Exploring the Role of Communities in Education

In this article, the authors explore if and how knowledge communities have the potential to help improve the communal efforts of practitioners, intermediaries and researchers to change education. An explorative study was conducted with a survey that was distributed among 187 workers in the Dutch educational field to investigate if and how knowledge communities are realized, and could contribute to bridge the gap between educational research and practice. The survey explored the role of communities from four perspectives derived from the literature in the field: their heterogeneity, informality, interactivity and effectiveness. The findings show that many communities are active, and that their members perceive them as heterogeneous, informal, interactive and effective ways to collaborate with others. Frequent and face-to-face communication, as well as financial support, seems to positively influence how the community is perceived by its members. It is concluded that the potential of knowledge communities deserves to be investigated in more detail so that the collaborative educational change taking place in the communities can be optimized and sustained for the future.