Communities of Practice

Conceptual Overview

There are many writers, for example, in the studies of science and technology, who have identified the importance of social groupings for the learning of specific activities and for “getting the job done.” But it was an anthropologist, Jean Lave, with a researcher, Etienne Wenger, who started using COP in the way defined above. In 1991, they published an influential book that proposed—following studies in anthropology, psychology, and sociology with reference to the work of leading social scientists such as Vygotsky, Giddens, and Bourdieu—that learning is not only a cognitive activity, but is also a social, situated process realized in the participation in a given practice around which a community (of practitioners) emerges. This view of learning is called situated learning theory. It is by analyzing and discussing various ethnographic accounts of apprenticeship (Youcatec midwives, Vai and Gola tailors, Alcoholics Anonymous, naval quartermasters in the U.S. Navy, and apprentice butchers) that Lave and Wenger show how (1) learning occurs by participating actively in a certain practice, and (2) learners, or “apprentices,” become recognized by “masters” as competent exponents of that practice and thereby move closer to “mastership” or full membership. To characterize this process, they coin the phrase “legitimate peripheral participation” (LPP). The idea is that, contrary to the traditional schooling system based on the individual memorizing and processing of codified and abstract knowledge disjointed from the actual practice, learning occurs by, initially, being at the periphery of a practice and then gaining the legitimacy [Page 211]to participate in the practice itself—by becoming a recognized practitioner.

The example of the Vai and Gola tailors illustrates the idea of legitimacy and peripherality. Apprentices are understood to learn by observing the expert tailors and by handling complete formal garments—but only in order to attach buttons and hem cuffs. At this point, they are at the periphery of the practice, observing closely and feeling the level of detail and refinement of the garments. They then start sewing and cutting hats and informal garments for children before practicing first with the sewing and then the cutting of formal wear for adults, which is the garment that requires complete mastery of the practice of professional dress making for the Vai and Gola people.

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