The move towards professionalism-based education reform, and away from market-driven, neoliberal approaches, has seen a rise in the system-wide implementation of professional learning communities (PLCs), with research highlighting their positive impact on educational quality and equity. While such system-wide approaches to school improvement are strongly advocated, they create complex dynamics, requiring navigation of multifarious factors including autonomy, systemic equity, and leadership capacity-building, all within the constraints of school leader capabilities, workforce contexts and systemic values and beliefs. An iterative, exploratory research design examined the implications of one education system’s enactment of a system-wide PLC initiative, to produce findings applicable to the enactment of system-wide, professionalism-based reform (PBR). The study explores strengths and potential shortcomings arising from the system’s enactment approach. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in three iterative, exploratory stages: 1. system leaders, 2. principals, middle leaders, and 3. teachers. The design facilitated that each exploratory interview would affect the next, within and between each stage, as researcher understanding of the systemic enactment evolved. Reflexive thematic analysis (RTA) utilising the NVivo platform was employed to analyse the data following each completed stage of data collection. The findings highlight the importance of ‘imperativity’ in system-wide, PBR initiatives and its role in fostering the emergence of ‘systemness’ as an enabling factor. However, the study also identifies several shortcomings, including the potential for certain enactment approaches to generate inequity due to variations in school leader readiness and capability. System beliefs were found to potentially constrain PLC implementation, with tensions existing between the systemic obligation to build school leader capacity and an abiding belief in school autonomy, exacerbating potential for inequity. While professionalism-based reform advocates school leader autonomy to enable potent innovation, when afforded injudiciously, it can constrain PBR and potentially generate inequity. The study proposes a Framework for Adaptive System-Wide Enactment of Reform, as one of several recommendations to support systems in enacting professionalism-based initiatives that optimise their school improvement potential while acknowledging inherent variation in school leader capacity for reform implementation. These findings contribute to the understanding of system-wide, PBR enactment and provide actionable insights for policymakers and educational leaders.
The Professional Learning Communities (PLC) imperative: Navigating the dynamics of enacting system-wide, professionalism-based education reform
RULE, S. (Author). 2025
Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis