as scientific and apolitical yet this cybernetics systems thinking encouraged both a
naturalization of the social sciences (a reduction to biological systems) and a
bio-mechanization that strongly supported a picture of biological roots and foundations
of consciousness likening the mind to a network and an information-processing system.
Schön’s work serves in part as a basis for a series of related developments in the
area of professional development and learning:“situated learning”,“communities
of practice”(Lave and Wenger 1991),“situated cognition”(Greeno 1998),“ex-
periential learning”(Kolb and Fry 1975), and“communities of inquiry”(Lipman
2003). Most of these concepts and movementsflow out of a combination of
Deweyan pragmatism and Piagetian psychology. Wenger (2006) uses the concept
of“communities of practice”to refer to“groups of people who share a concern or a
passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regu-
larly”. It is basically an anthropological notion that emerged from the study of
apprenticeships. Wenger’s (1998) influential notion is based on a social theory of
learning that rests on four premises: we are social beings; knowledge is a matter of
competences with respect to valued enterprises; knowing is a matter of participating
in the pursuit of these enterprises; and meaning is learning to produce.
Key Characteristics of a Community of Practice
- Sustained mutual relationships—harmonious or conflictual
- Shared ways of engaging in doing things together
- The rapidflow of information and propagation of innovation
- Absence of introductory preambles, as if conversations and interactions were
merely the continuation of an ongoing process - Very quick setup of a problem to be discussed Substantial overlap in partici-
pants descriptions of who belongs - Knowing what others know, what they can do, and how they can contribute to
an enterprise - Mutually defining identities
- The ability to assess the appropriateness of actions and products
- Specific tools, representations, and other artefacts
- Local lore, shared stories, inside jokes, knowing laughter
- Jargon and shortcuts to communication as well as the ease of producing new ones
- Certain styles recognized as displaying membership A shared discourse
reflecting a certain perspective on the world - Source: compiled from Wenger (1998, pp. 125–126).
The CoP approach is one among a number of practice-based approaches to
learning and knowledge generation. Gherardi (2006, p. 38), in her recent review of
such approaches, identifies three types of relations established between practices
and knowledge. Thefirst of these is a relation of containment, with knowledge as a
process that takes place within situated practices. The second is a relation of mutual
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