Intergenerational Teacher Learning in Schools: A Situated Explanatory Model of Professional Collaboration

Teacher professional learning increasingly depends on situated collaborative practices that emerge in the everyday work of schools. In educational contexts characterized by diverse career paths and the coexistence of different generations of teachers, it is important to understand how professional knowledge circulates and is reinterpreted among teachers with varying levels of experience. From this perspective, Intergenerational Teacher Learning (ITL) is understood as a process of reciprocal knowledge and practice exchange among teachers from different generations. This study analyzes how ITL takes shape through the everyday working relationships among teachers of different generations in Chilean schools, adopting a qualitative paradigm grounded in constructivist grounded theory. To this end, fifteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with practicing teachers at different career stages. Based on the initial, focused, and theoretical coding of the data, an inductive, situated explanatory model of ITL was constructed, organized into five dimensions. The results show that age and professional experience are associated with teachers’ assessments of their peers’ competencies, and that ITL manifests primarily through traditional mentoring, reverse mentoring, and peer learning. Furthermore, novice teachers in particular contribute to knowledge related to the use of technology and innovation, while experienced teachers contribute knowledge related to school culture and pedagogical management, which is especially relevant to the professional integration of novice teachers.