The Professional Learning Community in Catholic Elementary Schools in Korea: Perceptions of the Teaching Staff

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study is to assess whether Catholic elementary schools in South Korea build professional learning communities(PLCs) in their schools, and to examine what are elements that contribute to building such communities. The methodology involves a quantitative study approach designed to gain information regarding perceptions of the teaching staff using the ‘professional learning community assessment’ instrument. This study included six Catholic elementary schools. The results show that among them, three completed the process of developing a PLC in their school (group Y) while the other three were still working on the process (group X). I compared groups X and Y in terms of four dimensions: perception differences about five dimensions of a PLC among the teaching staffs, their demographic characteristics, and the internal and external characteristics of each school. Notable differences were revealed in the internal dimension of groups, X and Y. The two groups of schools were distinct in four ways: in the way they perceived and shared their schools’ values and vision; in the internal motivation of the teaching staff; in their voluntary collaborative culture and in the level of their trusting relationships. This shows that in establishing a PLC in a given school, more depends on the cultural dimensions that its members contribute in a collaborative way rather than on external dimensions such as school size and location or demographic dimensions such as gender, position in school, age and the number of years spent in teaching.