Teacher Learning in a Community of Practice: A Case Study of ...

and offers insights into how learning communities and their individual participants
negotiate the essential tension.
In summary, the overview ofthe literature on learning communities points to increasing
faith in learning communities as vehicles for teacher development. Researchers have
presented useful insights into various community formations. Although general
agreement does exist about the positive outcomes oflearning communities, relatively
little has been written about why and how learning communities work. Much ofthe
research on learning communities has been carried out on contrived learning
communities that have either been set up by researchers or are the results ofinstitutional
prescription. Such community formations are often conceptualised with a predetermined
agenda that may be in conflict with that of the community members. Research into
voluntary teacher learning community formations is scarce. Much is still not known
about how such voluntary formations sustain their existence. Issues on which the
literature is silent or offers limited insight include, what constitutes an optimal size for a
teacher learning community, the frequency ofmeetings, finance, the extent ofthe transfer
ofknowledge and skills to the classroom context, addressing the essential tension in
teacher learning communities, and understanding the relationship between different levels
of membership.
It is clear that there is a dearth ofliterature on teacher learning communities in South
Africa. It is important to re-emphasise that research into teacher learning communities
has largely been carried out in developed countries, the results ofwhich are often difficult
to extrapolate to a developing country like South Africa.
2.3 BROAD TRENDS IN CLASSROOM RESEARCH SINCE THE 1960S
A central question that this research study attempts to answer concerns how teachers who
had experienced professional development in a learning community interpret and enact
the new Economic and Management Sciences (EMS) curriculum. This aspect ofthe study
entails research into teachers' classrooms and an examination ofhow the context in
which teachers work influences teaching and learning. This section presents a brief
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