Teacher professional learning communities provide environments in which teachers engage in regular research and collaboration. They have been found effective as a means for connecting professional learning to the day-to-day realities faced by teachers in the classroom. In this article, the authors draw on survey data collected in primary schools serving 71 villages in rural Gansu Province as well as transcripts from in-depth interviews with 30 teachers. Findings indicate that professional learning communities penetrate to some of China’s most resource-constrained schools but that their nature and development are shaped by institutional supports, principal leadership, and teachers’ own initiative

  Tanja Carmel Sargent，美国新泽西州立大学教育学院教育理论、政策和管理系助理教授。1992年，在美国加州大学圣塔芭芭拉分校获得生物学本科学位；2002年，在瑞士Landegg国际大学获得道德教育硕士学位；2006年，宾夕法尼亚大学教育学院和社会学系获得教育学和社会学联合博士学位。

        Email: tsargent@rci.rutgers.edu

        主要发表论著：
        Sargent, Tanja and Emily Hannum. (2009). Doing more with less: Teacher professional learning communities in resource-constrained primary schools in rural China. Journal of Teacher Education, 60(3), 258-276.
        Sargent, Tanja. (2009). Revolutionizing Ritual Interaction in the Classroom: Constructing the Chinese Renaissance of the 21st Century.  Modern China, forthcoming.
        Hannum, E., Tanja Sargent & Shengchao Yu. (2009). Poverty, parental ill health and children’s access to schooling in rural Gansu, China. Provincial China, 1(2), 24-60.
        An Xuehui, Emily Hannum & Tanja Sargent. (2007). Teaching quality and student outcomes: Academic achievement and educational engagement in rural northwest China.  China: An International Journal, 5(2).)
        Sargent, Tanja, & Emily Hannum (2005). Keeping Teachers Happy: Job Satisfaction among Primary School Teachers in Rural Northwest China. Comparative Education Review, 50(2).