My Learning and Identity Formation Through Social Groups

When I started studying Bracher’s Radical Pedagogy: Identity, Generativity, and Social Transformation (as listed on Chapters.ca), I was drawn to the ideas that he proposes related to self identity, how the need to be recognized motivates people, and how this allows people to learn in both positive and negative ways. As Bracher explains in great deal in chapter two (pg, 17-30), individuals’ actions are primarily motivated by the recognition and value others in their peer group and society place on those actions, which forms the individuals’ identity within those groups. This especially hit home for me, as I am lucky enough to have a group of friends that I have been close with since I was 11 years old. Although I knew that they played a very important role in my life, I never thought about them impacting my personal identity and how much their recognition has meant to my decisions over the years.

When I think back to when my friends and I were teenagers, we were always seeking validation from each other by  dressing a certain way that the others approved of, taking part in different activities or groups at school that were accepted as being “cool”, and so on. In terms of our scholarly learning, we all did very well in high school and, although I never thought of it this way before, the need to be recognized and accepted by our peers motivated us to keep up our grades so we’d continue to “fit in” with our peer group since that group formed so much of our identity. Huh.

Everyone wants to know, "Where do I fit in?"



Following high school, “the thing to do” was to go on to university and obtain a bachelor’s degree in something we were interested in. For one friend and I, that was a Bachelor of Commerce degree at Saint Mary’s University (SMU). Although I had considered going to Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN), my friend convinced me that Halifax was the place for us and a four-year program (as opposed to the five-year program at MUN) would be a better option. So we lived together during our Undergraduate years and she molded many of my experiences at SMU, including working for the Students’ Association for three years (she prompted me to apply for a job with her when I just didn’t feel like it), and what my course schedule looked like for my first two years (we planned our schedules so we could be in classes together). Although I was a young adult learner at the time, it was much easier to decide to skip a class here and there if I had a friend who wanted to skip it with me. But this dynamic also benefitted my learning, since she helped me study for exams in the courses I lacked skills in and I helped her through the assignments and material in the classes she wasn’t as proficient in. As we learned through reading Wenger’s Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity (as listed on Chapters.ca), we are all part of numerous communities of practice in our lives in which we learn from, add value to, and contribute to. This friend was a big part of my identity as a member of the Saint Mary’s University community of practice since we had many mutual friends, classmates, and co-workers. Without a doubt, my identity formation and learning during my Undergraduate degree would have been different if we hadn’t gone to university together.

Jump ahead to current day and I’m still very close with the group of friends I mentioned above, along with some great friends I’ve made along the way in Halifax. However, life continues to change for everyone and the majority of my girlfriends are now married, some with children. Talk about a shift in identity and being able to relate to each other!  As soon as my friends became engaged or pregnant, they started to become involved in new communities of practice and social groups based on their new life events. They learned many new things about the exciting life events they were experiencing, none of which I could relate to. Initially, when the wedding and baby boom started I felt somewhat overwhelmed just being on the outskirts, taking it all in. In hindsight, I can see how I was likely feeling beset, since the dynamics of the group were changing and I wasn’t sure where my place was anymore – My identity in a group I had been a part of for so long was threatened.  Now, however, I’ve become proficient in all-things weddings and babies, not because I have experienced those things myself, but because I have learned so much from being with my friends as they go through them. Much of the group conversation now trends towards house purchasing, wedding planning, pregnancy, and babies. So, as a learner in my major social groups, I’m becoming well informed (and prepared?) by my friends passing along what they consider culturally important information on how to improve these processes or tasks in the future. As we know from Tomasello (as listed on Chapters.ca), this is an important part of human cultural transmission. 

Here I am with the girls I grew up with on Canada Day in 2006. Since then, we've added four (soon-to-be five) husbands and two (soon-to-be six) children to our community of practice.

By reading about the impact social groups have on identity formation and internalizing it from my own life’s perspective, I have a much greater appreciation of where others may be coming from in a scholarly, social, or workplace setting. It’s helpful to know that everyone we encounter has many different factors that impact their identity and in turn influences their behavior, a very important factor being the social groups they are a part of.      

They Like Me, They Really Like Me... Because I Buy Local

We’ve all heard the reports about the difficult, deplorable working conditions that workers suffer through in low-paying jobs in China’s manufacturing plants. Yet we continue to buy goods that we know were manufactured in those plants and most of us turn a blind eye to the poor circumstances that workers in foreign countries endure so we can have the latest gadgets, clothing, or footwear at a low price. Then we’ll turn around and pay a premium for fresh produce or crafts from a local vendor at a market. Other than the health benefits of eating fresh produce, what causes us to want to support people in our local area as opposed those in other countries?

When discussing communities of practice in the last couple of classes, Dr. Plumb explained that boundary objects transmitted from one community of practice to another don’t hold any negotiated value for those on the receiving end. Although the object may hold much value for those who created or produced it initially, that meaning is lost once the object is transmitted to an outside community of practice. To further illustrate this notion, Dr. Plumb used the example of large Apple Inc manufacturing plants in China which produce iPhones and iPads. Although we understand that working conditions in manufacturing plants in China are sub-standard and dangerous, many of us wouldn’t think to research where our electronic gadgets are coming from. We’d go to a retailer here in Canada to buy, for example, an iPad not thinking of the value and meaning it holds for the people who manufactured it. We don’t share any meaning with those people in the object since it takes on a completely different meaning in our own life. Here’s an interesting video from ABC News Nightline that takes a look inside one of the manufacturing plants:

Interestingly enough, those Apple plants in China “are far better than those at garment factories or other facilities elsewhere in the country” despite “reports of worker suicides, a plant explosion and slave-like conditions” (read the article from reuters.com). However, since we are so far removed from the workers who build the products, they don’t hold much value for us. We don’t interact with the workers who produce our goods so we don’t have any associated meaning with the products they provide to companies that sell them to us. These boundary objects don’t hold any negotiated meaning and they come from people who belong to what we’d consider an out group so we tend to not place as much human value on workers we don’t know.

I thought this was interesting because, alternatively, when it comes to purchasing goods that we know are produced locally, there is a social movement underway where more and more people are buying local goods and produce whenever they can. In Halifax, there are different forms of “Buy Local” campaigns and markets that feature local producers. Wenger would explain that we want to support our local merchants because these people are more familiar to us and they are in our immediate community of practice due to living in the same region. We can relate to them and would consider them to be more of a member of our in group than those in other parts of the world.

The I Love Local Halifax group encourages Haligonians to shop and dine at local, independant businesses.

As Tomasello tells us in The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition (as listed on Chapters.ca), as humans we transmit meaning and cultural information with each other through shared meaning and goals. By reading Wenger’s in Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity (as listed on Chapters.ca), we learned that communities of practice provide people with a sense of belonging and acceptance by adding value to shared information together. In current Canadian society, it is accepted that making socially conscious buying choices by buying local goods and produce whenever possible is the best choice. Although there are groups and organizations that spread awareness on the working conditions in the countries that produce the majority of the textiles and electronics we use in North America, it is still socially acceptable for us to purchase these goods at the retailers that sell them. These purchasing habits are so normal in many communities of practice that they are reifications most people don’t think twice about.

However, if we take this a step further with Bracher’s Radical Pedagogy: Identity, Generativity, and Social Transformation (as listed on Chapters.ca) we could argue that people support sustainable and local buying habits not only for the health benefits and to support people they feel closer to in their communities of practice but also because “our identity requires recognition by others” (p. 7). Since buying local is the “in” thing to do, we can assume that individuals will be appreciated by their peers by following the trend and will gain greater acceptance and recognition from others in their immediate community of practice.

We all desire recognition from others.

I had never reflected on my buying habits in this way. I realize that the above points I made are all about being human and how we instinctually live our lives in today’s society within our communities of practice. And, unfortunately, I do believe that changing the working conditions in manufacturing plants other countries is beyond our control. Now more than ever, North America is relying more and more on consuming goods that were manufactured in China (for more on the topic, read “China Makes, The World Takes”).  However, I think it is important for us to be aware of the world around us outside of our immediate “city” of communities of practice so we can make informed choices and to help share the meaning and value of our buying power with those we interact with.