She also presented the issue on "learning across contexts"
instead of learning as participating in community of practice.
However, this time, in this mail, I ffocus on the issue of
community of practice.
Comunity of practice: whose agenda? Who organizes and observes it?
I think that there is no objective criteria for defining community of practice.
It is impossible to define community of practice or boundary of
communities objectively.
However, community of pracitice is not myth, and, in some sense,
all people do make it mutually intelligible in everyday practice.
In other words, community of practice is not agenda of researchers
who observe people gathering and scattering in the park but that of
practioners.
(This discussion is, in some sense, similar to the issue on
the unit of analysis. For example, we can ask like "whoes
agenda?" for the defined unit of analysis. )
This is because, "community" is a kind of practioners'
doing, collaborative organizing activities rather than
lavels of some social group or some place.
In practice, people try to make community or boundary
of communities mutually intelligible with various resources
and actions. For example, talking about group, communities,
group specific categories, telling the code, all these things
are not just talking about communities but doing organizing
communities.
In other words, laveling some group such as "Hotrodder",
"Teenagers" (as Harvay Sacks shows), "jocks", "burouts"
and telling the code (as Wieder shows) can be regarded
as organizing "communities", or as organizing boundary
between communities rather than just laveling and telling.
So, in the analysis of communitis of practice, one should
look at people's method and resources people use for making
communities or bounday of communities mutually intelligible.
How people make community observable, accountable can be
regarded as part of practice that organizes a community or
boundary of communities.
Second, regarding the issue of communities of practice,
we should go back to Chicago School ethnograpphy such as
Howard Becker's "Outsiders".
The origin of Eckert and Willis's (that Eduord referred in
the mail a few weeks before) research on school is in
Chicago School ethnograpphy and 60's counter-culture
group research although Willis is a not Chicago school.
Eckert and Willis's research is, so to speak, school
ethnography version of "Outsiders".
Julian Orr ethnography of repair technicians and Wenger's
research on claim processor can be regarded as workplace
version.
And Harvey Sacks's ""Hotrodder" and Wieder's "telling the
code" can be regarded as ethnomethodology versions
of "outsiders".
All these research focus on mutually consitution of
communities such as jocks and burouts, management side
and workers' side, hotrodders and adults.
There is no jocks without burnout, and no workers' side
without management side. In some sense, it is possible
to say that Orr's repair techinicians' situated activities are
shaped by a standard, rule-oriented, repair manual and
by the way of participation of managent side.
In this way, comminities and boundary of communities are
mutually constituted. That is the true in the case of Identity
formation.
Identity of workers, hotrodders are shaped, again and again,
by organizing and constarsting communities and by making
boundary of communities.
It seems to me that it is possible to say the same thing
in the case of "object" of activity.
Object of activity does not emerge from vacuum. Rather,
for example, by contrasting the object of management side
in company, workers' object are organized. And, object and
communities reciprocally constitute each other. That issue
is related to the issue of "Bounday crossing" of Yrjo and
"learning across contexts" of Jean Lave.
In the case of Orr and Wenger's research, they also focus on
artifacts such as standard rule-oriented repair manual
or calculation manual as boundary objects (Star) that
make people mutually organize disconnectness of communities
as management side and workers' side.
In this way, Lave and Wenger's "situated learning" can be
regarded as revival of Chicago School ethnograpgy and
dialectic reinterpretation of mutual consitution of communities
rather than merely formulating learning as participating
in a community and formation of identity.
Anyway, it seems to me that it is impossible to find out
"communities" by observing people, in park and the place like
that, who are gathering and scattering.
Rather, the approach of situated learning, according to
my understanding, will focus on, for example, some conflict
and dialectic, mutual formation of communities with critical
artifacts that becomes and plays roles as bounday objects.
.
Further, according to situated approach, that formation
is organized and made mutually intelligible by participants
themselves with various resources and actions rather
than objectively defined by researchers or by whom wants
to climb up cognitive panopticon or "centres of calculation"
although organizing panopticon or centres of calculation
are also one of situated practice.
Naoki Ueno,
National Institute for Educational Research, Tokyo