlin (1993) show in their work, is in
"multiple and sometimes shifting configurations." Researchers have documented
the importance of a number of contexts as sources of teacher identification and
community, including school subgroups like interdisciplinary teams or subject-
based departments (Siskin, 1994), the school as a unit (Louis & Kruse, 1995;
Rosenholtz, 1991), the district (McLaughlin, 1992), professional networks
(Lieberman, 1996), and increasingly cyber-communities (Dexter & Louis, 2001).
On the other hand, if we ask, "What is the location of professional learning
community that will make the most difference for restructuring schools and
overall student achievement?" we see the huge concurrent importance of school-
based professional learning communities. Teachers do have a choice about where
they seek professional affiliations and development. Students, however, default
at the school level. Their experience is aggregated there whether they want it to
be or not. Debates about the location of professional community implicitly assume
the point of view of the teacher. But the students' point of view is radically
different. If the English teacher next door spends every summer in a university
learning to be a premier writing instructor, this is to hislher credit. If there is not
a sense of school-based professional community, however, the students in
everyone else's English classes will have no way to benefit. McLaughlin and
Talbert (1993) offer an example of one school in which the English and Social
Studies departments possessed highly different levels of teaching skill and
expectations for the same students. While they use this as an argument against
the existence of school-wide professional community, this case looked at in a
different way could also act as an argument for the need for meaningful cross-
departmental learning. The value of outside networks does not cancel the
concurrent importance of school-based professional community (Youngs, 2001).
Perhaps nothing has the power to make schools' boundaries more penetrable
that the spread of the internet. Many express concerns about the impersonality
of internet communication, but, at least in the U.S. a recent set of case studies of
"high tech" schools indicates that computer communication may strengthen
internal professional community (Dexter & Louis, 2001).
Reflections for Educational Leaders On Community Boundaries
Educational leaders must find ways to emphasize both school-based community

and interaction with the worlds of knowledge and expertise outside of the school
systems. Networks and multiple contexts can and do playa vital role in teachers'
lives (Lieberman, 1996). This may be particularly true in countries where
educational training and skills are in shorter supply. In South Africa, the recent
Thousand School Project sought to link schools with non-governmental organiza-
tions (NGO's) within a framework of whole school development (Graham-Jolly
& Peacock, 2000).
Perhaps the most useful perspective on the boundaries of teacher learning
communities is Wheatley (1993) and Morgan's (1997) view of organizations as
open, living systems. Here, the world is made up of relationships, not things.
Organizations represent a living ecology that experiences constant interaction
within its own sub communities and with external communities. In this point of
view, the unit of the school is the primary border for a professional learning
community, but it is and needs to be a very permeable boundary. Teacher learning
communities, at their best, are connected to their parents, community, nation
and world. Critics are right that school-based community as an isolated system
can never aggregate teacher's professional identity or growth. But schools aren't,
or shouldn't be, isolated systems. A living systems model integrates the advantages
of both points of view, of both school-based and non-school based communities.
5. The Tension Over Conceptualization: What is a good colleague?
What does it mean to be a colleague in Australia, Germany, Kenya, Argentina,

India, or Canada? From an international standpoint, there cannot be one
answer. Conceptualization of colleagueship shouldn't convey overly prescriptive

"oughts" that reduce a rich and diverse concept and experience to a simple
formula for school improvement (Little & McLaughlin, 1993). As Hamilton
(1998, quoted in Harber & Muthukrishna, 2000) warns, there is a tendency for
research to come up with a package of key characteristics and, "sponsored by
powerful quasi-governmental agencies, this package is placed on a global cash
and carry market for educational panaceas. Bundled with a franchising deal
and/or complementary of technical support, it is then disseminated around the
world .... " (p. 16).
While we may think that we understand each other when we talk about teacher
collegiality, Little and McLaughlin (1993) note that notions of the good col-
league are "local, particular, and complex constructions." These authors words
were probably addressed to variation among American schools, but their com-
ments are even more applicable to an international perspective. An action in one
school or country that makes someone a "good colleague" may be perceived very
differently in another school or national culture.
Paine and Ma (1993) offer a telling example of how the Chinese construct the
meaning of collegiality: "From a U.S. perspective, it is easy to misinterpret what
working together means" (p. 689). They explain: "In many aspects, the
collegiality among Chinese teachers is like that among actors and actresses in an
ensemble. They appreciate each other's performance. As members of an
ensemble are proud of the leading actor or actress in their collective, Chinese
teachers are proud of experts in the faculty. They do not see each other's
performance as an independent piece, but a performance of the whole art -
teaching" (p. 688).
In schools and countries where norms of individualism are much stronger, in
contrast, teacher honors may be seen as an individual rather than as a collective
accomplishment. Being named "teacher-of-the-year" can elicit jealously as easily
as admiration. Other everyday collegial acts in schools dominated by norms of
privatism can appear threatening: colleagues telling others about classroom
successes may be perceived as bragging; teachers sharing effective curriculum
ideas may fear that others will "steal" them; and those who ask for help may be
seen as incompetent. Such perceptions, if widespread, create what Fullan and
Hargreaves (1996) call "institutionalized conservatism."
Collegiality in different nations is influenced by structural as well as cultural
arrangements. A variety of systemic factors can help shape collegial interactions.
In Japan, for instance, the existence of a stringent national curriculum provides
a structural incentive and focus for meaningful teacher sharing. While classroom
practice is solo, the preparation for teaching occurs largely in groups. Teachers
have more out-of-classroom time and share large joint offices where they work
together. Regionally supported exemplary teachers visit classrooms to assist both
new and experienced teachers in thinking through their practice, and teachers
often initiate weekend study groups to discuss issues of pedagogy and content
(Shimihara, 1998).
Reflections for Educational Leaders on Defining a Good Colleague
What it means to be a good colleague and how a good colleague should act may
vary among teachers, among subject areas, among schools, and among nations.
As Little and McLaughlin (1993) point out: "Each of these occasions and
locations of teacher interaction provides a micro-context for collegial relations
that may operate by quite different rules, focus on different issues, and carry
different significance for teachers' lives and careers" (p. 4). Hofstede (1993), for
instance, notes that norms about risk-taking vary among countries and may
require a different approach to collegially stimulated experimentation with
pedagogy.
We believe that a key leadership role in constructing a professional learning
community is to make visible and expected a vision for what it means to be a
good colleague. Leaders have various tools that they can use to make this
happen, including carefully selecting the stories that they tell, honoring and
recognizing collaborative behaviors, and providing resources (e.g., release time,
space, materials). Administrators can also look to systemic means to build
notions of collegiality, including the values embedded within processes of
teacher recruitment and hiring, teacher standards, and teacher evaluation.
6. The Tension Over Authenticity: Is the professional learning community genuine?
Who guides and controls collaboration? Hargreaves (1994) uses the term "con-
trived collegiality" to refer to teacher interdependence that is administratively
regulated, compulsory, highly structured, and focused on implementation
mandates and predetermined outcomes. Fullan and Hargreaves (1996) note that:
"Some contrivance is necessary in the establishment of virtually all collaborative
cultures. They don't happen by themselves" (p. 58). School administrators may
instigate peer coaching, mentoring of new teachers, or joint planning time in the
hopes of building collegiality.
In administratively mandated instances, however, a school that adopts the
language and structures of professional learning communities mayor may not
develop a corresponding spirit or ethos. If it doesn't, then a school becomes what
Sergiovanni (1994) calls a "counterfeit" community. Teachers tolerate collaborative
meetings until they can leave and continue their own individual work. Such
school cultures are dominated by micro-politics rather than genuine joint work.
In contrast, Hargreaves argues that truly collaborative cultures must have an
element that is spontaneous, voluntary, development-oriented, pervasive across
time and space, and unpredictable. If professional learning communities are real,
their essence is replicated in all of the staff members, not just in the principal or
headmaster. However, the opportunities for spontaneity will vary depending on
the culture and the organization of the school. If, as in many countries, senior
teachers are not required to be in school except when they are teaching, the
ability of more junior teachers to learn from them is, by definition, limited.
Reflections for Educational Leaders on Authenticity
The development of professional learning communities clearly requires leader-

ship, but it is a particular kind of leadership (Fullan & Hargreaves, 1996).
Educational leaders can't command the creation of a professional learning com-
munity any more than they can a friendship. This fits Louis, Toole, and
Hargreaves (1999) use of "gardener" as the seminal metaphor for leadership.
While leaders can't command the attitudes and behaviors that support
professional learning communities, they may look for the organizational
equivalents of water, sun and good soil to help them grow.
A key leadership skill in creating authentic community is the ability and
willingness to "read" school culture. Recent research on a National Education
Association culture diagnosis instrument suggests that many schools don't really
want to know about their cultural strengths and weaknesses (Portin, Beck,
Knapp, & Murphy, in press). For those educational leaders willing to tackle
cultural issues, they must first understand the current school culture and must be
able to help teachers to understand it as well before they can change it. This is
no small task, since culture represents the "taken for granted" aspects of organiza-
tional norms and values.
Traditionally, understanding culture has been the work of intensive, ethnographic
study. Those interested in school reform have attempted to find more economical
ways to discover whether a professional learning community is authentic and
growing. Angelides and Ainscow (2000) suggest a method that focuses on
analyzing critical incidents that happen in the school. Another suggestion is to
tap the insights of newcomers to schools and systems who have not yet absorbed
the invisible culture and therefore see it more clearly. Both of these strategies
may require skills in interviewing and observation that are rarely included in
administrative preparation or in-service programs in most countries.
While we refer to professional learning communities as a social architecture
for school improvement, the "hammer and nails" required to build them are often
subtle, such as patience, constancy, humility, respect, and an inquiring intellect.
Leaders will need to model the types of collegial behavior that they want from
teachers. For instance, they "should acknowledge and communicate their own
needs as help-receivers as well as help-givers" (Fullan & Hargreaves, 1996,
p. 41). Principals and school leaders can also protect teachers who take the risk
to act collegially.
7. The Tension Over Students' Voice: Do they have a role in teachers' learning?
What is the role of students in a professional learning community and in school

improvement? Can students be colleagues too? While the professional learning
community literature stresses teachers' learning from their own experience and
from each other, they are nearly silent about learning from students' views
(Hargreaves, 1992). The role of students' voices is particularly critical internationally

because of the frequent mismatch in many countries between the cultural
backgrounds of teachers and students.
If students aren't colleagues, then what are they? Kurth-Schai (1988) has
created a typology of how adults typically view young people that includes:
children as victims of adult society; children as threats to adult society; and
children as learners of adult society. All of these views, she notes, "are united in
their failure to acknowledge the potential of young people to contribute to the
social order" (p. 116). Such views overlook that in non-industrialized societies
very young children assume important responsibilities in the home, including
vital household chores and infant care. They also overlook what Kurth-Schai
explains is children's "unparalleled potential to catalyze positive social change
through the development and expression of diverse, exploratory, and optimistic
images of future societies" (p. 120).
Schools are slowly starting to look at students as resources rather than as only
recipients for school improvement efforts. While deprivatizing practice typically
refers to opening the classroom door to other teachers, it might also mean
inviting student contributions to school improvement. The area of technology
offers one promising venue. As Dennis Harper writes: "For the first time in history,
we have youth knowing more than adults about something central to society, and
that's technology" (quoted in Thomas, 2001, p. 3D). In Nebraska this year, 300
school administrators have chosen student mentors to teach them about tech-
nology. In a larger initiative, the United States government has spent $9 million
supporting the American "Generation wwwY:Teaching with Technology"
program in 41 states. Students receive 18 weeks of teacher training and then
tutor individual faculty members on how to redesign lessons using the latest
technology.
The increasing popularity of service-learning pedagogy (Furco & Billig, in
press; Toole, 2002) also has created opportunities for students to act as col-
laborators in school improvement. The "If I Could Make a School" program has
brought students from South Africa and the U.S together to review current
research and design cutting-edge classrooms. At the school level, Heath and
Mangiola (1991) describe upper elementary grade students acting as cross-age
tutors to lower elementary school students in a largely Hispanic school near San
Francisco. The students collaborate closely with their tutees' teachers to monitor
and support student learning.
Still, such consideration of students as resources is rare. Ruddick, Day and
Wallace (1997) studied students' views of reform in England because "we must
take at least part of our agenda for school improvement from (students) accounts
of their school experience." (p. 73). But these authors report that: "rarely is there
a suggestion that schools might usefully start the process of improvement by
inviting their students to talk about what makes learning a positive or
disappointing experience for them ... " (p. 74).
Reflections for Educational Leaders on Student Voice
We believe that youth everywhere can take a more active and contributing role
in their school's learning communities. Educational leaders who recognize
students as potentially powerful and forgotten resources will find ways to include
them in the school's learning community. The opportunities for students to
meaningfully participate may be facilitated or hindered by how the larger society
and the educational system conceptualizes the role of youth.
How we explain and structure students' increased roles will have to reflect
culturally acceptable forms. In Japan, for instance, to be a teacher is an almost
sacred status. There is no English equivalent to the Japanese word for teacher.
The two Chinese characters that comprise the Japanese word for teacher - sensei
- literally mean "one who was born before." Feiler (1991) explains that: "The
essential ingredient for a sensei is the wisdom he or she has gained through
experience, not through reading books. In Japan, the wise one learns through
time" (p. 172). Like many other cultures, age is to be valued and respected.
While this etymology makes it unlikely that Japanese teachers would ever think
of students in the role of "colleagues," it is common practice in Japan's more
group-oriented culture that students learn social responsibility by taking on
important chores at school. Older students and brighter students are expected to
help classmates who are new or who have fallen behind in their studies; students
clean the school; and children arrange and serve their classes' lunch (Feiler,
1991). Although these roles do not address school improvement directly, they do
involve students as active participants and resources to the school. 4
8. The Tension Over Teacher Autonomy: What's so bad about individuality?
The development of professional learning communities may raise the tension

between individual and group needs. While much of this literature has counter-
poised collegiality and individualism, other writers have argued for a balance or
integration between the two, and have challenged the negative stereotypes of
teacher individuality (Hargreaves 1994; Huberman, 1993). While professional
learning communities are advocated to make teachers more accountable, better
informed, and more involved in the whole school, Huberman (1993) and
Hargreaves (1993) point out that teachers' individual practice also offers many
advantages. Teachers left to their own devices are often highly creative, commit
substantial time to students' personal lives, and pursue "just-in-time" profes-
sional development that fits their current needs. In reconciling the teacher as
individual and teacher as colleague, Hargreaves (1993) distinguishes between
individualism as isolation that weakens school success and individuality that is a
source of initiative, new ideas, and conscientious dissent.
Huberman (1993) conceptualizes teachers as "artisans," tinkerers or instruc-
tional handymen. He argues that this ideal is what actually exists in classrooms
and that it corresponds to the reality and demands of the classroom that he labels
as filled with "highly complex, unstable and furiously interactive tasks" (p. 16).
Teacher dialogue, in his view, would be insufficient and too general to prepare
anyone for facing such "wicked" problems. Individuality is critical to success.
If there is value and necessity to both individual artisans and professional
community in teaching, then the nature of teachers' work takes on the shape of
a Zen koan. Either/or thinking is insufficient. Communitarian literature faces
this same dilemma, of having to build the bonds of a larger community while
respecting smaller groups within it (Etzioni, 1996). Yet, as Smylie, Lazarus and
Brownlee-Conyers (1996) show, participation and collaboration lead both to
teacher learning and a reported decrease in personal autonomy.
This dilemma may be particularly Western, embedded in our dualistic thinking
and assumptions that the role of the group reduces the role of the individual
(Tobin, Wu, & Davidson, 1989).5 Paine and Ma (1993) point out that "Much of
what is perceived to be dichotomous in the West (such as group vs. individual,
hierarchy vs. equality, and control vs. commitment) is perceived to be reconciled
within the complex historical, cultural, and political patterns which embed
Chinese thinking and practice" (p. 675).
Reflections for Educational Leaders On Teacher Autonomy
To create productive professional learning communities, educational leaders will

need to balance the self and the group within the imperatives of the larger
culture. Nias et al. (1989) integrate the two by stating that teaching is a personal
affair, but not a private one. We believe that people in healthy communities
become more uniquely and fully themselves. This would support Parker Palmer's
(1998) assertion that "good teaching cannot be reduced to technique; good
teaching comes from the identity and integrity of the teacher" (p. 10). All of this
requires great skill and awareness on the part of educational leaders. As Fullan
and Hargreaves (1996) conclude: "Collaborative cultures are very sophisticated,
and deliberately balanced organizations .... " (p. 50-51).
9. Tension Over Control and Power: Whose professional learning community is it?
If professional learning community is seen as a fast-boat to school improvement,

who gets to be on board? If a school claims to have shared norms and values, for
instance, have all voices been heard? Are there some individuals or groups not
of equal status, number or influence that may have be left out of the consensus?
Strike (1999) calls this the tension between shared values and inclusion, while
Achinstein (2002) calls this the tension between unity and dissent.
Achinstein (2002) argues that conflict is an inevitable and important part of a
learning community. Without cognitive conflict and reflection, the "ties that
bind" can turn into the "ties that blind." In a study of two similar middle schools
that both met the general requirements for a professional community, she found
that one school suppressed and marginalized dissent while the other embraced it
as a source of learning.
Furman (1998) suggests that modern notions of community (Le., as places of
consensus), which dominate the research literature, may well be outdated in a
postmodern world. She quotes Hoy (1996) as "Postmodernists believe that
purported unities of self, community, culture, organization, and even science are
exposed as inescapably plural, conflicted, and disassociated. There is little
united, and where unity appears to exist, it is imposed, not natural" (p. 368).
Research from a number of countries documents the struggles that teachers
have in joining their school's professional learning communities because of
gender, class, religion, or ethnicity. Not surprisingly, status differences in the
larger society are often reflected in the school community. Sales (1999), for
instance, writes extensively about the position of female teachers in northern
Pakistan. There are parts of the region, supported by the Aga Khan Development
Network, that are more open and positive about girls' schooling and about
female teachers' professional development. Despite positive motives, however,
there is a long list of cultural and structural issues that typically make women
second-class colleagues in any school-based professional learning community.
Research from several countries suggests that there are also tensions in
creating learning communities in settings in which language and cultural
differences persist among tribes, clans, or racial groups. Arellano, Barcenal,
Bilbao, Catellano, Nichols and Tippins (2001) examined efforts to create learning
communities in the Philippines and found that cultural and linguistic differences
among teachers challenged their efforts. Abrahams (1997) notes that embedded
cultural and organizational differences among schools in post-apartheid South
Africa limit the usefulness of generalizations about strategies to engender
innovation and teacher learning through professional community. In the United
States, Oakes, Quartz, Ryan and Lipton (2000) and Lipman (1998) identify the
resistance of white parents to compromising their privileged position. African-
American teachers constitute only 5% of teachers and may, just by sheer lack of
numbers, not be listened to in debates such as whether honors or gifted classes
help or hinder student equity (Ladson-Billings, 1998).
Reflections for Educational Leaders on Power and Inclusion
The ability of educational leaders to productively embrace conflict and dissent is

critical to the functioning of professional learning communities. Some form of
conflict is inevitable and necessary because implementing professional learning
communities both gives teachers an increased voice and raises the expectation
for consensus and cooperation. Critical dialogue and debate will be necessary to
mutually address important local issues. Ironically, weak teacher communities may
have far less professional conflict because there is little pressure for people to agree.
There may be no more contentious area of community-building than inclusion.
Authentic professional learning community cannot be constructed without
addressing issues of race, class and power. Sarason (1990) talked about the
"predictable failure of school reform" because of a resistance to dealing with
issues of power. In most countries, educational leaders must decide if their
schools' professional learning community is going to mirror the inequalities,
biases and power relationships of the larger society, or whether the school will be
in the vanguard to change them.
In schools and societies beset by inequalities and differences, educational
leaders will need to create new levels of trust and involvement that may not be
normative in the society beyond the school. In both Chicago (Bryk, Camburn, &
Louis, 1996) and Victoria, Australia (Bishop, 1999) social trust appears to be one
of the strongest facilitators of professional learning community. Trust and
respect acted as a foundation on which collaboration, reflective dialogue, and
sharing of practice could occur. Toole (in press) suggests that leaders need to
work carefully, as each improvement effort will create its own innovation-specific
issues of trust (Le., the possibility of new winners and losers) that must be
managed for schools to move forward.
10. The Tension Over Implementation: Is professional learning community

possible?
The fact that professional learning communities are so rare internationally raises
the question of whether they ever could become the norm in many countries.
What most intrigues us is the situation mentioned earlier of countries that are
trying to make a sharp break from their past, where educational policy is
attempting to direct deep societal change.
The current situation in the Czech Republic exemplifies the dilemmas of
forming professional learning communities in such nations. Unlike the United
States and Canada, where school cultures have been able to make more gradual
adaptations to the world outside, the Czechs have plunged into a compressed
period of transformation. After the Republic's Velvet Revolution in 1989, the
Marxist doctrine and school curricula that dominated the educational systems
for many years were eliminated in only a few months (Polyzoi & Cerna, 2001).
While educators could now rid themselves of the outer manifestations of Soviet
domination, it was much more difficult to liberate themselves from the inertia of
embedded ideas. The Czech Republic sought to replace a rigid bureaucracy with
democracy, humanism, and liberalism. Under the Soviets, however, Czech
teachers had learned to follow detailed instructions "from above," use curricular
materials that someone else had chosen, teach in an authoritarian manner, and
cover vast amounts of information. They did not know how to teach demo-
cratically. Like the Russian people in Chechov's turn-of-the-century plays,
teachers after liberation were caught between two worlds.
From the Czech example, two important lessons are learned about the
international promise and potential of professional learning communities. First,
national politics will sometimes dictate how much and what kind of "space" is
available for professional learning communities to develop in any schoo1. 6 The

Soviets wanted compliance, not reflective thinking, from Czech teachers. The
development of professional learning communities therefore sometimes depends
not only on assumptions about how teachers learn, but also on a deeper set of
values that a country holds about political ideology, the goals of education, the
proper role of teachers, and power.
The second lesson from the Czech example is that even when people suddenly
take control of their own fate, the existing school culture does not automatically
disappear. Sometimes habit unwillingly dictates what teachers do. Czech teachers
would have to unlearn as much as they would need to learn. This is one reason
that changing the structure of schools has seemed much more feasible than
changing the culture. It is much more possible in the former to observe what you
are doing and when you are making progress.
Reflections for Educational Leaders on Implementation
What is needed for more schools internationally to develop professional learning

communities? There is not one answer to that question. There are only a few
studies that shed detailed light on how principals create learning environments
for teachers. Gitlin (1999), for example, found that "robust" collaboration occurs
when it has only modest effects on teacher workload, when teachers are
empowered as active participants in design, and when collaboration emerges
from the particular contextual realities of the school - all of which demand an
active and "problem sensing" role on the part of school leaders.
Leithwood (2000) also argues that there are a number of school leader
practices that have been shown to be important in creating learning communities
within schools. These include modeling professional growth, challenging staff
members to reexamine assumptions underlying their practice, providing them
with new ideas, promoting formal professional development and providing
diagnosis and support for individual development. In addition, Leithwood
reiterates the need to emphasize students and their needs and to foster teacher
leadership (p. 326). In summary, effective school leaders use multiple strategies
to promote intellectual stimulation, reflection, participation, and a continuous
focus on improved practice. Wineburg, Grossman, Myhre and Woolworth (1998)
found that when leaders did create an intervention to develop a professional
learning community, it had differential effects on teachers at different points in
their careers.
School Leaders In the Middle: Mitigating the Tensions
As we have suggested earlier in this chapter, creating professional learning

communities represents a challenge for school leaders; keeping them lively and
in balance is an even more formidable task. Educational leaders will need to find
ways to manage the critical tensions we have described. Although the tensions
may not be obvious at any given point in time, they are unavoidable in the life of
school communities.
Articulating the tensions is a first step: Unrecognized organizational realities
cannot be managed. We argue that the transformative leadership model that is
well documented in recent literature (Leithwood, 2000) is a good place to begin,
but it is insufficient to understand the new role of school leaders that goes beyond
making good decisions, structuring the school to facilitate innovation, managing
budgets, and combining support and pressure for change.
We have very little systematic data about how the tensions are handled within
the U.S. schools - and even less from other countries. The business literature is
not helpful, since it typically assumes a bureaucratic organizational form rather
than the newer model of organization that is presumed in the transformative
leadership and professional community literature. Longitudinal studies of school
culture are relatively rare and many point to the unfortunate, detrimental effects
of leader turnover as a factor in disrupting the ability of schools to build or
maintain professional learning communities.
We are just beginning to create the tools required to help train school leaders
in the strategic identification and management of important tensions to create a
balanced school culture that works over time. There are educational leaders,
staff development consultants, and researchers, aware of the importance of the
issues we have raised, that are now developing and testing various culture-
building tools (see, for example, Deal & Peterson, 1999; Garmston & Wellman,
1999; and Senge, et al., 2000).
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
We believe that it is not possible to improve schools for students without simul-
taneously improving them for teachers. Fortunately, the emerging literature on
professional learning communities suggests that these two goals are intertwined.
As teachers develop interdependent learning and career cultures among
themselves, they are more likely to thrive both personally and professionally.
Professional learning communities are most likely to capture the attention of
educational leaders and policymakers as a key element in a changing world
order. Many countries today are looking to their educational systems to provide
critical support for economic development, political ideals, and social dreams. If
countries are going to achieve the type of paradigmatic changes described in this
chapter, we propose that this will not happen by legislative mandate alone. Deep
change will require active teacher engagement, inquiry and reflection in a
professional learning community. This will not be easy in many countries. The
empowering values inherent in the notion of professional learning community
may conflict with a nation's most basic cultural values or recent political past.
We have tried in the previous pages to outline what we know about
professional learning communities, and to use it to speculate upon the issues
faced by contemporary school leaders not only in the U.S., but also in other
countries. Our efforts have been hampered by the scarcity of published research
in English from non-English speaking countries, and because much of the
current work takes a balcony view of what happens in schools, relying more on
large-scale survey instruments than on the "thick descriptions" characteristic of
ethnographic studies.
Still, the cross-cultural findings are clear: professional learning communities
can generally lead to improved school functioning in most settings. In a world
that too often looks for a quick policy fix to deep educational issues, however,
professional learning communities can never serve as a "magic bullet" for school
improvement. Everything we have written points both to their potential utility
and their complexity. We have learned much more about the shape and value of
professional learning communities, but still must struggle to provide school
leaders with the guidance on how to create them in differing contexts. Naturally,
we believe that this is an area that is ripe for both additional research and for
listening to teacher and school leader voices from the field.
ENDNOTES
1 Ball and Cohen (1999) describe one promising method of joint work - the joint examination of
practice through samples of student work or classroom videotapes. The authors write how
demanding such examinations need to be if they are to transform teaching and learning: "It would
be crucial to develop and debate ideas about what to look at, ways to describe what is observed,
and conceptions of what is sufficient evidence for any given claim. The ultimate goal is to increase
teachers' "interpretive power" (p. 16).
2 The key word in this sentence is transformative. If teaching is reduced to a routine drill of lecture
and worksheets, then professional learning communities would be unneccesary. They become more
important if not indispensible only when nations and schools attempt to make deeper changes in
teaching and learning. Ball and Cohen (1999) talk about the type of deep knowledge that teachers
today require to be successful. This includes in-depth knowledge of what individual children are
like; understanding of the different backgrounds children have by culture, income, nationality, and
gender that affect their learning; an expanded sense of what it means to learn; and pedagogy in a
way that helps them connect children and content.
3 These basic issues exist in some form in many countries, both rich and poor. The OECD report pointed
out that despite its booming economy, United States teachers and schools have not fully benefited.
Stories of inadequate school conditions exist in wealthy countries including the U.S. (see Kozol, 1991).
4 Beyond student involvement, Furman-Brown (1999) points out that the concept of community, when
applied to schools, can include different strands including parents and the neighborhood outside of
the schoolyard.
s Hofstede's (1991) data suggests significant differences among Western countries as well.
6 We use the word "space" to refer to the entire constellation of dynamic variables - structural and
cultural, and internal- that affect a school's ability to construct a professional learning community.
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The Role of Professional Learning Communities in International Education

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8

The Role of Professional Learning Communities

KAREN SEASHORE LOUIS

Second International Handbook of Educational Leadership and Administration, 245-279

The Concept of Professional Learning Community: What is it?

While Liping Ma finds Chinese teacher community so "regular and common"

Professional Learning Community: What Does One Look Like?

Research reinforces that the components of professional learning communities

Do Professional Learning Communities Matter?

1. TEACHERS' WORK LIVES: Schools require professional learning

Teacher recruitment is an international problem. The Organization for

and credentials); and strong learning communities tended to produce shared

2. TEACHERS'LEARNING: Schools require professional learning communities

3. ORGANIZATIONAL IMPROVEMENT: Schools require professional

f sslonal Le arning CO"""" .

The Relevance of Professional Learning Communities to Education

What is the relevance of professional learning communities to international

The Tensions in Forming Professional Learning Communities

While examples of professional learning communities have been identified and

1. The Tension Over a Nation's Cultural Values: Do they support or constrain

1. The Tension Over a Nation's Cultural Values: Do they support or constrain

One of the chief reasons that it is difficult to transplant exemplary educational

Reflections for Educational Leaders on Cultural Values

Educational leaders interested in creating professional learning communities

2. The Tension Over Educational Priorities: How important are professional

From an international perspective, it is necessary to ask whether professional

Reflections for Educational Leaders on Educational Priorities

As countries attempt to use educational policy to address pressing social or

Reflections for Educational Leaders on Top Down Policy

School administrators may value the continuous improvement culture embodied

4. The Tension Over Boundaries: Where do we look for professional learning

Reflections for Educational Leaders On Community Boundaries

Educational leaders must find ways to emphasize both school-based community

5. The Tension Over Conceptualization: What is a good colleague?

What does it mean to be a colleague in Australia, Germany, Kenya, Argentina,

answer. Conceptualization of colleagueship shouldn't convey overly prescriptive

6. The Tension Over Authenticity: Is the professional learning community genuine?

Reflections for Educational Leaders on Authenticity

The development of professional learning communities clearly requires leader-

What is the role of students in a professional learning community and in school

(Hargreaves, 1992). The role of students' voices is particularly critical internationally

8. The Tension Over Teacher Autonomy: What's so bad about individuality?

The development of professional learning communities may raise the tension

Reflections for Educational Leaders On Teacher Autonomy

To create productive professional learning communities, educational leaders will

If professional learning community is seen as a fast-boat to school improvement,

Reflections for Educational Leaders on Power and Inclusion

The ability of educational leaders to productively embrace conflict and dissent is

10. The Tension Over Implementation: Is professional learning community

available for professional learning communities to develop in any schoo1. 6 The

Reflections for Educational Leaders on Implementation

What is needed for more schools internationally to develop professional learning

School Leaders In the Middle: Mitigating the Tensions

As we have suggested earlier in this chapter, creating professional learning

Abrahams, M. (1997). Collaborative space in South African schools: A comparative perspective.

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