The School Building as a Context for Collaborative Work: A Meta-ethnographic Study on Teachers’ Workplace Learning

Collaborative work is recognized as being a powerful tool for teacher professional learning and professional development. The last decades, many researchers have therefore tried to identify the so-called structural and cultural workplace conditions that foster collaboration between teachers (see for instance, Kardos et al., 2001; Louws et al., 2017). With this study, we aim to obtain an in-depth understanding of how the school as a workplace enables or constrains teacher collaboration and teacher learning. Using a meta-ethnographic study (Noblit & Hare, 1988), we have systematically reviewed and synthesized qualitative research evidence on teachers’ workplace learning. The focus has been on how to interpretatively, rather than aggregatively, derive understanding from multiple qualitative studies, and attain a level of theoretical development beyond that achieved in any individual study. More specifically, we conducted a comprehensive search of the (inter)national literature, using the following search strategies: 1) systematic literature search in electronic databases (ERIC, Francis, PsycINFO, Scopus, and Sociological Abstracts), 2) reference checking, and 3) citation tracking. The search resulted in almost 6000 articles. After a first title-based selection followed by a full reading of the articles, our search strategy ended up with a final selection of 60 articles that were included for systematic review. During data analysis, we studied the relationships between the articles, determined a list of key themes, metaphors, and concepts, and developed new interpretations. Our meta-ethnography has resulted in a re-conceptualization of teachers’ workplace learning. First, we present a theoretical synthesis of how teachers learn in the workplace, making a distinction between: 1) learning through and/or with others (i.e. collaborative work), 2) learning through the teaching experience, and 3) learning through non-interpersonal sources. Second, we characterize the multiple nature of teachers’ workplace. The analysis illuminated how teachers learn within school-internal, school-external (personal), as well as virtual workplaces. Third, we describe three workplace dimensions enabling/constraining teachers’ workplace learning: the workplace’s social, spatial, and temporal dimension. The combination of multiple workplaces and dimensions constitute, in what we call, a complex workplace “system”. Our findings suggest the necessity a) to consider an enlarged vision of teachers’ workplace in order to better understand teachers’ learning in the workplace, including collaborative learning and b) to question the traditional structure-culture characterization of the workplace (Lisahunter et al., 2011; McGregor, 2004). Moreover, with our study we aim to contribute to a broader reflection on the place of collaborative work within teacher professional development. References - Kardos, S. M., Johnson, S. M., Peske, H. G., Kauffman, D., & Liu, E. (2001). Counting on colleagues: New teachers encounter the professional cultures of their schools. Educational Administration Quarterly, 37(2), 250 290. - Lisahunter, R. T., Tinning, R., Flanagan, E., & Macdonald, D. (2011). Professional learning places and spaces: The staffroom as a site of beginning teacher induction and transition. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 39(1), 33 46. - Louws, M. L., Meirink, J. A., Veen, K. van, & Driel, J. H. van. (2017). Exploring the relation between teachers’ perceptions of workplace conditions and their professional learning goals. Professional Development in Education, 43(5), 770 788. - McGregor, J. H. (2004). Spatiality and teacher workplace cultures. Unpublished doctoral thesis, The Open University, Milton Keynes, England. - Noblit, G. W., & Hare, R. D. (1988). Meta-Ethnography: Synthesizing Qualitative Studies. SAGE