Brooks, J orcid.org/0000-0001-8564-0274, Grugulis, I orcid.org/0000-0001-7101-4299 and Cook, H orcid.org/0000-0002-5580-7501 (2020) Rethinking Situated Learning: Participation and Communities of Practice in the UK Fire and Rescue Service. Work, Employment and Society, 34 (6). pp. 1045-1061. ISSN 0950-0170
Abstract
Legitimate peripheral participation is the bedrock of situated learning. It involves the novice or newcomer acquiring skills through work in a community of practice (CoP). It is generally assumed that CoP learning involves novices moving in a centripetal manner from periphery to core, gaining skills and knowledge from established workers before becoming full members of the community. This article draws on qualitative research in Northern Fire, one of the UK’s largest fire and rescue services, to challenge the idea that novices’ learning progression is linear and sequential, highlighting their fundamental importance in CoPs. It argues that learning is radial, with established workers learning from novices, just as novices learn from established workers. The novices contributed to group dynamics passively, simply by being there; and actively, through their own skills and theoretical knowledge. When funding cuts and austerity curtailed recruitment, the absence of novice firefighters hindered CoP learning.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2020. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage). |
Keywords: | Communities of practice, emergency services, ethnography, expert, fire and rescue services, knowledge transfer, learning, legitimate peripheral participation, narrative and stories, novice, participation, qualitative research |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Business (Leeds) > Work and Employment Relation Division (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 29 Jan 2020 10:29 |
Last Modified: | 26 Jul 2022 08:49 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SAGE Publications |
Identification Number: | 10.1177/0950017020913225 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:156151 |