Communities of Practice and Legitimate Peripheral Participation: A Literature Review

Abstract

This article is a review of theoretical and empirical literature on Wenger’s community of practice (CoP) theory and Lave and Wenger’s legitimate peripheral participation. It is organized into four broad parts: (a) Characteristics of CoPs in Music Communities, Education, and Teacher Education; (b) Benefits and Challenges Faced by Members of CoPs; (c) Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation; and (d) Implications for Music Education. The theories posit that individuals within a CoP learn through social interaction, inform one’s identity development, and that participation and practice within a community change over time. Implications include (a) novice music educators may want to have access to multiple music mentors, (b) veteran music educators may want to be open to novice educators’ ideas and actively recruit new teachers who bring different experiences and perspectives into the field, and (c) music educators may want to allow all music educators into decision-making processes within their districts.

Preparing Software Engineering Apprentices for Industry

“…These included testing, code review, and bug fixing. Sometimes referred to a "legitimate peripheral participation", being able to undertake such tasks allows apprentices to engage in a community of practice around software engineering [2], making meaningful contributions whilst posing minimal risk to the business. An analogy for this participation is that of the ironing that an apprentice tailor might undertake: doing the ironing is not only of value to the business, but teaches the apprentice a useful foundational skill.…”

Using multilevel mentoring as a situated learning approach to enhance the professional development of teachers in higher education

“…First, because learning is assumed to be contextualized in a specific learning environment, mentees could find it difficult to adjust to a dissimilar learning context. Secondly, because situated learning mentoring approach emphasizes an apprenticeship mode of supporting the professional development of mentees, they do not grasp important concepts and theories that are relevant to the teaching profession (Zaffini, 2018). Again, although the situated learning mentoring model has been used in different contexts (Orland-Barak and Wang, 2021), there have been little emphasis on how it could enhance the promotion of academics to the professoriate.…”

“…Again, although the situated learning mentoring model has been used in different contexts (Orland-Barak and Wang, 2021), there have been little emphasis on how it could enhance the promotion of academics to the professoriate. Lastly, the challenges associated with the use of situated learning include unequal distribution of work among members, limited recognition from peers, tension between members and limited time (Zaffini, 2018).…”

Creating Study-Specific Tools to Increase Community and Student Engagement

“…To increase awareness, appreciation, and knowledge about apples and their ecosystem services within the community and especially among undergraduates. 1991;Williams, Hall, and O'Connell 2021;Zaffini 2017). These outcomes give rise to other benefits including increased engagement and retention in science (Lobel and Cardamone 2016;Vitone et al 2016).…”