Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity

Front Cover
Cambridge University Press, Sep 28, 1999 - Psychology
This book presents a theory of learning that starts with the assumption that engagement in social practice is the fundamental process by which we get to know what we know and by which we become who we are. The primary unit of analysis of this process is neither the individual nor social institutions, but the informal 'communities of practice' that people form as they pursue shared enterprises over time. To give a social account of learning, the theory explores in a systematic way the intersection of issues of community, social practice, meaning, and identity. The result is a broad framework for thinking about learning as a process of social participation. This ambitious but thoroughly accessible framework has relevance for the practitioner as well as the theoretician, presented with all the breadth, depth, and rigor necessary to address such a complex and yet profoundly human topic.
 

Contents

Meaning
51
Negotiation of meaning
52
Participation
55
Reification
57
The duality of meaning
62
Community
72
Mutual engagement
73
Joint enterprise
77
Engagement
174
Imagination
175
Alignment
178
Belonging and communities
181
The work of belonging
183
Identification and negotiability
188
Identification
191
Negotiability
197

Shared repertoire
82
Negotiating meaning in practice
84
Learning
86
The dual constitution of histories
87
Histories of learning
93
Generational discontinuities
99
Boundary
103
The duality of boundary relations
104
Practice as connection
113
The landscape of practice
118
Locality
122
Constellations of practices
126
The local and the global
131
Knowing in practice
134
Identity
143
A focus on identity
145
Some assumptions to avoid
146
Structure of Part II
147
Identity in practice
149
participation and reification
150
Community membership
152
Trajectories
153
Nexus of multimembership
158
Localglobal interplay
161
Participation and nonparticipation
164
Identities of nonparticipation
165
Sources of participation and nonparticipation
167
Institutional nonparticipation
169
Modes of belonging
173
The dual nature of identity
207
Social ecologies of identity
211
Learning communities
214
Epilogue Design
223
Design for learning
225
Design and practice
228
Structure of the Epilogue
229
Learning architectures
230
Dimensions
231
Components
236
A design framework
239
Organizations
241
Dimensions of organizational design
242
Organization learning and practice
249
Organizational engagement
250
Organizational imagination
257
Organizational alignment
260
Education
263
Dimensions of educational design
264
a learning architecture
270
Educational engagement
271
Educational imagination
272
Educational alignment
273
Educational resources
275
Notes
279
Bibliography
301
Index
309
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