Communities of Practice

Many of the ways we conceive of learning is based on the assumption that it is something that individuals do to acquire some form of knowledge. The significance of communities of practice is that it is based on a social view of learning, process of acculturation into a network of social relationships. In this view of learning, there is no distinction between learning and social participation (Wenger, 1998).

Trenton (2002) conveniently summarizes the assumptions taken by a communities of practice approach:

• Learning is fundamentally a social phenomenon.
• Knowledge is integrated in the life of communities that share values, beliefs, languages, and ways of doing things.
• The process of learning and the process of membership in a community of practice are inseparable.
• Knowledge is inseparable from practice.
• Empowerment — the ability to contribute to a community — creates the potential for learning.

Despite the common assumptions, the term, communities of practice, is used inconsistently. Wenger, who with Lave originally coined the term, defines a CoP as a special type of community where practice is a source of the coherence of a community:

a community of practice is not just a Web site, a database, or a collection of best practices. It is a group of people who interact, learn together, build relationships, and in the process develop a sense of belonging and mutual commitment. Having others who share your overall view of the domain and yet bring their individual perspectives on any given problem creates a social learning system that goes beyond the sum of its parts.

Wenger (1998) says a community of practice defines itself along three dimensions:

• What it is about?–It’s a joint enterprise, continuously negotiated by its members, which defines significance, shapes practices, and develops into community standards of practice. This process creates more than “just a stated goal, but creates among participants relations of mutual accountability that become an integral part of the practice” (Wenger, 1998, p. 78).
• How does it function?–Mutual engagement binds members together. By sharing ideas and stories as they work, have lunch, or socialize outside of work, they also share and enact knowledge. Mutual engagement describes relationships grounded in mutual interest, not just in information exchange, networking, or interaction.
• What capability has it produced?–Members develop a shared repertoire of communal resources (for example, routines, sensibilities, artefacts, vocabulary, styles) over time.

Since Wenger, other researchers have offered similar definitions communities of practice. For example:

Communities-of-practice are informal networks that support professional practitioners to develop a shared meaning and engage in knowledge building among the members.

Barab and Duffy (2000) suggest that CoPs have three main characteristics:

• a common cultural and historical heritage, including shared goals, negotiated meanings, and practices;
• individuals becoming a part of something larger; and
• the ability to reproduce as new members work alongside more competent others.

See also: cognitive apprenticeship; situated learning; anchored instruction

Reading List

• To read
• Recommended

• Barab, S.A. & Duffy, T.M. (1999). From Practice Fields to Communities
  of Practice. In D. Jonassen & S. Land (Eds.), Theoretical Foundation of Learning Environments.
• Brown, J. S., & Duguid, P. (1996). Organizational learning and communities-of-practice: Toward a unified view of working, learning, and innovation. In M. D. Cohen & L. S. Sproull (Eds.), Organizational learning (pp. 58-82).
• Hara, N., & Kling, R. (2002, November 18-21). Communities of practice with and without information technology. Paper presented at the American Society for Information Science and Technology.
• Hildreth, P. M., & Kimble, C. (2004). Knowledge networks: Innovation through communities of practice.
• Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation.
• Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning as a social system. The System Thinker, 9(5).
• Wenger, E., McDermott, R. A., & Snyder, W. (2002). Cultivating communities of practice.
• Wenger, E., & Snyder, W. M. (2000). Communities of practice: The organizational frontier. Harvard Business Review, 78(1), 139-145.