LEARNING (AND RESEARCHING) AS PARTICIPATION IN COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE

In my contribution to this panel I will bring elements from recent research I conducted (Santos, 2004) in Cape Verde aiming to clarify the meaning of learning as participation in social practices – “learning as participation in the social world” (Lave and Wenger, 1991, p. 42). But as my main interest is learning in compulsory education (in Portugal until 9 th grade) I looked for an empirical field that allowed me to describe the practice developed by one group of young people involved in activities that are not seen(by the youngsters and by the social world around them as a suitable profession for adults. The object of study was the participation of youngsters in an activity that they approached as something that allows them to fulfill immediate needs and not seen as a way of getting ‘a job’. In this sense, the activity was not connected to any sense of ‘becoming’ a certain kind of person. I identified a group of youngsters in Praia (the capital of Cape Verde) within a practice – selling newspapers in the street. The boys involved in this practice are called ardinas. For me – a mathematics teacher looking for a deeper understanding of the learning of mathematics in compulsory education – the mathematics-in-use was the ‘natural’ entry point to make sense of the practice and to identify the learning emerging from ardinas’ participation.