Learning Communities – a New Paradigm for Education

Education is by its nature a normative enterprise and therefore guided by certain aspirations, cultural and ethical beliefs. It is no wonder that the educational systems of different countries reflect the local ideas of nation, the established ways of perceiving knowledge, ways of production, as well as religious and other normative ideas. In western countries educational thinking has been generally linked to the scientific worldview that is based on Cartesian and Newtonian inquiries. In this approach understanding is sought by taking first things apart – after that is done, the whole is constructed again. This kind of thinking has its emphasis on things like analytical thinking, determinism, and reductionism, but it cannot cope with phenomena such as complexity, purpose, intention, uncertainty and ambiguity, to name a few. The arts are, however, often mentioned to possess capacities and methodologies to deal with these latter issues. Is this really true is a question well worth to be investigated. The theory of learning communities (Wenger, 2004) offers us plausible framework, from which the premises for the role of arts in education can be outlined. However, at the same time the theory reveals also the limitations of the current structures and predominant ideas within the field. Combining the theory of situated cognition with analyzes of the on-going change in modern society, the new paradigm can be both grounded and justified that means also changes in educational designs.