Shadowing Experiences and the Extension of Communities of Practice: A Case Study of Women Education Managers
研究了一个帮助女性教育管理者晋升的导师项目，发现参与者通过反思和网络互动解决认知失调，并实现双向非正式学习。
Recent developments in workplace learning have focused on relational and social network views of learning that introduce practitioners to the norms, values and assumptions of the workplace as well as the learning processes through which knowledge is acquired. This article reports on a qualitative study of a mentoring programme designed to assist women education managers gain promotion by broadening their networks and stimulating insights into the senior management positions for which they were being prepared. The findings are that members reflexively assess and reassess goals and values to demystify knowledge and resolved cognitive dissonance in these processes. Moreover, this article shows that women participants learn from the networks, and that the networks learn from the participant in a reciprocal and informal way. The article concludes that organizational learning programmes must focus on enabling such networks to flourish.