Browsing by Subject "competence development"

International research on collaboration between schools shows a number of positive effects for educational work. Previous research results also show that certain circumstances are necessary for collaboration to become effective and gain a depth. In Finnish research and debate co-located schools are highlighted as a strength, while it can be stated that it is a challenge to find and operate a collaborative model for two schools with different historical backgrounds and different operating cultures. The purpose of the thesis is to describe the collaboration of teachers and principals and the development of pedagogical work across the language boundary in co-located schools. The research questions focus on the teachers' experience of how brokering takes place in a co-located school as well as what positive effects, opportunities and challenges the teachers experience that the collaboration entails. This study utilises Wenger’s (1998) theory on communities of practice. This is a qualitative semi-structured interview study. All interviews were conducted in the spring of 2019. The informants consisted of 6 teachers who teach in Swedish co-located schools. 3 of the informants also serve as principals for a Swedish school. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed using qualitative content analysis. The results show that there is a great variation between schools and teachers in what extent brokering and exchange of knowledge and new ideas takes place. Willingness and interest, opportunities both to get to know each other and to draw up common guidelines are found to be factors that promote cross-language collaboration. A principal who supports collaboration turns out to be directly crucial for how cooperation is designed. The teachers felt that the main advantages of co-location and brokering were the opportunity for more colleagues and thus a broader perspective, a greater knowledge base and a greater exchange of each other's experiences and ideas.