Repeatedly stated throughout the literature is that Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger initially introduced the concept of ‘communities of practice’ in 1991 (Cairns, 2011; Hara and Schwen, 2006; Tummons, 2002; Tynjälä, 2008). Tynjälä (2008) explains, “by communities of practice Wenger refers to the informal communities that people form as they pursue joint enterprises at work and during their leisure time. Through participation in these communities people share their knowledge, negotiate meanings, form their identities, and develop their work practices (p. 136).” Described is a learning environment that references apprenticeship models or situated, on-the-job learning, where learning is constructed socially and informally, through participation and while working, as opposed to a system where learning occurs separate from practical engagements.
Hara and Schwen’s (2006) qualitative case study of a community of practice within an office of Public Defenders provides an example that shares numerous parallels to any government office of public servants. The Public Defender’s community of practice is formed through an underlying emotional bond created through working in a difficult and volatile work atmosphere. This high-intensity environment is socially defined by staff through a recognition that their work, although meaningful to society, is situated within a complex and undervalued profession with limited financial resources (p. 99), and a requirement to work with challenging clients who may not understand the role of Public Defenders, and consequently do not value their efforts (p. 100). Despite these challenges, staff maintain a shared interest in upholding the public perception of their office and work (p. 102), resulting in an active and supportive community of practice where learning occurs through informal conversation, constructive criticism after trials, sharing of daily updates and news, and social events outside of work. Although Hara and Schwen’s case study provides insight of how informal communities of practice can develop and function, the information presented does not offer potentialities for how an organically formed system could be harnessed to support more formal or explicit training in addition or complimentary to the implicit, tacit knowledge that transpires in the community.
Cairns (2011) recognizes that learning through communities of practice is often presented as part of a “dualism” between types of learning, “as either ‘informal’ or ‘work-related’ as opposed to more ‘formal’ and scholarly” (p. 7), where in this binary, informal learning is seen as less-than. “This dichotomy has been underpinned by what appears to be an assumption (albeit implicit at times) that learning activities more associated with the world of work were somehow inferior or of lesser standing than more formal, institutional learning” (p. 7). This dualism is often further divided with cognitive constructivism teamed on one side along with formal learning, and social constructivism on the other with informal learning. This fallacy can be avoided if we remember that cognitive and social constructivism work in tandem (Cobb, 2013); a dynamic, perpetually fluctuating, and unpredictable system of input, construction, synthesis, and output. As evidence that Wenger’s intention was not to divorce social learning in communities of practice from cognitive methods, Tummons (2022) describes Wenger’s process of “negotiation” that supports learning that exists within in a spectrum of cognitive and social practices, “it is through a process of negotiation (Wenger, 1998: 264) between both participation and reification that people are able to learn. If the trainee is provided with opportunities for participation that do not include reification, then learning is impaired – it becomes illegitimate because without reification, it cannot be authentic” (p. 55). Tummons explains that “to reify something means to turn something that is abstract into a physical or concrete thing” (p. 54), a process that is reflective of the cognitive and social constructivist dynamic.
Another, perhaps more accurate and agentic way to interpret the dynamic process of learning in the workplace is through the “Japanese concept of ba which means a shared space for emerging relationships. Ba can consist of physical, virtual, or mental spaces, or a combination of these, and it provides a forum for developing individual and collective knowledge” (Tynjälä, 2008, p. 142).” Nonaka et al. (2000), explain that within ba we are negotiating between explicit knowledge, "formal and systematic language and shared in the form of data, scientific formulae, specifications, manuals and such like,” and tacit knowledge, which is “deeply rooted in action, procedures, routines, commitment, ideals, values and emotions” (p. 7). They explain that although the concept of ba is similar to communities of practice, it rejects their static nature in favour of energy in flux:
The boundary of a community of practice is firmly set by the task, culture and history of the community. Consistency and continuity are important for a community of practice, as it needs an identity. In contrast, the boundary of ba is fluid and can be changed quickly as it is set by the participants. Instead of being constrained by history, ba has a ‘here and now’ quality. It is constantly moving; it is created, functions and disappears according to need (p. 15).
The concept of ba takes us away from binary, predictable ways of thinking about learning and helps us to understand learning as a connected, collaborative, pluralistic and complex process of shifting, evolving and emerging ideas – an entanglement that is created and experienced by its participants, rather than an enforced set of steps set for them to follow.
#constructivism #equilibration #cognitive #sociocultural #CoP #tacit #explicit #pluralism