Etienne Wenger

Basic education framework is the brainchild of Mahatma Gandhi who undertook the responsibility of restructuring the national conscience by advocating a system of free and compulsory education for all. However, in the post-independent India, the rhetoric of lack of public funds​ disrupted Mahatma Gandhi’s vision of equitable and just society ensured through compulsory education for all. The ‘lack of public funds’ continued to lead non-enforcement of the compulsory elementary education policy and immeasurably dictated the fate of various educational policies till the late 19th century. The end of 19th century in India saw a reposition in the educational sector from equality and social justice to market-based reforms in education. The present paper examines how market reforms in education led to the rise of exclusive English medium private schools which were seen as the pathway to elite status and better life chances, and thus, these schools became the centre of competition and striving for positional advantage. Also, it critically analyse the stance that is it really the paucity of funds or prioritisation of the government for commercialisation of education through global market reform that changed the history of elementary education. Further, how it dictates the present scenario with the emergence of Right to Education Act, 2009 in lieu of the education of socially excluded and economically marginalised children. The paper discursively seeks to analyse using anecdotes from an empirical study conducted in private unaided school, how the constitutional provisions of equity for all has transformed into reservation to poor and marginalised in private unaided school and how does it constitute such children self and identity, when there prevails class-consciousness among the rest of upper-middle and middle-class students in the same classroom.

Abstract                                                                                                                             
Esiste un legame tra scuola e comunità di pratica? La scuola italiana sta attraversando fasi di grande evoluzione e aggiustamenti, divenendo così fonte di importanti riflessioni non solo di tipo politico ma anche di taglio pedagogico e antropologico. Visioni queste, che vedono la scuola nazionale sempre più connotata in chiave organizzativa ma poco comunitaria. La tesi che si vuol approfondire partirà dunque, da una visione generale del sistema italiano dell’istruzione, per poi andare a indagare il costrutto wengeriano sulle comunità di pratica, come modello comunitario al quale la scuola può cercare di ispirarsi. Infine, si punteranno i riflettori su alcuni aspetti che potranno costituire i punti di forza per un’evoluzione secondo un approccio comunitario, facendo riferimento soprattutto agli insegnanti e agli studenti, affinché possa essere non solo una scuola di qualità ma anche centro e motore del sistema di apprendimento della persona.

English Abstract
Does it exist a relation between school and Communities of Practice? The  Italian school goes through development and adjustment phases, becoming in this way source of political, pedagogical, and anthropological considerations. These considerations focus on the definition of a school as an organization rather than a community. The thesis that we want to examine will start from a general vision of the Italian education system and it will end with an investigation on the Wengerian theory in the practical communities as a model the school might inspire to. Lastly, we will pay specific attention on the individuals that compose the educational environment as they become the roots for a future community. We will do so for a school as center and engine of the learning system and identity of the individual.

The concept of "communities of practice" is of relatively recent date. The concept gained momentum with Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger's book from 1991, Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Since then, the notion of ‘communities of practice’ has been a focus of attention, not least in debates about learning, teaching and education, but also in debates about organizational theory, knowledge management and work-life studies. The latter development accelerated with Wenger's later book Communities of Practice (Wenger, 1998), but also picked up fuel from neighboring texts by – amongst others - Paul Duguid & John Seely Brown (Brown & Duguid 1991) and Julian Orr (Orr, 1996). The concept of communities of practice offers a dynamic and non-individualistic framing of learning as a social and situated activity oriented towards participation in social practice. From this also springs a number of interesting observations about human agency, cooperation, organization and communities.

The normativity of practice remains one of the major research challenges in current debates on the practice turn, but also provides an excellent way to demonstrate the promise of international practice theory for a wider International Relations (IR) audience. Scholars of constructivist norm research, for instance, have begun to focus less on the effects of norms, and instead have turned their attention to processes, practices, and actions in international politics through which norms are negotiated, contested and embedded. This processual perspective aims to overcome simple explanations built on the agency-structure dichotomy, and resembles the research objectives of practice-oriented scholars. I argue, firstly, that a conversation between practice theorists and norm researchers is analytically fruitful thanks to their shared research concern with normativity; this includes the consideration of power and agency, a social understanding of learning and a relational notion of identity, and the contestation and multiplicity of normative orders. Secondly, I argue that practice approaches contribute to this conversation by providing innovative conceptual vocabulary and methodological tools. Thirdly, however, a difference remains between norm research and practice theory. For practice-oriented scholars (following Wittgenstein), it is ontologically not possible to distinguish practices from norms. This implies that theoretical primacy is reserved for practice, and analysis always starts with practice, not norms. I demonstrate the added value of such a practice-oriented perspective by presenting three different research examples in IR that study normativity from different angles: through power relations of structuring normative orders, ongoing learning processes through active participation in communities, and disputes on competing moral claims by political actors.

Denne afhandlings særlige problemstilling er at undersøge hvorledes hver- dagslivet er forbundet med brede samfundsmæssige perspektiver. Vi befinder os i det daglige arbejde på et reklamebureau, og undersøgelsen drejer sig om modsætningsfyldte dynamikker i bureauets hverdag. Vi skal se, hvorledes medarbejderne forsøger at balancere i en søgen efter på den ene side øget indtjening, effektivitet og produktivitet og på den anden side et godt arbejds- liv, meningsfuldt arbejde og gode arbejdsforhold. I undersøgelsen bestræber forfatteren sig på at bestemme de udbredte betingelser herfor.

Jacques Rancière has given us a strong ethical framework for the use of drama in education, but his model is incomplete. In Hong Kong, an examination-driven system often conflicts with teachers' idealistic ambitions. We suggest a way of expanding Rancière's model with reference to Étienne Wenger. We use this framework to examine a group of student teachers on practicum. Student teachers can use drama in the interstices by a process understandable on Wenger's terms, and successful on Rancière's terms. We use Wenger's terms 'alignment', 'engagement' and 'imagination' to characterise these student teachers' search for meaning in teaching. Jacques Rancière's vision of education has become an important point of orientation for many drama educators. As we shall see, this vision offers a clear ethical compass, but Rancière's lack of attention to institutional factors creates difficulties in using his ideas to understand what is going on in the classroom. Up to now, many discussions of Rancière's ideas have been geared to community theatre, where the practitioner may be more isolated from institutional considerations than is a classroom teacher. In this article, we will argue that Rancière's ideas are applicable to the situation of a teacher using drama for language education, even in such an exam-driven system as we find in Hong Kong. At the same time, classroom teachers, or student teachers such as those involved in this study, are subject to an education system and a curriculum leading to examinations. We shall see that while 1

Esta dissertação de mestrado busca investigar como os conceitos sobre comunidades de prática, em especial sobre o design para aprendizagem, podem contribuir na estruturação de suporte de facilidades a grupos de trabalho envolvidos diretamente com a implementação de políticas públicas educacionais, enfatiza como as “comunidades de prática” relacionam-se com as Novas Tecnologias de Informação e Comunicação em Educação. Inicialmente é apresentado um resumo sobre a Informática Educativa e sua trajetória no Brasil, focado no Programa Nacional de Informática Educativa – ProInfo. O marco teórico foca a abordagem sobre Comunidades de Prática. A partir dos conceitos sobre design para aprendizagem e tendo como base os eixos: alinhamento, engajamento e imaginação, foi estruturado um instrumento utilizando-se técnicas de mapas conceituais,
o qual serviu como referencial para observação de um grupo de trabalho, envolvido diretamente com a implementação do ProInfo em um Estado brasileiro, no período compreendido entre maio de 1999 e dezembro de 2000. Verificamos que alguns elementos dos eixos principais não possuíam dados que pudessem ser diretamente observados e que o grupo de trabalho não possuía suportes e facilidades que contribuíssem com a consolidação de uma comunidade de prática no interior de sua estrutura organizacional. A partir do quadro observado e de conceitos abordados na  revisão de literatura, são apresentadas algumas sugestões para que se estruturem apoios e facilidades que contribuam com a consolidação dessas comunidades, buscando ampliar a eficácia de suas ações para a implementação de políticas públicas educacionais.

The article discusses recent proposals for introducing practice theory to international relations theory. It is argued that practice theories present at least four crucial challenges to IR theory. First, the repetitive character of practice, and the degree of stability reached in social orders, second, materiality and the quest of material agency, third, a moderate reflexive understanding of scientific practice highlighting the social consequences of scientific reasoning, and, fourth, a reconsideration of the spectrum of methods in IR. The contribution provides an analytical summary of the turn to practice in IR, and an identification of the key challenges associated with it.

Kilp, Alar (2018). Erialane praktikakogukond. Poliitika uurimine, õpetamine ja õppimine: riigiteaduste 2017 aastakonverentsi ettekannete kogumik, 26. mai 2017, Tartu ülikool. Toim. Alar Kilp, Karl Lembit Laane, Helen Urmann. Tartu: Tartu Ülikooli Johan Skytte poliitikauuringute instituut, 5−8.

In this case study of this paper were mainly emphasizes on behaviour of reinforced cement concrete framed building having hollow (Box-type) and solid reinforcing concrete members, with shear wall along periphery, on sloping ground and progressive collapse behaviour using ETABS 2015 ultimate v 15.2.0. By using the hollow (Boxtype) reinforced concrete beams and columns will help in decrease in superstructure weight and so the seismic mass is minimized as compared to the conventional solid reinforced concrete beams and columns. The modelling is done as per the requirements for the hollow (Box-type) and solid reinforcing concrete members, with shear wall along periphery and on sloping ground, a response spectrum analysis is carried out for the structures and Progressive Collapse behaviour is carried out to study the behaviour of RC structure under gravity loading by linear static analysis, the storey shears, overturning moments, storey displacement etc. of analysis results are dropped in the cases of hollow members as compared with the solid members in reinforced cement concrete framed building.

In the closing lines of Alistair MacIntyre's After Virtue, he cryptically suggests that the moral revitalization of the post-Christian West requires the witness of another " doubtless very different " St. Benedict. 1 The figure of St. Benedict embodied for MacIntyre the ideal of local communities of virtue " within which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained through the dark ages which are already upon us. " Three decades on from MacIntyre's remark we are, perhaps, witnessing St. Benedict's return. This essay explores the possibility of that return among new monastics, most specifically as it is represented in the work of Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove. In what follows, I hope to show that the ecclesial renewal sought by new monastics necessitates not merely the formation of monastic-like communities who perform monastic-like practices, but the cultivation and maintenance of a distinctly theological imagination sufficient to fund the meaning of its forms of life. In other words, new monastic retrieval requires a community whose shared theological imagination makes its practices intelligible, sensible, and livable. The focus of the essay rests most heavily on the texture of new monastic retrieval, specifically its social dimensions. 2 Close attention to many new monastics suggests that they are involved not merely with the repristination of foregone practices or lost ideals. Instead, they seek to retrieve a social reality in which doctrines and practices are intimately wedded. Retrieval such as this is necessarily social in orientation, and, as I will argue in what follows, necessarily theological, though for reasons that might not be apparent at first. The essay proceeds in three parts. The first section is largely descriptive. I begin by tracing the outlines of the object of new monastic retrieval (the " monastic impulse ") to show it as a past that the new monastics believe we inhabit. I fill out this sketch in the second section by focusing on two books by Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove and bringing him into conversation with Charles Taylor. Taylor's idea of " social imaginary " offers a useful conceptual tool to better understand the interplay between imagination and practices. In the final part, I introduce Etienne Wenger's social theory of learning as an interpretive angle for considering my primary contention: new monastic retrieval requires the formation and

The book Church as a Community of Practice seeks to present a contribution to a contemporary ecclesiological research that will not be profiled as an abstract theologia aeterna, but will enter into a dialogue with the historicity of today`s man and Christian. It is necessary, thus, as the renewed ecclesiology built on the Second Vatican council`s documents unmistakably suggests, to enter into a dialogue with those fields of human knowledge that provide us relevant information about today's human being. To this challenge, the book Church as Community of Practice is the first comprehensive ecclesiological interpretation of the work of an American organization`s theorist, Etienne Wenger, whose thinking offers a strong potential for a further reflection about how to effectively build and develop ecclesial communities as places of an authentic human existence.

Arguments in science and technology studies have prompted us to rethink
the meaning of experimentation in the wider context of our everyday life,
though its dynamics have not been fully analyzed. This article argues that
the legacy of the sociocultural approach to learning, with special reference
to the Becker-Lave/Wenger dialogue, provides such a clue, and hence
proposes a framework—“experimental zone of learning”—for such purpose.
This zone is the outcome of the dynamic interface between constraints and
sociotechnical devices, and this framework enables analysis of the diversity
of such conditions, as well as their longitudinal changes through time.

The article discusses recent proposals for introducing practice theory to international relations theory. It is argued that practice theories present at least four crucial challenges to IR theory. First, the repetitive character of practice, and the degree of stability reached in social orders, second, materiality and the quest of material agency, third, a moderate reflexive understanding of scientific practice highlighting the social consequences of scientific reasoning, and, fourth, a reconsideration of the spectrum of methods in IR. The contribution provides an analytical summary of the turn to practice in IR, and an identification of the key challenges associated with it

This thesis aims to use figurines in an experiment in a multi-theory approach to deduce the meaning behind two unique cases at an Early Bronze Age Euphrates site. The figurines at Jerablus Tahtani portray a unique case where the intersection of same-sex, group constellations, violence, and death appears to be a focal point for the events. Using an experimental combination of an anthropological art theory and a sociological understanding, the characteristics and implications of the cases at Jerablus Tahtani are explored within a broader understanding of the regional and local practices.

Thesis can be shared upon personal request.