A hypothetical model of interactive career development in communities of practice: extracting the essence of practice from the danish "Efterskole"

Abstract

In recent years, the social environment surrounding us has been changing rapidly due to globalization and advancement in technology. In addition, Career Self-Reliance has become an increasingly important aspect in an individual's career development, especially in these unprecedented times due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Related to this Career Self-Reliance, the importance of the communities of practice (hereinafter, called "CoPs") has recently been gaining attention. CoPs are defined as "A group of people who have the interest or passion in something and who learn how to do it better by interacting regularly". However, previous studies have not yet elucidated the details of the process by which participation in a CoP promotes individual career development. In addition, most of the previous research have been based on samples of working individuals and in organizations so there has been little accumulation of studies targeting young people. Therefore, this research aims to answer the following two questions based on a case study of a CoP called "Efterskole" with a sample group of young people especially in Denmark: (1)To clarify the impact of participation in CoPs on career development in youths. (2)To clarify the process of having the above mentioned impacts and construct a hypothetical model of interactive career development in communities of practice for young people. We conducted interviews and observational surveys in three Efterskoles during 2016-2017 and analysed the interview data using "Steps for Coding and Theorization". As regards research question(1), there were three main impacts of participation in CoPs on young people's career development: (a) enhancing social skills, (b) acquisition of a sense of role fulfilment in a community and (c) obtaining opportunities for exploring new perspectives for career and further learning. In particular, (a) enhancing social skills was an effect not noted in previous studies targeting adults. As regards research question(2), a hypothetical model of the interaction process that brings about the three impacts was developed. In addition, it is revealed that the three impacts are brought about by single-loop learning and double-loop learning within the community.