Knowledge Communities: A Way of Making Sense of How Beginning Teachers Come to Know in Their Professional Knowledge Contexts

Abstract

This article explores how a beginning teacher's personal practical knowledge was influenced by his experiences in his professional knowledge context. The work offers competing stories of what constitutes “the healthy school” and illustrates how the teacher's interpretive knowledge shifted as he storied and restoried his narratives of experience with particular people in his professional knowledge context. The people with whom the teacher constructed and reconstructed meaning for his teaching experiences are identified as his knowledge communities. The conceptualization of knowledge communities is offered as a way of crystallizing how beginning teachers come to know in their professional knowledge contexts.