School enculturation discourse: a meta synthesis from research in the learning sciences
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/ILS-11-2021-0103 |
| Published date | 20 September 2022 |
| Date | 20 September 2022 |
| Pages | 621-641 |
| Subject Matter | Library & information science,Librarianship/library management,Library & information services |
| Author | Yotam Hod,Ornit Sagy |
School enculturation discourse: a
meta synthesis from research in
the learning sciences
Yotam Hod and Ornit Sagy
Department of Instructional and Learning Sciences, University of Haifa, Haifa,Israel
Abstract
Purpose –Enculturation is a central and defining idea within socioculturally minded research that informs the
design of school learning environments. Now, three decades since the idea has emerged in the field, the authors believe it
is time to reflecton it because of sever alam biguities that have emerged from its use, which is the purpose of this study
Design/methodology/approach –The authors carriedout a metasynthesis of learning scientists’school
enculturation discourse. This included reviewing the concept within 84 articles found in six leading and
relevantlearning sciences journals.
Findings –This study’sfindings show that school enculturationdiscourse is divided between those that
view it unidirectionally, bidirectionally or both, and that three reificationsof associated cultures (authentic,
designed and traditional)together with various conduits frame the way learning environments are designed
to facilitateenculturation.
Research limitations/implications –This metasynthesis can help advance sociocultural research in
schoolsby clarifyingthe meaning and conceptualizationof a central idea in the field.
Practical implications –This study can help teachers and educational researchers clarify the rolethat
culturehas in thedesigns of their learning environments.
Social implications –Culture is a vital facet of learning; designers of learning environments need to
understandthe way culture interplays with learning.
Originality/value –As this research shows, current school enculturation discourse is vague and often
appears to be applied inconsistently. It is vital for any field to reflect on its own discourse to sharpen the
conceptualtools that it uses so that it can advance.
Keywords Discourse, Enculturation, Learning sciences, Metasynthesis, Schools
Paper type Research paper
The aspects of the learning experience which mark offman from other creatures, and by means of
which, initially, and in later life, he achieves competence in his culture, may be called
enculturation (Herskovits, 1948, p. 39).
1. Introduction
The recognition that learning is inseparable from the social and cultural environment in
which it occurs has had a major impact on educational research and practice. This
sociocultural turn away from a purely cognitive viewpoint has been part and parcel of the
learning sciences’inception as a field in theearly 1990’s(
Hoadley, 2018;Nathan and Sawyer,
2014;Sawyer, 2014). The term enculturation has been used widely across learning sciences
discourse toencapsulate this very idea (Lee et al.,2012), having a broad rangeof implications
on the way learning environments have been designed (Nachtigall et al.,2022). Now, three
decades into the research and practiceof school enculturation [1], the time is ripe to give the
use and meaningof this idea a renewed examination, whichis the aim of this paper.
School
enculturation
discourse
621
Received25 November 2021
Revised14 June 2022
23August 2022
Accepted26 August 2022
Informationand Learning
Sciences
Vol.123 No. 9/10, 2022
pp. 621-641
© Emerald Publishing Limited
2398-5348
DOI 10.1108/ILS-11-2021-0103
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
https://www.emerald.com/insight/2398-5348.htm
This research was motivated by our personal experiences doing research on the way
authentic learning environments are designed (Hod and Sagy, 2019). As the goal of
authenticity is for students to pick up and appropriate the practices of an intended culture,
we understood that the idea of enculturationis central to this socioculturally minded form of
educational design.However, while grappling with its meaning, we recognizedthat the term
was used differently in the research that we read, as well is in the discourse of researchers
and colleagues whom we came into contact with.For example, faculty members within our
program, which is a member of the Network of Academic Programs in the Learning
Sciences, frequently usedthe term to either describe the way our students developed certain
disciplinary practices and norms throughout their studies or to describe the way our
learning community was developing. In learning sciences scholarship, these ambiguities
were rife as well, such as Waermö’s (2016a,2016b) view of enculturation as part of a
dynamic process that is “collectividually produced”(p. 95). Thus, it was not clear to us if
enculturation involved the changes of the individuals as they picked up the practices of
either the program’s or the broader learning sciences’culture, the development of a
community or possiblyboth.
Upon setting out to write this paper, we realized that our dilemma was a matter of
directionality (Figure 1). By directionality, we refer to the trajectory of change between an
individual and the culture that occurs during the enculturation process. We define a
unidirectional view of enculturation as that when individuals change in a way that reflects
what already exists (e.g. practices, norms and values) within the broader culture. A
bidirectional view adds the reverse to the unidirectional change, such that the individual
modifies the culture simultaneously.Our suspicion was that there is general agreement that
enculturation is a bidirectional process, but that there was disproportionate attentiongiven
to the unidirectional process, particularly because of the interest in fostering student
learning in schools.
Our suspicion about the use of the enculturation idea led us to recognize the important
need to examine its meanings. Given the growth of the learning sciences in recent decades,
we hoped this could be helpful for the field to reflect on and sharpenits own discourses and,
ultimately, practices. In this paper, we will report upon what we learned about school
enculturationfrom our research.
2. Enculturation discourse
To frame the issues surrounding school enculturation, we will start this section by
examining the roots of the more general notion of enculturation, with a particular focus on
the research that was going on directly before the inception of the learning sciences as a
Figure 1.
Is enculturation
unidirectionalor
bidirectional?
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