“Communities of Practice” as an Analytical Construct: Implications for Theory and Practice

January 1st, 2009 | RESEARCH

The "community of practice" (CoP) has emerged as a potentially powerful unit of analysis linking the individual and the collective because it situates the role of learning, knowledge transfer, and participation among people as the central enterprise of collective action. The authors’ surface tensions and highlight unanswered questions regarding CoP theory, concluding that it relies on a largely normative and underoperationalized set of premises. Avenues for theory development and the empirical testing of assertions are provided.

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Team Members

Christopher Koliba, Author, University of Vermont
Rebecca Gajda, Author, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Citation

Identifier Type: ISSN
Identifier: 1532-4265
Identifier Type: DOI
Identifier: 10.1080/01900690802385192

Publication: International Journal of Public Administration
Volume: 32
Page(s): 97

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Tags

Audience: Educators | Teachers | Evaluators | General Public | Museum | ISE Professionals
Discipline: Education and learning science | General STEM | Social science and psychology
Resource Type: Peer-reviewed article | Research Products
Environment Type: Professional Development | Conferences | Networks | Professional Development and Workshops