Epistomology is “ones way of knowing” and all of the authors this week seem to address it. Christopher Dunbar Jr. explores the influence shared life experiences have on research (Denzin, Lincoln, Smith, 2008). Bautista, M., Bertrand, M., Morrell, E., Scorza, D. & Matthews, C. (2013) also explores how youth participatory action research (YPAR) compares to traditional methods of research. Denzin, N., Lincoln, Y. & Tuhiwai Smith, L. (2008) provide commentary on methods of research. In Wenger description of the community of practice she also addresses epistemology with the goal of finding ways in which people can work together to affect change. This is a great place to being my inquiry as my focus will be to join my school in a partnership (or a community of practice) with the community’s businesses to increase student achievement. As a researcher I am making an investment of myself and my time, to be in the know with the community and to identify what it means to belong to that community. Therefore, it is important that before I begin, I have a purpose. Likewise, before reading someone else’s research I want to know their purpose. “Knowing, learning, and sharing knowledge are not abstract things we do for their own sake. They are part of belonging.”(Wenger, 2000, p.227) When I do research I am coming to know the people I interview and the situations they deal with. As a teacher at my school, I am also a part of the school community but still I do not claim to belong to the community which is made up of the students, parents and local business owners. I think my role may be described more accurately as a “broker” (Wenger, 2000, p.235) between communities. As an insider, in the context of my school community, I feel the community will value this partnership more because it is starting from grassroots. Liou, Antrop-González, and Cooper’s finding “confirms the values of a grassroots approach to improving schools through learning from key resources in students’ communities” (2009, p.535). Many of the research methods discussed from the above authors are a grassroots approach. YPAR and community of practice are different ways of knowing. I think about what epistemology we practice most. There must be several ways of knowing that we practice in an average day, just as there are several communities of practice. I am curious about the role media plays in our way of knowing. Media has such a powerful influence over people and what they know. I imagine a group of students at home in front of their online, first person shooter, video game. As they’re playing they’re wired in with headsets that allow them to communicate vocally. “Communities of practice are the basic building blocks of a social learning system because they are the social ‘containers’ of the competences that make up such a system.”(Wenger, 2000, p.229) A competence is defined by three criteria. One “understand the enterprise well enough to be able to contribute to it”, two; “engage with the community and be trusted as a partner in these interactions” and three; “produce a shared repertoire of communal resources – language, routines, sensibilities, artifacts”, etc. (Wenger, 2000, p.230) Now imagine the student playing the game. It seems that he meets the criteria, he contributes in game role play i.e. shooting the enemy, he doesn’t shoot his own players and has learned the maps, names of the enemies and tools of the game. Our surrender to what the media teaches is a connection I worry about because we are not able to direct the media.
Bautista, M., Bertrand, M., Morrell, E., Scorza, D. & Matthews, C. (2013). Participatory Action Research and City Youth: Methodological Insights From the Council of Youth Research. Teachers College Record, 115(100303), 123.
Denzin, N., Lincoln, Y. & Tuhiwai Smith, L. (2008). Handbook of Critical and Indigenous Methodologies. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.
Liou, D., AntropGonzález, R. & Cooper, R. (2009). Unveiling the Promise of Community Cultural Wealth to Sustaining Latina/o Students’ CollegeGoing Information Networks. Educational Studies, (45), 534555.
Wenger, E. (2000). Communities of practice and social learning systems. Organization, 7(2), 225246.