Professional learning communities for inclusive pedagogy

Abstract

Collaboration is widely recognized as essential for implementing inclusive education, yet teachers are frequently hindered in their efforts to develop inclusive practices by structural and cultural conditions. This article examines how professional learning communities (PLCs) function as spaces where teachers and learner support educators (LSEs) negotiate these conditions and collaboratively develop inclusive pedagogies in a South African full-service school. The study asks: How do educators navigate structural and cultural conditions through PLCs to build a coherent community of inclusive practice? The study employs a qualitative single-case design, with semi-structured interviews with 12 teachers and two learner support educators (n = 14) at City Primary School (pseudonym), which is a full-service school in Johannesburg. The theoretical framework combines Archer’s (1995) morphogenetic approach to social realism, Wenger’s (1998) communities of practice, and Nichols’ (2016) institutional ethnography to examine inclusion across macro, meso, and micro levels of educational practice. The findings reveal that PLCs created important opportunities for collaborative learning, professional identity development, and shifting teachers’ understandings of inclusive pedagogy. Participants described PLCs as practical spaces supporting experimentation with inclusive teaching strategies, thereby strengthening relationships among professionals. However, these developments remained constrained by structural conditions, including resource shortages, inadequate staffing, limited time, and the bureaucratic demands of the Screening, Identification, Assessment, and Support (SIAS) policy (DBE, 2015), which functions as a ‘ruling text’ mediating frontline support. The evidence does not demonstrate structural transformation; instead, it indicates the potential for morphogenesis—emerging cultural and agentic changes that could contribute to wider transformation if supported by facilitative structures and policies. The study proposes an integrated multi-level framework for understanding collaborative professional learning in inclusive education and highlights the importance of aligning policy, resources, and professional learning to support coherent communities of inclusive practice.