Context, school principals and professional learning communities in China: the case of educational group schools Available to Purchase

This paper explores education group school principal’s influence on professional learning community (PLC) development in China.

Qualitative comparative case studies were conducted.

The findings show that principals indicated principal-level factors were their major concerns regarding PLC cultural condition design, school needs were the major concerns in PLCs’ relational and structural design, and educational-group factors impacted principals’ extension of PLCs’ structural conditions.

This article concludes by presenting a “three-context” framework for understanding education group principal’s influence on PLCs in China.