Communities of Practice

Communities ofPractice

Wenger, Etienne. (1999). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity

2008/03/19CASSIE DOROTHY LEYMARIE

SUNGWOO KIM

Language Socialization Professor Joan Kelly HallClass Presentation

Communities of Practice

Introduction: Social Theory of Learning

Four Premises in CoP Framework1. We are social beings. 2. Knowledge is a matter of competence with

respect to valued enterprise.3. Knowledge is a matter of participating in the

pursuit of such enterprises.4. Meaning is ultimately what learning is to produce.


Components of Social Theory of Learning


PART I: PRACTICE

1. Meaning in terms of Participation and Reification

2. Community3. Learning4. Boundary5. Locality

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Introduction

T/F Quiz 1

“Communities of practice approach favors agency over structure in its conceptual framework.”


CoP vs Traditional Approach

Traditional Approach in Social Theory

1. Theories of social structure: institutions, norms, and rules - extreme: structural determinism

2. Theories of situated experience: dynamics of everyday existence, improvisation, coordination, and interactional choreography - extreme: no structure at all

CoP perspective on Learning is more about

1. Theories of social practice: everyday activity with emphasis on the social systems of shared resources

2. Theories of identity: social formation of the person


Chapter 1: Meaning

T/F Quiz

“Participation is similar to collaboration.”


Meaning

1. Meaning is located in a process of the negotiation of meaning.

2. The negotiation of meaning involves the interaction of two constituent processes: participation and reification.

3. Participation and reification form a duality (not dichotomy).


Practice

1. Practice is a process by which we can experience the world and our engagement with it as meaningful. e.g. a piece of painting as a thin veneer vs. as a work of art

2. Practice is about meaning as an experience of everyday life. e.g. eating some snack after watching a video about starvation / experiencing the multilingual contexts after taking the language socialization class


Participation & Reification

1. Dialectical Unity – Yin/Yang

2. Each one has its own properties.

3. Each one has its own mode of existence.

4. But each one is interdependent on each other.


Participation & Reification

T/F Quiz

“All participation involves reification: All reification involves participation.”


Participation

1. Participation presupposes the possibility of mutual recognition. e.g. Computers do not participate in the communities of practice. A fish does not participate in a family.

2. Participation is a source of identity. e.g. Trajectories and modes of participation transform your identities in the community of practice.

3. Participation is not tantamount to collaboration. e.g. confliction / competition |

4. Participation in social communities shape our experience and it also shape those communities. e.g. teaching internship in a middle school

5. Participation is broader than mere engagement in a practice. e.g. A businessperson does not cease to be one after her or his working hours.


Reification

Main Entry: re•ify Etymology: Latin res “thing” Date: 1854 Meaning: to regard (something abstract) as a

material or concrete thing / to treat (an abstraction) as substantially existing, or as a concrete material object


Reification

1. We project our meanings into the world and then we perceive them as existing in the world, as having a reality of their own. This process can be called ‘reification.’ e.g. ‘democracy’ or ‘the economy’

2. Any community of practice produces abstractions, tools, symbols, stories, terms, and concepts that reify something of that practice in a congealed form.

3. Reification can refer both to a process and its product. 4. The process of reification does not necessarily originate in

design. 5. Reification can take a great variety of forms. e.g. pyramids,

formula, truck


Complementarity of P & R

1. Participation makes up for reification. e.g. Judges interpret our laws.

2. Reification makes up for the inherent limitations of participation. e.g. notes, monuments, photos, blogs, etc

3. The balance between participation and reification is important in communities of practice. If participation prevails there may not be enough material to anchor

the specificities of coordination and to uncover diverging assumptions.

If reification prevails there may not be enough overlap in participation to recover a coordinated, relevant, or generative meaning.


The duality of Participation and Reification


Chapter 2 Community

T/F Quiz

“A residential neighborhood is a community of practice.”


Source of coherence of a community

1. Mutual engagement: mutual relationship such as collaboration, challenges and competitions e.g. having lunch together with colleges while talking about current issues or

complaining about company policies

2. A joint enterprise: the negotiation of a joint enterprise, mutual accountability e.g. establishing corporate vision in an interactive fashion

http://www.google.com/corporate/index.html - ”Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

3. A shared repertoire: common knowledge and artifacts e.g. Knowledge Management System

http://www.arescorporation.com/products.aspx?style=2&%20pict_id=189&menu_id=103&id=104

http://www.google.com/corporate/index.html




Chapter 3: Learning

T/F Quiz:

“Every community of practice involves learning.”


CoP as a view of Learning

1. Learning is another perspective to look at Communities of Practice

2. “Communities of practice can be thought of as shared histories of learning.”


CoP as Histories of Learning

1. Practice combines continuity and discontinuity. 2. Learning in practice involves:

Evolving forms of mutual engagement Understanding and tuning their enterprise Developing their repertoire, styles, and discourses

3. Practice is not an object but rather an emergent structure.


Chapter 4: Boundary


Two types of connections between CoPs

1. Boundary object – artifacts, documents, terms, concepts, and other forms of reification and around which communities of practice can organized their interconnections (e.g. IRB form for research protection )

2. Brokering – connections provided by people who can introduce elements of one practice into another (e.g. Double membership of task force members)


Chapter 5: Locality

T/F Quiz:

“PSU is a community of practice.”


Constellation of Practices

The term constellation refers to a grouping of stellar objects that are seen as a configuration even though they may not by particularly close to one another, of the same kind, or of the same size.

When a social configuration is viewed as a constellation rather than a community of practice, the continuity of the constellation must be understood in terms of interactions among practices.


The Local in the Global

Participating in the global vs. engaging with the global

The cosmopolitan character of practice vs. locality e.g. UN headquarters staff


PART II: IDENTITY

1. Identity in practice (parallels between practice and identity)

2. Identities of participation & non-participation

3. Modes of belonging

4. Identification and negotiability

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Identity in practice: Parallels between practice and identity

practice as…

negotiation of meaning (in terms of participation and reification)

community shared history of learning boundary and landscape constellations

identity as…

negotiated experience of self (in terms of participation and reification)

membership learning trajectory nexus of multi-membership belonging defined globally but

experienced locally


“In a landscape defined by boundaries and peripheries, a coherent identity is of necessity a mixture of being in and being out”

Participation and non-participation


Identities of non-participation - not just insider and outsider but an interaction

SOURCES:

1) how we locate ourselves in a social landscape2) what we care about and what we neglect3) what we attempt to know/choose to ignore4) with whom we seek connections/whom we avoid5)how we engage and direct our energies6) how we attempt to steer our trajectories

Participation and non-participation


Identities of non-participation - not just insider and outsider but an interaction

In the case of peripherality, some degree of non-participation is necessary to enable a kind of participation that is less than full. It is the participation aspect that dominates and defines non-participation as an enabling factor of participation

In the case of marginality, a form of non-participation prevents full participation. It is the non-participation aspect that dominates and comes to define a restricted form of participation.

Participation and non-participation (Cont’d)



Identities of non-participation- not just insider and outsider but an interaction

These are not just personal choices but involve processes of community formation where the configuration of social relations is work of the self. This configuration takes place at different levels:

•Trajectories with respect to specific communities of practice

•Boundary relations and the demands of multimembership

•Our position and the position of our communities within broader constellations of practices and broader institutions


Institutional non-participation

It is often the case that, rather than being direct boundary relations between communities and people or among communities, relations of non participation are mediated by institutional arrangements (ex. Non-participation as compromise, strategy, cover)



Modes of belonging- 3 distinct modes

1. Engagement – active involvement in mutual processes of negotiation of meaning -threefold process including conjunction of the ongoing negotiation of meaning, the formation of trajectories, and the unfolding of histories of practice

2. Imagination – creating images of the world and seeing connections through time and space by extrapolating from our own experience- Not confined to mutual engagement (ex. Reading narrative and placing oneself in others’ shoes)

3. Alignment – coordinating our energy and activities in order to fit within broad structures and contribute to broader enterprises-not confined to mutual engagement (ex. We Are Penn State)


Identification and negotiability

Our identities have tension between our investment in various forms of belonging and our ability to negotiate the meanings that matter in those context. Identity formation is thus a dual process.

Identification is one half, providing experiences and material for building identities through investment of the self in relations of association and differentiation

Negotiability, the other half, is just as fundamental because it determines the degree to which we have control over the meaning in which we are invested. (the ability, facility, and legitimacy to contribute to, take responsibility for and shape the meanings that matter within a social configuration)

negotiability

Economies of

meaning

Ownership of

meaning


Identification and negotiability

Dual nature of identity must be considered

Dual nature of power Dual nature of belonging

Communities of Practiceidentity

identificationnegotiabilit

y

communities structureeconomies of

meaning

Figure 9.1. Social ecology of identity

identities of participation

Identities of non-

participation

mode of belonging


identities of non

participation

close circle of friends

doing everything together

experience of boundaries through a faux-pas

engagement having one’s ideas

adopted

Marginality through

having one’s ideas

ignored

affinity felt by the

readers of a newspaper

prejudice through

stereotypes

imagination vicarious experience

through stories

assumption that someone

else understands what is going

on

allegiance to a social

movement

submission to violence

alignment persuasion through directed

experience

literal compliance

as in tax returns

Forms of membership Ownership of meaning

Communities of Practiceidentity

identificationnegotiabilit

y

communities structureeconomies of

meaning

Figure 9.1. Social ecology of identity


Identities of non-

participation

mode of belonging


identities of non

participation

experience of boundaries through a faux-pas

engagement having one’s ideas

adopted

affinity felt by the

readers of a newspaper

imagination vicarious experience

through stories

assumption that someone

else understands what is going

on

allegiance to a social

movement

alignment persuasion through directed

experience

literal compliance

as in tax returns

Forms of membership Ownership of meaning


How would you design the communities of practice?

How to participate

What to reify

To make better Communities of Practice

How would you contribute toyour communities of practice?

How to engage collectively

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Thank You!

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Communities of Practice

Documents

community of practice

communities of practice

social communities

theories of social practice

duality of participation

terms of participation

process of reification

modes of participation