In order to enhance school's capacity of education welfare, which is geared to
decrease students' educational alienation, the learning experiences of school staff
in education welfare activities have to be expanded and enriched. This study
intended to look into the learning experiences of school staff in the context of
the current education welfare priority project in primary and secondary schools.
For this, the concept of 'community of practice' was introduced as a frame of
analysis. A qualitative study was conducted on four schools which have relatively
long and successful history in the project.
The result shows that some kinds of communities of practice are formed and
working in the subject schools, even though they are not as perfect as defined
by Wenger, especially in terms of voluntariness, self-regulation and informality.
However, learning about education welfare is actually taking place through direct
and indirect participation in the activities. Also, people share certain kinds of way
of interaction and problem solving to some extent. These are the characteristics
of community of practice.
On the other hand, there also appear some negative factors that might impede
the operation of the community of practice. If these negative factors are properly
controlled and overcome, it is expected that those communities of practice
focused on education welfare will develop and even flourish thanks to their
genuine educational value and the dedication of high-quality human resources in
our schools.