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Individualism and professional communities in schools in Spain: limitations and possibilities

ABSTRACT

When professionals who have responsibility in doing well their work share their practical knowledge of students' learning, gathering evidences as the ones showed here, this produces an impact in the quality of the education given. Nevertheless, teachers have a culture of individualism at Spanish schools, including lack of collaborative work, as it was documented in the investigation and in the international reports (Teaching and Learning International Survey - TALIS). We have adapted and validated one of the best existing instruments (the questionnaire "Professional Learning Community Assessment-Revised, PLCA-R") to test the shared learning degree of culture and we used it in a representative sample in Andalusia. We collected some of the results referred to this dimension. Finally, we discuss the findings and highlight the implications and lines of action to reconstruct the schools as professional learning communities.

Keywords:
individualism; collective responsibility; collaborative learning; professional learning community

Setor de Educação da Universidade Federal do Paraná Educar em Revista, Setor de Educação - Campus Rebouças - UFPR, Rua Rockefeller, nº 57, 2.º andar - Sala 202 , Rebouças - Curitiba - Paraná - Brasil, CEP 80230-130 - Curitiba - PR - Brazil
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