Sustainable Educational Transformation: Teacher Professionalization, School Culture and Learning Communities as Central Categories of a Grounded Theory

This study analyzes the relationship between teacher professionalization, school culture, and learning communities as central categories to understand sustainable educational transformation in school contexts. Based on semi-structured interviews with teachers from a public school in Antioquia, Colombia, and qualitative analysis using grounded theory and ATLAS.ti 25, patterns and relationships were identified to build an emergent theoretical model. The findings reveal that teacher professionalization is the initial driver of change, as it integrates technical, socio-emotional, and ethical competences; school culture operates as a mediator and institutionalizer of the process through participatory and collegial practices; and learning communities emerge as a strategic outcome that transforms individual capacities into collective knowledge. Visual analysis through semantic networks, Sankey diagrams, and sociograms illustrated the directionality of flows (TP → SC → LC), confirming that teacher professionalization first impacts school culture and subsequently the consolidation of professional communities. These conclusions align with previous research emphasizing the need to integrate professional development with collaborative institutional structures to achieve sustainable change (Darling-Hammond et al., 2017; Bolívar, 2020; Stoll et al., 2006; Vescio et al., 2008). The study recommends designing integrated ecosystems of teacher development that articulate professional training with participatory school cultures and sustainable learning communities, in accordance with international frameworks such as UNESCO’s 2030 Agenda. This approach conceptualizes educational transformation as a relational process in which teacher professionalization drives, school culture institutionalizes, and learning communities sustain change.