Since the 1990s, the development of schools has been an important issue in Germany. Due to the publication of the international large scale assessment studies – namely PISA – schools are faced with an enhanced public pressure to improve teaching and learning in the last years. In the course of their developmental activities schools can rely on support systems, one of which is the support of external change agents. “Change agents” are “special ‘assisters’ to act as consultants and facilitators, … people with a ‘licence to help’” (Miles, Saxl & Lieberman 1988), who do not belong to the school seeking advice, sometimes even not to the school system, but to management consultancies. These change agents not only gain in importance increasingly in Germany, but are also relevant in other states inside and outside Europe.
By now, it is not sufficiently investigated in which ways schools are supported in their developmental process by external change agents and in how far the schools’ collaboration with external change agents creates a context in which head teachers’ and teachers’ professional learning is improved.
In Germany, an empirical study – that is submitted by the German Research Foundation (DFG) between 2009 and 2012 – intends to clear this issue. For that reason, the proceeding and the conditions of support processes by external change agents at schools are examined. The study focuses on activities in the German federal state North-Rhine Westphalia and compasses (1) qualitative interviews with change agents, (2) a school leader survey and (3) explorative case studies including content analyses of documents concerning the consultancy process between schools and change agents as well as qualitative interviews with school leaders, teachers and change agents.
Against the background of this investigation, the planned presentation focuses on the question in which ways head teachers’ and teachers’ professional learning is influenced by the knowledge gained and the experiences made by the support of external change agents in school development processes.

Mayring, Philipp (2008): Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse. Grundlagen und Techniken. Beltz Verlag. Miles, M. Saxl, E. & Lieberman, A. (1988): What skills do educational „change agents“ need? An empirical view, in: Curriculum Inquiry, vol. 18, no 2, pp. 157-193.