This study analyzes the incidence of teacher professionalization on school culture, with learning communities as the central axis of interpretation. Using a naturalistic-interpretive paradigm and a qualitative design, the research combines a bibliographic review with empirical techniques such as semi-structured interviews, participant observation, and data triangulation. A methodological complement is proposed, including focus groups with teachers, students, and administrators; systematic documentary analysis of institutional policies (PEI, improvement plans, coexistence manuals); the use of qualitative analysis software (ATLAS.ti, NVivo); and validation of preliminary results through participatory processes. Findings reveal a robust theoretical foundation on teacher professionalization, school culture, and learning communities, but a significant gap in integrating these three categories into a unified analytical framework. The results highlight the importance of professional trajectories and the concept of professional capital—human, social, and decisional—as conditions for teacher professionalization to transcend the individual level and become an organizational driver of cultural transformation. Analytical tools such as radar charts and network graphs underscore imbalances between basic and secondary cycles and reveal partial collaboration patterns, with central nodes concentrating influence and peripheral teachers at risk of exclusion. The study concludes that teacher professionalization only transforms school culture when it becomes a socially organized practice anchored in institutional structures—protected time for peer collaboration, distributed pedagogical leadership, and systematic feedback protocols. Under these conditions, the learning community shifts from being an aspirational ideal to becoming the everyday mode of doing school.
Luis Alfredo Álvarez Escalante1, Jhondert Alberto Jaimes Rodríguez2, David Alberto García Arango3 (2026) studied this question.