Enculturating Enculturation: A Meta-Synthesis of the Learning
Sciences’ Discourse and Designs
Yotam Hod, University of Haifa, [email protected]
Ornit Sagy, University of Haifa, [email protected]@yahoo.com
Abstract: Enculturation is a central and defining concept of the learning sciences. However,
the concept may be under-theorized. In this study, we have reviewed and synthesized how
enculturation, both in researchers’ discourse and when designed for in practice, has been taken
up by learning scientists. Based on the findings of our meta-synthesis of relevant literature, we
propose three different types of enculturation discourses. We provide illustrative examples
from past learning sciences research and discuss several relevant phenomena. Such findings
can help the learning sciences reflect upon its own research.
Keywords: authentic-simulated; enculturation; learning sciences; meta-synthesis
Introduction
This study has been motivated by our personal experiences as emerging learning scientists. Despite the fact that
the term “enculturation” has been expressed widely as a foundational idea within learning sciences discourse
over the past 25 years (Lee, Ye, & Recker, 2012), we felt there was a great deal of ambiguity around
researchers’ intended meaning of the term. For example, is enculturation uni or bi-directional? Is the process in
societies-at-large the same as within a classroom? We have problematized these issues in table 1. In this study
we aimed to review the way that enculturation has been expressed within learning sciences research.
Table 1.:Comparison of typical settings that may impact the conceptualization of enculturation
Number of
people
Typical setting of…
Culture-at-large
Formal education
Very large membership, making the
Small membership, making the individual-toindividual-to-culture ratio high. For
culture ratio low. For example, the ratio of an
example, the ratio of an individual to
individual to a school can be 1:500; and to a
the American culture is approximately
classroom, 1:30.
1:300,000,000.
Continuity
Membership changes rotationally.
Members enter, often stay for a
lifetime, then leave.
School membership changes rotationally.
Members enter, often stay for several years,
then leave; Classroom membership begins and
ends together, for a greater part of a year.
Age
Often disregarded and is not limited by
age
Schools are broken into three sub-groups
(elementary, middle, high schools); Classrooms
are limited to age groups within one year.
Background
Enculturation is originally an anthropological term that was appropriated by learning scientists in the late 1980’s
when the “socio-cultural turn” took place (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989). However, even in anthropology,
there has been considerable conceptual ambiguity and disagreement about what exactly the enculturation
process entails (Shimahara, 1970). Given the modern socio-cultural context of the learning sciences, we take a
discursive perspective based on the view that communication and thinking are two variations of similar
phenomena (Sfard, 2008). As such, by investigating the way people talk about enculturation, we can reveal the
different meanings of the term. We asked the questions: How do learning scientists talk about enculturation in
their research? How are different views of enculturation expressed within research designs?
Methods
We performed a meta-synthesis of learning sciences discourse on enculturation based on the complete corpus of
JLS and iJCSCL. This included 39 articles and 144 instances of the term.
Preliminary findings
We have found three unique types of enculturation discourses of which the predominant one (and due to lack of
space the only one presented here) is “authentic-simulated-traditional discourse”. This discourse on
enculturation refers to the context of schooling. Researchers draw a distinction between authentic cultures and
those that are in school which attempt to duplicate them, what we call “simulated” versions. For example,
“Students must be enculturated into the ways of making sense that are characteristic of scientific communities”
(Rosebery, Warren, & Conant, 1992, p. 67). In addition, they distinguish between these and traditional
education, to which we refer as non-simulated.
In their designs, researchers discuss various “forces” that move the simulated closer to the authentic
culture. The figure below represents different approaches that learning scientists take to do this. These forces
include interactions with participants who are either the authentic practitioners or representatives of a culture.
Other forces include symbolic systems, artifacts and tools. An additional force is time, which differentiates the
relatively short-term duration of simulations in comparison to practitioners’ full-time career engagement.
Figure 1. Visual representation of authentic-simulated-traditional discourse
Discussion and conclusions
Our findings indicate that predominant enculturation discourse and design are based on three ways to talk about
learning culture: authentic, simulated, and traditional. Out of all the forces, participants and time appear to pose
the greatest challenges to overcome the unbridgeable gap between formal schooling and professional practice.
References
Brown, J. S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational
Researcher, 18(1), 32-42.
Lee, V. R., Ye, L., & Recker, M. (2012). What a long strange trip it’s been: A comparison of authors, abstracts,
and references in the 1991 and 2010 ICLS Proceedings. In J. van Aalst, K. Thompson, M. J. Jacobson
& P. Reimann (Eds.), The Future of Learning: Proceedings of the 10th International Conference of the
Learning Sciences (ICLS 2012) (Vol. 2, pp. 172-176). Sydney, NSW, Australia.
Rosebery, A. S., Warren, B., & Conant, F. R. (1992). Appropriating scientific discourse: Findings from
language minority classrooms. The Journal of the Learning Sciences, 2(1), 61-94.
Shimahara, N. (1970). Enculturation - A Reconsideration. Current Anthropology, 11(2), 143-154.
Sfard, A. (2008). Thinking as communication. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Acknowledgments
This research was supported by the I-CORE Program of the Planning and Budgeting Committee and The Israel
Science Foundation grant 1716/12.