Strategic School Leadership for Developing and Sustaining Professional Learning Communities: A Bibliometric and Thematic Review
Abstract
Professional learning communities (PLCs) provide a setting for sustained teacher learning, collaboration, and school improvement. Their development and continuity are associated with leadership that establishes direction, supportive conditions, shared responsibility, and professional trust. However, scholarship connecting school leadership and PLCs remains dispersed across educational contexts and leadership perspectives. This bibliometric analysis, complemented by thematic interpretation, mapped publication trends, productivity, citation influence, and conceptual structure. The dataset comprised 314 Scopus-indexed articles, reviews, and conference papers published during 2017–2026 and retrieved on 18 July 2026. Biblioshiny analyzed publication output, sources, affiliations, corresponding authors’ countries, and globally cited documents. VOSviewer mapped keyword co-occurrence patterns after terms were standardized using a thesaurus file. Annual output rose overall from 19 documents in 2017 to 59 in 2025, despite fluctuations. The United States led corresponding-author output, while several Asian countries contributed substantially to the field. Analysis of 43 keywords generated six clusters connecting leadership with professional development, collaboration, school culture, teacher learning, agency, self-efficacy, inclusion, and social capital. Temporal patterns indicated movement from teacher learning and principals’ practices toward distributed, shared, and middle leadership. Collectively, the literature portrays sustainable PLC development as a multilevel organizational process, although these bibliometric associations do not establish leadership effectiveness. The findings highlight collaborative time, role clarity, professional trust, and contextual adaptation as considerations requiring empirical evaluation. Future research should prioritize longitudinal, multilevel, and cross-national designs, including faith-based, under-resourced, and digitally mediated settings.