Beyond locality: the creation of public practice-based knowledge through practitioner research in professional learning communities and communities of practice. A review of three books on practitioner research and professional communities

In both the fields of educational practice and educational research the professional development of teachers was, is and is promising to remain an urgent and relevant topic. Practitioner research performed by teachers in professional learning communities and communities of practice is promising to serve their professional development. In addition, practitioner research and participation in these learning and working communities aim at explicating the locally existing tacit professional knowledge. Since practitioner research is also defined as a means to the aim of creating knowledge that is more relevant to the practice of education than the knowledge created by research institutes, we are concerned with the question of which mechanisms can be identified as enabling the production of public practice-based knowledge. Therefore we review three current books on practitioner research and professional communities.