Our identities must be viewed as temporal; a melding of our past and present as we move to engage with the future. Wenger tells us these identities are lived, negotiated, social, a learning process; that we create a nexus of identity that involves interplay of our global and local experiences, but ultimately are the experience of “being human.” The more we create multi-memberships in the constellation of communities of practice, we morph our identities; both in the way we identify and the way others identify us. Moving through the stages in life, grade school, high school, college, career, we develop different networks who view us differently, and with whom we may view ourselves differently. When those worlds collide (weddings, milestone birthdays, etc.), we can start to see how each community shapes how we are identified.
These identities are shaped through our membership in a CoP, however we must acknowledge that engagement and participation are not exclusively the same. Overlap may occur, but the learning and identity develop in the engagement in the practices of the CoP. Wenger gives us the example, “claims processors participate in Alinsu, but they do not engage with the company as a whole; they engage with their own community of practice and a few other people” (p. 131). Therefore, we surmise that engagement is specific to a CoP, whereas our participation can have broader contexts. We as students participate in Penn State but we do not engage with all members of the Penn State community, but those in our selected “stars” (i.e. classes, circles of friends, communities, work departments, etc.) inside the constellation of CoPs in the Penn State universe. Our CI597G class is an example of this. Learning is taking place, based on the engagement in our specific domain, that we are not sharing explicitly with those outside. Peripheral participation may occur with whom we have shared our experiences, but they are not truly part of the CoP.
“Every practice is in some sense a form of knowledge, and knowing is participating in that practice” (p. 141). Wenger leads us to believe that through the lens of participation in a community of practice, learning occurs and helps to form our identity. If we view the development of children when learning to think, as Radiolab posits in “Voice in Your Head,” we see that they are participating in the verbal “think alouds” with an adult. Through practice and further engagement with this community of thinkers, they become full members and learn critical thinking skills. Through this venture, they also develop an identity of internal voice. They form this temporal identity that takes the characteristics of members of their community as they learned these skills- parents, grandparents, siblings, teachers, etc.
Based on these early learning experiences, we can continue to label identity as temporal, and add to this the idea that we are constantly accumulating memberships—creating our nexus of multi-membership. Our identity becomes a puzzle, and our participation and engagement in each community the puzzle pieces. The puzzle is never fully complete—we grow and develop, join and leave communities, add to knowledge and learn new ways of doing old things. Regardless of how we currently identify ourselves, or how others identify us, the potential to change that identity exists and can follow multiple trajectories over time to shape us as we learn. Wenger tells us that our identities are “a layering of events of participation and reification by which our experiences and social interpretation inform each other” (p. 151).
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Brandon says
Reminds me of an old joke: The difference between participation and engagement is like a bacon and egg breakfast… the chicken participates, but the pig is engaged.
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Really, though, engagement to me means having skin in the game, having a horse in the race. If you participate in something, say, watching the Super Bowl, you could walk away at any time without really being bothered. Doesn’t really matter who’s playing. If you are engaged in watching the game, you aren’t going anywhere without a good reason. You probably care which team wins, even. That says something about who you are. Not everything, but something. It informs a picture of your identity.
Myself, I would be engaged with the chicken wings. Or bacon.
Isaac Jason Bretz says
What if we are shaped more by our genetics than our environment? People are born with their sexual orientation pre-determined. There is evidence that quite a lot of what we attribute to communities actually comes already installed when we are born. Perhaps, instead of forcing people to assume identities that do not fit their genetics, we should create different learning communities that fit the genetics of learners. Wouldn’t online courses be ideal for this?
Leah Bug says
I’m not sure I have much to add to this discussion, other than I thought this was a well written blog post. I appreciated the opening argument that identity is temporal. It was a great way to capture the way our identities change over time and space.
Adam says
This isn’t a reflection of your group’s post (which I liked) but I wanted to address the idea of constellations and chose your group because you developed it a little. I find it interesting Wenger chose the term “Constellation” for webs of communities of practice because stellar constellations are a matter of perspective. The stars in the Big Dipper are not located near each other as they appear to us and only take that shape when seen from earth’s perspective. If you looked at the same stars from the surface of Mars they wouldn’t be in the shape of a spoon (or pan, or bear). I wonder then if the same perception limitation apples to clusters of communities?
pul121 says
Wenger defines identify as a negotiated, social, changing and continuous process that we develop during our lives. As a result, a person may possess many identities in a given time. A person’s identifies are shaped by people, events and materials encountered. It makes me wonder the identify crises must happen in daily life all the time. One the one hand, the identity crisis motivate people to learn and grow during the process of understanding who they are; one the other hand, the identity crisis can discourage people to become the true self. Is engaging in the development of identities always a good thing? How to take control of it?
Priscilla Taylor says
One of the issues about MOOCs is the high dropout rate. One could propose that the reason for the high dropout rate is a student failing to see themselves as members of a community of practice within their course. I imagine mutual engagement would be difficult with 20,000 students in a class (although smaller CoP could emerge within a course). On the other hand, identity could be the driving force behind taking a MOOC or an online course. The target audience for MOOCs and online programs are students not typically served by typical models of higher education. As a result of their interactions and activities at traditional universities, they might not identify themselves as traditional students. Since identity is temporary, MOOCs and online programs allow them to participate in a new community and reshape their identity.
Michael Sean Banales says
The biochemist in me can’t help but wonder where the biology is in all of this. Without a doubt our environment shapes who we are, but a lot of details are genetically implanted as Isaac pointed out. It feels like there’s just some piece missing from Wenger’s work, especially with how I feel the identities of people within the CoP would shape the CoP itself. Not a critique on your post at all, it was great. I just wonder what consideration (if any) exists for the “nature” side of this argument.
Audrey Romano says
Great post! Echoing Isaac and Michael’s points, I too have wondered where the science is in most of what Wenger reasons. How our mind works in creating connections, meanings, and relationships is chemistry and biology. In the case of schizophrenics, their multiple identities are split between genetic and environmental/social factors. In this case your biology designates part of your identity, as well as your mind.
Koun says
I think Issac’s point genetics vs. environment is interesting. There certainly is some traits that you are more comfortable with and things that you are good at or can easily do when others are struggling. I do not have an answer to prove how to distinguish whether those traits or abilities are coming from genetics or shaped by environments, but it should be an interesting discussion.
Brandon says
Well if you want to talk about genetics and culture, the idea of epigenetic is a pretty interesting one to explore. It’s the idea that certain environmental factors can effect the expression of particular genes. An example of this is babies born in times of famine who seem to be better at accumulating calories, leading (oddly enough) to weight problems when they grow up.
That said, these things don’t happen at the time scale of Cs o’ P, so it may be interesting but irrelevant.