Communities of Practice

The concept of a Community of Practice (CoP) was first introduced by Lave and Wenger in 1991. They saw the acquisition of knowledge as a primarily social process. People would participate in communal learning at different levels depending on their authority and senority in the group. A newcomer would move from peripheral to full participation as they learned from others in the community (Legitimate Peripheral Participation LPP).









1. Lave, J and Wenger, E. Situated Learning - Legitimate Peripheral Participation, Cambridge University Press, 1991