Leadership development through networking: A qualitative study on the impact, implementation and sustainability of Professional Learning Communities in Ecuadorian TVET-schools. In S. Cabus (Chair), Making schools resilient through PLCs: From empirical case studies to evidence-based solutions [Symposium]

School leadership has become an education policy priority around the world. After classroom teaching, leadership has been identified as the second most influential factor in explaining student learning and achievement (Bloom et al., 2014; Gumus et al., 2018; Leithwood et al., 2020). Over the last decade, educational leadership has also become a concern for policy-makers and researchers in non-western countries. More specifically, in the Latin American region, a growing interest can be observed in the role of educational leadership: visible in the introduction of educational leadership policies as part of education reform agendas as well as in the presence of national research agendas (Ahumada, 2010; Avalos, 2011; Flessa, 2014). In the Ecuadorian context, educational leadership is a challenge particularly in technical and vocational education and training (TVET). There is an increasing call to support current school leaders, to make school leadership an attractive career for future candidates, and to professionalize school leadership. In the absence of formal training and induction programs for beginning principals in Ecuador, the notion of collective learning within Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) rapidly gained strength as an opportunity to socialize, mentor, and professionalize school leaders (Prenger et al., 2020; Stoll et al., 2006). Professional learning communities can be defined as “collaborative teams whose members work interdependently to achieve common goals linked to the purpose of student learning” (DuFour et al., 2006, p.3). In particular, since 2015, VVOB-Ecuador has been involved in the coordination of PLCs as a professional development strategy for school principals in TVET. By bringing together school leaders in a systematic way, the PLCs aim to further develop the capacity of school leaders by creating a collaborative environment and collective responsibility among school leaders. Systematic and in-depth research is needed in order to understand how this initiative has changed the educational landscape, and in particular has led to leadership development and school improvement in Ecuadorian TVET. In this presentation, we will present the results of an in-depth qualitative study on the impact of PLCs on leadership development and practices, as well as the conditions enabling and constraining their successful and sustainable implementation. We developed a theoretical framework combining the following concepts: distributed educational leadership as a promising model for Ecuadorian TVET-schools, Professional Learning Communities as an effective way to contribute to leadership development, and sustainable educational change. This has led to the following research questions: 1. How does leadership practice change as a result of participation in a PLC? 2. What are the conditions that determine the implementation of PLCs? 3. What are the conditions that enable or constrain the sustainability of PLCs? We opted for a qualitative-interpretative methodology in the form of case study research (Yin, 2014). More specifically, we conducted an exploratory multiple case study based on four purposively selected PLCs (two PLCs from Esmeraldas, two PLCs from Manabí). Data collection took place between July and September 2020 and combined online focus groups with (vice-)principals (N= 13 focus groups; 52 participants) and semi-structured interviews with instructional coaches supervising the PLCs (N= 5 instructional coaches). All data were recorded, transcribed, and interpretively coded using Atlas.ti. The method used for the analysis was content analysis (reduce data, show data, draw conclusions, and verify) and involved two phases: a within-case and a cross-case analysis. The results show how participation in PLCs contributed to a change in leadership perceptions. School leaders developed a particular distributed leadership style, adapted to the context of TVET-schools: sharing leadership with community leaders and other principals. School leaders also transferred the methodologies used in the PLCs to their schools, as a way to contribute to school improvement. Moreover, our data show that despite the challenging context (budget cuts, policy reforms, COVID-19) and lack of structural conditions (principal rotation, lack of resources, absence of support from the district), school principals were strongly engaged to participate in PLCs. PLCs were perceived as a meaningful and sustainable professional development strategy for school principals: they give access to knowledge, resources, and a broader network of connections, and contribute to collective learning. Finally, for PLCs to be sustainable, we identified the importance of external coaching combined with increased shared responsibility within the PLCs. We will end our presentation with suggestions for policy, practice, and future research