Professional learning communities as a professional collaboration culture in school: Theory and practice

The culture of teacher isolation has been a tradition in most of the countries' education system. However, this culture is not capable of improving student achievement particularly in the complexity of the current education system. Education system reform through collaboration indeed a need to face global education competition nowadays. Yet, some studies found that professional collaborative culture is difficult to form through professional learning communities. Thus, the aim of the study is to analyze and discuss the latest research findings on the collaborative culture through professional learning communities. This study applies the qualitative research synthesis. The theoretical framework is based on Cultural Historical Activity Theory. The focus of this study is on teacher collaboration and sources of the data are from articles and books publication. This study finds six themes. They are the importance of collaborative culture, forms of collaborative culture, the advantages and disadvantages of collaboration, collaborative culture practices, barriers to collaborative culture and strategies to promote collaboration culture. The practice of professional learning communities also shows that it is able to form a professional collaborative culture in school.