The role of professional learning communities in facilitating teachers’pedagogical adaptation and change

Abstract

The role of professional learning communities in facilitating teachers’ pedagogical adaptation and change Jennifer Feldman (Received 9 March 2016; accepted 7 December 2016) Abstract This article draws on a two-year PLC process to explore the role of professional learning communities (PLCs) in facilitating teachers’ pedagogical adaptation and change. Situated within the context of the current South African Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS), which is described as tightly scripted and regulated, this article argues, drawing on Nancy Fraser’s conceptualisation of justice, that there is a need for teachers to dialogue about ways in which the pedagogical process can include ethical concerns of recognition of student cultural knowledge and a representation of diverse social-cultural groups in the process of knowledge redistribution, and suggests that PLCs hold the potential to mediate this process. Drawing on Bourdieu’s thinking tools, this article conceptualises teachers’ pedagogical adaptation and change via the PLC process, as a form of ‘habitus engagement’ that engages with the teachers’ firmly held pedagogical dispositions, their ‘pedagogical habitus’ which over time has acquired a depth of complexity that is difficult to shift.