Learning Communities is a project of school transformation aimed at achieving school success for all students based on the implementation of successful educational actions which count on community participation (Gatt, Ojala & Soler, 2011). Today, Learning Communities are being developed in 7 countries in Europe (Spain) and Latin America (Brazil, Peru, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina and Guatemala). This paper presents the teacher training that takes place in Learning Communities, which is the first stage of the process of transformation of a school into a Learning Community. The aim of this paper is to analyse how this training is developed in different countries around the globe, identifying common features and understanding the role and impact of this training process in the subsequent transformation of the school and the improvements they achieve academically and socially.

Learning Communities are based on the contributions of scientific research. EU funded research INCLUD-ED Strategies for inclusion and social cohesion in Europe from education (6^th FP, 2006-2011) studied successful schools across Europe and identified a series of successful educational actions that were leading both to school success of students and social inclusion of their communities, especially in socially disadvantaged contexts and in schools containing students of migrant or minority background (Flecha, 2015). Teachers in schools as Learning Communities implement such actions identified by research and, in consequence, have obtained an improvement in students’ academic outcomes and in coexistence, as well as a reduction of conflicts and absenteeism. The success achieved has led the European Commission to recommend creating “schools as learning communities” as a strategy to reduce early school leaving (European Commission, 2011). The successful educational actions and the scientific evidence that supports them is one of the main components of the teachers’ training in Learning Communities.

The conception of learning in the Learning Communities is the dialogic learning (Flecha, 2000). It takes into account contributions of authors such as Bruner (1997), Vygotsky (1978) and Wells (1999) and understands that people learn through the interactions with others. Therefore, Learning Communities create the opportunities for new dialogues with more and more diverse people about the learning contents. To make this possible, they include the participation of community members and volunteers in different learning activities in school hours, such as interactive groups (Valls & Kyriakides, 2013) or after school hours, in tutored libraries for instance. Dialogic learning entails sharing different knowledge and interpretations among teachers, students, relatives and other people from the community and reach consensus building on cultural intelligence and egalitarian dialogue. This dialogic orientation is present in children’s learning activities but also in other school activities, such as decision making (Díez, Gatt & Racionero, 2011), and it is also a key feature of teachers’ training.

Bruner, J. (1997). The culture of education. Boston: Harvard University Press. Díez, D., Gatt, S., & Racionero, S. (2011). Placing Immigrant and Minority Family and Community Members at the School’s Centre: the role of community participation. European Journal of Education, 46(2), 184–196. European Commission. (2011b). Tackling early school leaving: A key contribution to the Europe 2020 Agenda. Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European economic and social committee and the Committee of the Regions. Brussels: European Commission. Flecha, R. (2000). Sharing Words. Theory and Practice of Dialogic Learning. Lanham, M.D: Rowman & Littlefield. Flecha, R. (Ed.). (2015). Successful Educational Actions for Inclusion and Social Cohesion in Europe. Springer International Publishing. Gatt, S., Ojala, M. & Soler, M. (2011). Promoting social inclusion counting with everyone: Learning Communities and INCLUD-ED. International Studies in Sociology of Education 21(1): 33-47. Gómez, A., Puigvert, L. & Flecha R. (2011). Critical Communicative Methodology: Informing real social transformation through research. Qualitative Inquiry, 17(3), 235-245. Valls, R., & Kyriakides, L. (2013). The power of Interactive Groups: how diversity of adults volunteering in classroom groups can promote inclusion and success for children of vulnerable minority ethnic populations. Cambridge Journal of Education, 43(1), 17-33. Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wells, G. (1999). Dialogic Inquiry: Towards a Socio-cultural Practice and Theory of Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press