Community of practice

The community of practice construct (COP) as formulated by Lave and Wenger (1991) has been influential in a wide range of social based SLA research: SLA and applied linguistic scholarship examining academic socialization (Duff 2002; Duff 2004; Duff 2010; Morita 2004), learner identity (Gao, Cheng and Kelly 2008; Kanno and Norton 2002; Norton-Pierce 1995; Norton and Toohey 2007; Norton and Toohey 2011), and scholars working from the sociocultural approach (Hall 1995; Leki 2006; Ohta 2000; Lantolf and Genung 2002) have drawn on the COP construct to explain learner agency and learning outcomes. In this thesis I will give a short explanation of the construct in order to better contextualize my focus group data in the next chapter.

While Vygotsky was primarily interested in macro-societal practices as made manifest in the behavior of dyads and small groups in explicitly educational contexts, Lave and Wenger‟s COP construct was formulated for the analysis of human behavior centered around local practices in contexts that may or may not be pedagogically oriented and in groups that are often larger than dyads and triads (Toohey 2000: 14). Lave and Wenger‟s work, in fact, represents one stream in a wave of scholarship from the fields of psychology, philosophy, education, and linguistics that have used different terminology (sociocultural, cultural historical, or situated cognition theory) but all seeking to “better reflect the fundamentally social nature of learning and cognition” (Kirshner & Whitson in Toohey 2000: 15). In this thesis, I contend that the COP construct offers insight into the manners in which learner engagement is socially constructed.

The underlying basis behind Lave and Wenger‟s (1991) COP is the idea that learning is most effective when occurring through participation in socially relevant practices as opposed to learning in artificial environments in which theory is abstracted from practice. Originally Lave and Wenger‟s work examined the role of apprenticeships in the learning of trades and represented a critique of formal educational contexts. Wenger (1998) argued that formal educational contexts tend to be abstract in nature and to artificially separate theory from the authentic social contexts in which targeted practices generally occur (in Holmes and

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Meyerhoff 1999: 174). Lave and Wenger (1991 in Holmes and Myerhoff 1999: 174) defined the COP as follows:

An aggregate of people who come together around mutual engagement in an endeavour. Ways of doing things, ways of talking, beliefs, values, power relations – in short, practices emerge in the course of this mutual endeavour. As a social construct, a COP is different from the traditional community, primarily because it is defined simultaneously by its membership and by the practice in which that membership engages.

One defining characteristic of the COP, and that which differentiates it from the traditional sociolinguistic construct of the speech community, is the emphasis placed on practice. Because knowledge is equated with proficiency in practices, the degree of membership within the COP is also related to proficiency: core, peripheral and marginal membership. Key to the COP construct is the idea that situated learning occurs only with legitimate peripheral participation because “learners need to be allowed to participate in a limited way in actual practice, with only a limited degree of responsibility, in order that the learning context is not unduly pressurized." (Holmes and Myerhoff 1999: 174) In this model, learning is mediated participation within situated activity and is equated with greater competency attained in practices: “learners inevitably participate in communities of practitioners and that the mastery of knowledge and skill requires newcomers to move toward full participation in the sociocultural practices of a community” (Lave and Wenger 1991: 29) Thus, as participants become more proficient within the COP, so too do their identities within their COP shift from peripheral to core members.

In summarizing the criteria for what constitutes a COP, Wenger (in Holmes and Meyerhoff 1999: 175) provides three fundamental dimensions:

1. Mutual engagement refers to the relationships that arise out of regular interaction within the COP. Social interaction is regular and may occur in dyads, small groups or large groups.

2. Joint enterprise refers to shared goals and processes, as well as to the awareness that each community member has with respect to his or her personal role and his and her responsibilities within the COP. Shared processes imply that members have mutual accountability in relation to their community roles as relatively more core or peripheral members.

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3. Shared repertoire refers to communal resources that are utilized for the negotiation of shared meaning within the COP. Communal resources, according to Wenger (1998: 130- 131), include sociolinguistic resources such as shared discourse that displays alignment in perspectives, inside jokes, shared stories, and knowing laughter, to name a few examples. Shared resources also refer to material and conceptual artifacts surrounding understanding of how practices are and should be carried out.

Wenger (in Holmes and Meyerhoff 1999: 176) goes further in characterizing more specific characteristics of COP:

- mutually defining identities

- specific styles that seen as indicative of membership

- the capacity to evaluate behaviors as they relate to shared norms of practice - rapid mobilization in addressing problems

- efficient sharing of information and subsequent innovation in shared processes

- awareness of the abilities of other participants and how such skills can be used to further advance practices

- eliminating the need for formalized introductory preambles

As social constellations centered around social practices, the COP is seen as dynamic in nature. Firstly, the practices and processes that constitute a shared enterprise continuously evolve as new knowledge is incorporated. Similar to sociocultural theory that holds that the interplay between cultural artifacts, human beings and the sociocultural environments are mutually transforming, so, too, in the COP, participants, their socio-historically formed perspectives and the shared practices they engage in, are mutually constitutive (Lave and Wenger 1991: 117), which is to say, ever undergoing change. Secondly, membership is also continuously dynamic. A COP, in theory, is self-selected, emerging out of social practices as opposed to being categorically imposed on individuals from the outside (Davies 2005: 557). To the extent that individuals come together around shared practices and resources and for a common enterprise, a COP emerges. The quality of interaction defines the COP more so than the quantity of interaction: namely, that interaction should meaningfully affect the nature of how processes are carried out in the advancement of shared endeavors. Finally, communities of practice interact with one another within larger constellations, which affects the spread of knowledge and innovation.

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3.1.1 The COP construct in linguistic studies

The strength of the COP framework as a tool of analysis within linguistic studies is that it encourages micro-analysis typical of ethnographic research: for example, discourse analysis of interactions that would be considered representative of the particular COP in its naturalistic settings is required in order to gain an understanding of how meaning is jointly negotiated (Toohey 2000: 15). Hence, the COP is aligned with social constructivist approaches that also emphasize micro-analysis.

Subsequent its popularization in the field of sociolinguistics, the COP model has been useful in examining a range of L2 learning contexts embedded within formalized academic settings such as language learning among immigrant women (Norton 2000), university discourse socialization (Morita 2004), socio-academic relations of university exchange students within their academic communities (Leki 2006), English language learning in primary school (Toohey 2000), and academic writing of non-native post graduate students (Flowerdew 2000).

3.1.2 Agency and identity in COP

The COP construct illustrates that positionality within the community of practice has significant impact on learning outcomes, as well as on participants‟ identity. Lave and Wenger (1991) link positionality to learning outcomes in observing that the “social structure of the community of practice, its power relations and its conditions for legitimacy define possibilities for learning (i.e. for legitimate peripheral participation).” The granting of legitimacy is thus fundamental, as Wenger (1998: 6) notes:

In order to be on an inbound trajectory, newcomers must be granted enough legitimacy to be treated as potential members.... Only with legitimacy can all their inevitable stumblings and violations become opportunities for learning rather than cause for dismissal, neglect, or exclusion.

SLA scholars utilizing the COP framework have contended that language learning entails “personal transformation with the evolution of social structures”; it is also “both a kind of action and a form of belonging” (Wenger 1998: 4). Legitimate peripheral participation entails that there are multiple ways of belonging to a COP other than just the dichotomy of peripheral or core, and that membership changes over time. However, transitions within

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communities of practice are not without conflict. For Lave and Wenger (1991: 42) legitimate peripheral participation can only exist where relations of power are at work, which inevitably involves struggle, negotiation, and transformation within the COP: “Hegemony over resources for learning and alienation from full participation are inherent in the shaping of the legitimacy and peripherality of participation in its historical realizations". Thus the access to community resources and the extent to which learner/participants are granted legitimate peripheral participation has far-reaching implications on learning outcomes. In summary, learners are both positioned and potentially position themselves through the acquisition of community resources, including salient discourses and literacy practices in a variety of academic settings. As Morita‟s (2004) study indicates, which I will discuss further in the section to come, often times learners are not granted equal amounts of legitimacy, which in turn offers insight into the manners in which learners utilize agency, as well as take up certain identity positions, in response to various forms of social exclusion or other constraints on access to community practices and resources.