Community Of Practice Theory

The theory behind a community of practice was first introduced by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger (1991). Firstly described within their novel Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (1992), yet their theory was not noticeably defined until Penelope Eckert (2006) gave this theory the title community of practice. Eckert defines a community of practice as “a collection of people who engage in an ongoing basis in some common endeavor” (Eckert, 2006) which is exactly what we see within the University of Colorado Boulder Spirit program. In Etienne Wenger’s later years he revisits this ideal, now known as a community of practice, and gives specific criteria social groups must meet to be considered a community of practice. Wenger (2007)
They build relationships that enable them to learn from each other” (2007). Which is seen through practices of both teams, collaborating to achieve new stunts, forming ever lasting relationships by the level of trust which must be placed in all members to perform the necessary movements to execute each stunt safely. Lastly Wenger believes the practice of “Members of a community of practice are practitioners. They develop a shared repertoire of resources: experiences, stories, tools, ways of addressing recurring problems—in short a shared practice. This takes time and sustained interaction” (2007). We see this within cheerleading at the collegiate level due to the necessities of prior knowledge of the sport, and the high competitive nature reached as a division one program at CU. Having background knowledge of the three categories of cheerleading; stunting, tumbling, and cheer, are detrimental to the development of the teams. Each member of both teams bring previous knowledge and experience to the program allowing collaboration in order to achieve
Within Moore’s ethnography the sociolinguistics of the Skateboarding culture was examined to better define the themes, and how (if possible) it would be helpful in communicating effectively with younger generations. Moore collected data through analysis of the social behaviors, style, and lexicon, observed within the Chapter 13, X Games. By repeated viewings of the film it was established that the demographic characteristics had little to none diversity within the professional level. “Of the 30 participants, 10% were female and 90% were male. 73% were observed to be of Caucasian ethnicity, while 16% were observed to be of Hispanic origins and 1% of African American ethnicity.” (2009) Moore concluded that theme was extremely energetic, and the participants were very driven; yet was unable to determine given her data pull if this community of practice would be helpful in identifying with younger generations. Moore states that even known this is a competitive atmosphere the participant’s facial expressions showed passion and determination to win, while still caring for the wellbeing of their competitors. Once at the end of Moores ethnography the thought of biases and legitimacy comes into question. She quotes Neuman, W.L. “Bias is inherent in qualitative research” (Neuman, 2003) and reveals that prior