Building School Capacity: Shared Leadership and Professional Learning Communities. A research Proposal

Abstract

If schools are to meet the needs of students and achieve educational success, to achieve this, simultaneously, should provide opportunities for teachers to innovate, share experiences and learn together. Schools should thus be configured as Professional Learning Communities (PLCs). This article is linked to building the collective capacity of the school through distributed leadership. It combines in a mixed design description of the situation in Elementary and Secondary schools of Andalusia, with in-depth case studies, properly selected; they can show progress in their levels of educational success, according to the degree of distributed leadership development that promotes the development of the school as a Professional Learning Community. We are interested more than good practices in practices that evidence success in education achievements. We would like to identify and describe the conditions and processes in which direction´s leadership makes possible to development schools as PLCs is one of the principal aims of the research proposal.