If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.*Related content and download information correct at time of download. Design/methodology/approach -Using a multi method approach, quantitative and qualitative data were gathered from seven interdisciplinary teacher teams in a secondary school during one school year. Teachers' perceptions of community development were complemented with video-observations of team meetings by relative outsiders. Findings -Data showed that the teacher teams undertook a wide variety and amount of community-building efforts. However, community development of the teacher teams as perceived by the teachers was limited. Relative outsiders observed some community development. Practical implications -From the findings the authors conclude that school managers could play a more proactive role in supporting teacher teams' community-building efforts. Strategies embedding community-building into the culture and policy of the school, including diagnosing, custom-made support and making efforts explicit, could be effective. Originality/value -The current study takes a long-term approach, investigating the community development of teacher teams during the course of one school year. In addition, community development is measured using two perspectives, i.e. that of the community members and that of the relative outsider.Keywords Community development, Community-building, Schools, Teacher collaboration, Community of practice, Teacher teams, Communities, Teachers Paper type Research paperThe current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at www.emeraldinsight.com/0951-354X.htmThe authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. They wish to acknowledge the work and contribution of colleagues from the research team: researcher 1 to researcher 10. The authors would like to thank the teachers in this project, who gave generously of their time.

To deal with recent reforms and the accompanying complexity of work in secondary education, ongoing collaboration between teachers has become more important. A community is seen as a promising learning environment to support and embed collaboration into the culture of the school. However, community theory for the design of teacher communities seems underdeveloped. Therefore, this study aims to formulate a set of design principles to foster the development of teacher communities in secondary education. The set of design principles is based on a review of literature, as well as on a best-practice case. The case study was used to validate design principles from the literature in the target context. The resulting design principles were based on context-intervention-mechanismoutcome logic that takes into account the context-dependency of interventions as well as the mechanisms that help with understanding of how interventions produce certain outcomes. Implications for practice relate to ownership and co-design of the arrangement. The set of design principles provides a practical basis for teachers and administrators aiming to facilitate community building in their school. Future research is recommended on testing the effectiveness of the arrangement in the target context by means of a multiple case study.

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.*Related content and download information correct at time of download. Robert-Jan SimonsCentre for Teaching and Learning, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands AbstractPurpose -The first aim of this study is to explore to what extent communities of practice occur in the school workplace. The second aim is to explore the relation between communities of practice and diversity in composition of teacher teams. Design/methodology/approach -Quantitative as well as qualitative data were gathered from seven teacher teams in a school for secondary education. Questionnaires and observation instruments were used to measure and analyze teacher teams' collaborative activities and diversity in composition.Findings -Data suggest that communities of practice actually occur in the school workplace, but to a moderate extent. Also, communities of practice are related to four of the five diversity attributes that were investigated.Research limitations/implications -The current study is a snapshot measurement of communities of practice. Future research is recommended to focus on the development of communities of practice in the school workplace by including longitudinal measurements. Practical implications -Implications for teachers and administrators include follow-up activities aimed at stimulating and sustaining communities of practice as well as taking diversity considerations in team composition into account. Originality/value -Studies suggest that a community is a promising context for embedding collaboration into the culture of the school. However, empirical research that focuses on communities in the school workplace seems largely absent. This study provides insight in the occurrence of communities of practice from two perspectives: the perception of community members and the observation from outsiders.

Rail/Transit systems are effectively comprised of many layered and complex systems – hence a System of Systems (SoS). Upgrading, expanding and modernizing rail/transit systems becomes a complex endeavor as portions of a rail/network are modified and then must ultimately be accepted as a complete, operational system before being introduced/integrated back into the rest of the active rail network. The multi‐layered system acceptance creates challenges that relate to planning, modeling, contracting and deployment. SE practitioners across all industries are urged to join this SoS exchange based on rail/transit case studies and offer comparative or contrasting experiences from their domains.

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