practice.
MON 08/11/21
SLIDE 4: ETIENNE WENGER
o Born = 1952 in Switzerland
o PhD at uni of California in 1990
o Social rather than biological theories of learning
o Anthropologist
SLIDE 5: JEAN LAVE
o Social anthropologist
o PhD social anthropology at Harvard, 1968.
o Situated learning & apprenticeship
SLIDE 6: WORKING TOGETHER
o Apprenticeship as model of learning
o Published ‘situated learning: legitimate peripheral participation’ in 1991
SLIDE 8: SOCIALLY SITUATED LEARNING
1) Meaning
o Talking about our ability to experience life & world as meaningful
2) Practice
o Talking about shared historical & social resources, frameworks & perspectives that
sustain mutual engagement in action
3) Community
o Talking about social configurations
4) Identity
o Talking about how learning changes who we are & creates personal histories of
becoming in the context of our communities (WENGER, 1998)
SLIDE 10: COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE
o Mutual engagement (community who interact & learn together/work & support
each other)
o Joint enterprise/domain (collective understanding of activities & purpose/shared
interest)
o Shared repertoire/practice (behaving & communicating, tools & resources)
SLIDE 12: KEY IDEA
o Legitimate peripheral participation
o Learners develop practice through involving themselves in communities with other
practitioners
o Learners gain experience from experienced practitioners
o Learners involved in wide variety of communities of practice
o apprenticeships no longer positioned as learning by doing
SLIDE 14: LEVELS OF PARTICIPATION
o core group = small group, energise & nurture community
o active participants = recognised as participants, define community
o occasional participants = participate when topic is of special interest
o peripheral participants = sustained connection, less engagement
o transactional participants = outsiders interact with community
SLIDE 15: KEY FEATURES