Studies of situated learning have focused on learning between different communities of practice (Wenger, 2000; Yanow, 2004; Oborn & Dawson, 2010) learning across different sites within the same COP has not been the focus. Furthermore, the literature on brokering and translation focuses on how members of the community translate or broker knowledge across boundaries of the community (Carlile, 2002; 2004; Nicolini, 2010b). However, it is important to consider how newcomers undergoing the transition as legitimate peripheral participants learn to navigate between different sites of practice within the same community and how this movement influences the process of transition.
Practices are situated; however, they do not exist in isolation. This has been noted by theorists who state that practices form nets, nexuses or bundles which make up the social fabric (Czarniawska, 2004; Nicolini, 2011; Hui, Schatzki & Shove, 2016). These nets, nexuses, and bundles are made up of sites of practice that share connections in terms of activities, materiality, beliefs which lead to harmonious or conflicting relationships between them and the participants who enact them (Schatzki, 2005). The notions of nets, nexuses, and bundles become relevant for my study because in looking at two different sites of practice, it allows one to trace the connections between sites. Tracing of connections becomes necessary because newcomers might have to undergo LPP through movement between sites of practice and connections help understand the influence of this movement on the participation of the newcomers. For example, what are the commonalities and differences between training institutions and the places of trade, and what influence do they have on newcomers’ learning? In the case of my research, the idea is to focus on the process of transition through movement between the training center to work practices on board and vice versa. Fuller and Unwin (2003: 408) state that ‘the main shortcoming in
Lave and Wenger’s account of learning is that it does not include a role for formal education institutions in the newcomer’s learning process.’
My research hopes to focus on the process of transition by including the formal training undergone by cadets. In doing so, it hopes to treat the training center at a different yet connected site of practice to see how the movement between sites influences the process of transition. In this case, the cadets are novices in the practices of the training center as well as novices in the practices on board. The idea, then, is to see how they engage through participation in different practices, which practices are translated, which are dropped and how they participate in this constellation of interconnected sites of practice (Gherardi & Nicolini, 2002; Mork, Aanestad, Hanseth & Grisot, 2008).
Studies of situated learning within organizational studies that focus on both traditional and modern apprenticeships focus on two types of apprenticeships. The first is the process of LPP within a single site (Gherardi & Nicolini, 2002; Marchand, 2008). For example, Gherardi and Nicolini focus on the learning safety practices at a construction site. Marchand (2008) concentrates on the embodied learning of trade in craft apprenticeships. While he looks at three sites, the minaret builders in Yemen, the mud masons in Mali, and the fine-woodwork trainees in London, each of these sites is treated as separate; he does not focus on the movement of the newcomers between these sites of practice.
Alternatively, studies focus on LPP through unidirectional movement from one site of practice to another. Handley et al. (2007) for example, focus on the situated learning of junior consultants as they engage in client consultant meetings. They state that the movement between different sites reveals that the process from partial to full participation is not smooth and they moved between multiple forms of participation, yet they do not explain how movement between the different sites of practice influences
the learning process. Additionally, Ribeiro (2012) also looks that the movement of novices between the training center and the nickel plant to demonstrate his analysis of types of participation. While he convincingly demonstrates the levels of participation – linguistic socialization, physical contiguity, and physical immersion, he does not show the tensions and conflicts that arise when newcomers move between different sites of practice and the influence of these tensions and conflicts on the newcomers’ learning. Hence, there is space for further exploration of movement between sites of practice and the influence of this movement on the process of transition. By focusing on LPP at a single site of practice or through unidirectional movement, these studies do not explore how newcomers navigate the contextual differences between sites.
Studies on vocational training, except Tanggaard (2007), imply a similar unidirectional view of situated learning between sites of practice. For example, Ronfeldt and Grossman (2008) reflect on the notion of possible selves when they look at becoming teachers, clergy, and clinical psychologists. However, they concentrate the movement from being students to working in the trade. Tanggaard (2007) focuses on boundary crossing between a vocational training school and trade to focus on the concepts of strangeness and legitimacy in situated learning. His study notes that within the Danish context, trainees move back and forth between the vocational training school and the trade (Tanggaard, 2007). The difference between his study and this one is the following - First, the duration of the iterative movement is different; each training period lasts between 5-10 weeks between work, leading to a difference in findings (Tanggaard, 2007). Furthermore, the focus of the study is more on boundary crossing than on the influence of the iterative movement on the process of transition.
My study moves away from a unidirectional view of situated learning by concentrating on the newcomers’ iterative movement between sites of practice. This movement between sites of practice has not received
sufficient attention in the previous literature on LPP, and there is room for exploring the influence of movement on the process of transition and through it the practical accomplishment of LPP. Exploring the iterative movement is important because concepts such as legitimacy, identity, participation and skillfulness are based, in previous literature, on LPP at a single contextually bound site. How participating in multiple contextually bound sites influences these concepts is less well understood.