Chapter 2: Educational Research As A Community Of Practice

This chapter examines the insights that arise when educational research is approached as a community of practice (CoP). After description and discussion of the CoP theories, a case study of an evaluation of a Canadian research program using the theory is presented. The chapter concludes with 9 concrete suggestions for ways to strengthen the educational research CoP.

Communities of practice are often used as a way to think about learning and teaching particular actions in specific contexts. An example is learning to be a teacher—there is a core of people who are considered to be effective teachers and as a learner, your practices evolve to resemble those of the core group as you learn how to teach. This is a very important and different way of looking at things from traditional learning models, as it takes emphasis away from knowing how to teach and places it firmly on doing teaching. This idea fits well with recent work in academic disciplines such as anthropology and sociology, where culture is being understood more often as a range of things you can do rather than a set of values (Turner, 2000). It is also very intuitive; fitting with the common sense view that knowledge is demonstrated through informed and effective action.