Resumo

BASTOS, Nathália  e  MOURAO, Luciana. Social learning and professional development: education workers’ communities of Practice. Rev. Diálogo Educ. [online]. 2025, vol.25, n.84, pp.353-371.  Epub 19-Maio-2025. ISSN 1981-416X.  https://doi.org/10.7213/1981-416x.25.084.ao07.

As Communities of Practice (CoP) have highlighted the educational field as a privileged space for social learning. This study seeks to understand the impacts of social learning promoted in CoP in the professional development of educational workers. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with ten CoP coordinators focused on educational processes. The analysis of the interviews was conducted by Bardin's Content Analysis (2016), resulting in five categories, namely:: (i) place of CoP, (ii) internal challenges, (iii) external challenges, (iv) impacts and (v) results of CoP. These categories were further divided into 16 subcategories. The theoretical discussion is mainly based on the Theory of Social Learning, based on the perspective of Albert Bandura's Social Cognitive Theory. The figures indicate that learning in interaction with others, based on the relationship between behavior, cognition and environment, promotes a critical rationality that allows the individual to continually analyze and improve their practice. This process has effects that apply beyond the position or current function of the individual, once it also reflects in the personal sphere and in other professional areas. The results found in this study corroborate the existing national and international literature on the impact of CoP on the development of competencies, professional development and career advancement.

Palavras-chave : Communities of Practice; Education workers; Professional development; Social learning; Social Cognitive Theory..

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