Learning to learn

3.3.6 A ‘health warning’ about groups

It can be great to belong to a group, especially if you are a highly respected ‘core? member. Other people can look up to you and ask you to share your expertise. The process of moving from being a peripheral member to being a core member can also be very satisfying. However, groups are sometimes defined as much by whom they exclude. Groups may not just have ‘insiders?; they have ‘outsiders? who are not seen as part of the group. Often this may not matter much. No one can be a member of every single group. However, being a member of some groups means that there is access to privileges that are denied to outsiders, who may be viewed as inferior or undesirable.

American author bell hooks (she prefers her name to be given without capital letters) describes the effect of coming from a class and having an ethnicity that can lead to exclusion:

It was assumed that any student coming from a poor or working class background would willingly surrender all values and habits of being associated with this background. Those of us from diverse ethnic/racial backgrounds learned that no aspect of our … culture could be voiced …

I see many students from ‘undesirable? class backgrounds become unable to complete their studies because [of] the contradictions between the behaviour necessary to ‘make it? … and those that allowed them to be comfortable at home with their families and friends …

So far in this section, you have looked at some learning theories from psychology and at communities of practice. The next section introduces a third set of ideas.

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