This research seeks to understand obstacles and impediments that, according to primary and secondary teachers, prevent them from collaboration among peers in Chile.

The collaboration currently stands out as an essential means for school improvement in Latin America and Europe (Ávalos-Bevan & Flores, 2021; Muckenthaler et al., 2020), as well as for the professionalisation and creation of new knowledge and the capacity for innovation and adaptation in educational reforms (Heldt et al., 2021). Currently, it is part of the professional performance requirements included in the teaching policies, as a part of standards and Frameworks of Good Teaching such as those based on the version of Danielson Group, and the teaching performance standards of countries or states like Chile, Ontario in Canada, UK or Scotland (Clinton et al., 2017).

Collaboration is defined as a social practice characterised by intentional relationships to achieve goals or fulfil tasks, under a communicative framework, with a certain autonomy and mutual trust (Webs & Holtappels, 2018). As the imperative of teacher collaboration spreads worldwide, there is also a growing need to understand why it fails or is challenging to implement (Tallman et al., 2021). The literature reviewed shows that collaboration can be hindered at various levels of the structuring of the teaching profession: macro-level of law and culture, mid-level of organisational arrangements and job design, and micro-level of personal characteristics and relationships between persons and groups (García-Martínez et al., 2021; Muckenthaler et al., 2020). This is to say, a phenomenon that depends not only on individual attitudes or characteristics but also job design and pedagogical leadership, policies and the symbolic power of professional cultures.

The literature review shows obstacles at the macro level of the education system. For example, tensions between management needs and values of collaboration and educational cultures regimented by standards and accountability for results require collaboration as a means (Ibrahim, 2020). In these cases, the partnership can be lived as a control mechanism that professionals reject (Hargreaves, 2019; Krichesky & Murillo, 2018).

Another obstacle relates to cultural features predominant in the profession, for example, the importance of jurisdictional limits and autonomy for teachers (Vangrieken & Kyndt, 2019). Concerning a mid-level or organisational level, the main obstacles is about the design of work by management teams (Muckenthaler et al., 2020): lack of time, especially the simultaneous common time allocated to collaboration (García-Martínez et al., 2021); the excessive formalisation and colonisation of the time of collaboration by management teams (Hargreaves, 2019); and opacity or disagreement on the goals of the partnership or on the working methods between those who must collaborate (Vangrieken & Kyndt, 2019).

Finally, at a micro-level of the system, factors such as a negative working climate and distrust in the quality or effort of the work of other professionals interfere with collaboration (Vangrieken et al., 2019). Thus also, the formation of groups (Balkanization or "insularity"), and the perception of heterogeneity with a low level of commonality and interdependence of expertise, appear as a source of difficulties in collaboration (Hargreaves, 2019; Vangrieken et al., 2015).

Other authors refer to individual characteristics or attitudes that could hinder collaboration: resistance, scepticism or disinterest in collaborating, and the lack of skills required to collaborate or pedagogical knowledge to teach (Vangrieken & Kyndt, 2019). 

Given the importance and transcendence that collaboration can offer and the multiple obstacles that the literature report, the research question was: what factors or dynamics in the micro, mid or macrolevel of the occupational reality of primary and secondary teachers in Chile are perceived as difficulties or obstacles to the adoption of formal collaborative work modalities?

To achieve the stated objectives, we developed qualitative and analytical research. The thirty teachers who participated from 26 different schools were identified employing a non-probabilistic sampling with inclusion criteria at two levels: school and individual. Around school, we included (1) schools with diverse regional locations in the country (2) administrative dependency of the establishments (3) Type of support (public schools) (4) Results in Teacher Evaluation (official government evaluation for teachers in schools with government funding) which measures, among other things, teacher collaboration (schools with high, medium and low levels of teaching performance were included). As inclusion criteria linked to individuals, (1) the level at which they teach (primary and secondary teachers), (2) the gender declared in administrative records (both men and women), and (3) the years of teaching experience were considered, all of which contributes to obtaining a group indicative of the diversity of teachers in Chile. For the analysis of the transcribed material, a coding book was developed based on the revised empirical literature composed initially of 25 codes within five semantic categories, of which only those codes that showed a strong presence within the teachers' narratives were included in the final analysis (from 8 mentions). The final analysis reported in this article was composed of 11 codes in four semantic categories. Two independent coders performed the codification process with software support (ATLAS.ti version 9.1). For the inter-coders agreement, two reliability analyses of the concordance (Krippendorff Alpha Binary Coefficient and Krippendorff Cu Alpha Analysis) were carried out. The results show coefficients at levels considered satisfactory for each semantic field and for the overall result.

Among the findings, it is highlighted that at a micro-level, teachers report a preference for independent work, which is reinforced at the macro level with beliefs about loneliness and autonomy as styles of the teaching profession. On the other hand, in the microlevel, obstacles are perceived as being associated with the bad working climate, the existence of homogeneous age groups that rival or rub each other, and disciplinary Balkanization. The issue about Balkanisation, common to the experience also reported in Portugal, Alemania o Australia, could be a stimulus to isolation and autonomy, making the preference of individual work more relevant and functional to avoid conflicts or exposure (Ávalos-Bevan & FLores, 2021; Vangrieken et al., 2015). Also, in the midlevel, teachers highlight something that literature has already noted in Germany and Portugal: the simultaneous common time is one of the most ubiquitous problems for collaboration (Ávalos-Bevan & FLores, 2021; Hargreaves, 2019; Heldt et al., 2021). Also, the results presented the tension between the formalization and the institutionalization of the collaboration time. This means that the time for collaboration exists, but it tends to be underutilised in pursuit of other activities and rarely serves its purpose. Finally, the research also reports obstacles related to the clarity and transcendence of the collaboration objectives, understood as the symbolic management of collaboration that allows institutionalising practices. To do this, the administration must convey part of the school's objectives through an irreplaceable collaboration that takes priority. Discussions highlight conditions of possibility that are still pending in school contexts, such as those in Latin America and some European countries. Particular emphasis is placed on policy coherence and reharsal of collaboration conditions, school management aspects, the design of work or the initial or continuing professional development activities for teachers.

Ávalos-Bevan, B., & Flores, M. (2021): School-based teacher collaboration in Chile and Portugal, Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education, DOI: 10.1080/03057925.2020.1854085 Clinton, J., Anderson, M., Dawson G., Dawson, A., Bolton R., & Mason, B. (2017). Teacher effectiveness systems, frameworks and measures: A review. Australian: Australian Government Department of Education and Training. García-Martínez, I., Montenegro-Rueda, M., Molina-Fernández. E., & Fernández-Batanero, M. J. (2021). Mapping teacher collaboration for school success, School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 32(4), 631-649. 10.1080/09243453.2021.1925700 Hargreaves, A. (2019). Teacher collaboration: 30 years of research on its nature, forms, limitations and effects. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 25, 603–621. https://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.2019.1639499 Heldet, M., Drossel, K., & Eickelmann, B. (2021). Teacher Collaboration in the Digital Age and what Teachers think about its Effectiveness [Conference session]. ECER 2021, Geneva, Switzerland. Ibrahim, A. (2020). What hurts or helps teacher collaboration? Evidence from UAE schools. Prospects, 0123456789. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11125-019-09459-9 Krichesky, G., & Murillo, F. J. (2018). La colaboración docente como factor de aprendizaje y promotor de mejora. Un estudio de casos. Educación XX1, 21(1), 135–156. https://doi.org/10.5944/educXX1.15080 Muckenthaler, M., Tillmann, T., Weiß, S., & Kiel, E. (2020). Teacher collaboration as a core objective of school development, School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 31(3), 486-504. 10.1080/09243453.2020.1747501 Tallman, T. (2020). How Teachers Experience Collaboration. Journal of Education, 201(3), 210-224. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022057420908063 Vangrieken, K., Dochy, F., Raes, E., & Kyndt, E. (2015). Teacher collaboration: A systematic review. Educational Research Review, 15, 17–40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.edurev.2015.04.002 Vangrieken, K., & Kyndt, E. (2019). The teacher as an island? A mixed method study on the relationship between autonomy and collaboration. European Journal of Psychology of Education, 35(1), 177–204. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10212-019-00420-0 Webs, T., & Holtappels, H. (2018). School conditions of different forms of teacher collaboration and their effects on instructional development in schools facing challenging circumstances. Journal of Professional Capital and Community, 3(1), 39–58. https://doi.org/10.1108/JPCC-03-2017-0006