Communities of Practice

Communities of Practice presents a theory of learning that starts with this assumption: engagement in social practice is the fundamental process by which we learn and so become who we are. The primary unit of analysis is neither the individual nor the social institutions but rather the informal "communities of practice" that people form as they pursue shared enterprises over time. In order to give a social account of learning, the theory explores in a systematic way the intersection of issues of community, social practice, meaning, and identity. The result is a broad conceptual framework for thinking about learning as a process of social participation. This ambitious but thoroughly accessible framework has relevance for the practitioner as well as the theoretician, and is presented with all the breadth, depth, and rigor necessary to address such a complex and yet profoundly human topic.

• Prologue: Contexts
• Introduction: A social theory of learning
• A conceptual perspective: theory and practice
• Intellectual context
• Structure of the book
  
• Vignette I: Welcome to claims processing!
• Vignette II: The "C, F, and J" thing
• Coda 0: Understanding
  
• Part I: Practice
• Intro I: The concept of practice
• Claims processors: a community of practice
• Social practice
• Structure of Part I
  
• Chapter 1: Meaning
• Negotiation of meaning
• Participation
• Reification
• The duality of meaning
• Chapter 2: Community
• Mutual engagement
• Joint enterprise
• Shared repertoire
• Negotiating meaning in practice
  
• Chapter 3: Learning
• The dual constitution of histories
• Histories of learning
• Generational discontinuites
  
• Chapter 4: Boundary
• The duality of boundary relations
• Practice as connection
• The landscape of practice
  
• Chapter 5: Locality
• The locality of practice
• Constellations of practices
• The local and the global
  
• Coda I: Knowing in practice
  
• Part II: Identity
• Intro II: A focus on identity
• The individual and the collective
• Some assumptions to avoid
• Structure of Part II
  
• Chapter 6: Identity in practice
• Negotiated experience: participation and reification
• Community membership
• Trajectories
• Nexus of multimembership
• Local-global interplay
  
• Chapter 7: Participation and non-participation
• Identities of non-participation
• Sources of participation and non-participation
• Institutional non-participation
• Chapter 8: Modes of belonging
• Engagement
• Imagination
• Alignment
• Belonging and communities
• The work of belonging
  
• Chapter 9: Identification and negotiability
• Identification
• Negotiability
• The dual nature of identity
• Social ecologies of identity
• Coda II: Learning communities
  
• Epilogue: Design
• Synosis: Design for learning
• A perspective for learning
• Design and practice
  
• Structure of the Epilogue
  
• Chapter 10: Learning architectures
• Dimensions
• Components
• A design framework
  
• Chapter 11: Organizations
• Diemnsions of organizational design
• Organization, learning, and practice
• Organizational engagement
• Organizational imagination
• Organizational alignment
  
• Chapter 12: Education
• Dimensions of educational design
• Education and identity: a learning architecture
• Educational engagement
• Educational imagination
• Educational alignment
• Educational resources
  

A concept everybody should know about.

The book contains a lot of extremely relevant information and examples. Unfortunately, Wenger is not the most fun writer around, and this in combination with a very boring layout of the book, makes you avoid it.

Still, it is a classical and very important book. Read it, even if it causes you pain, it will be worth it.