Bridging Two Worlds: Identity Transition in a University Consulting Community of Practice

Abstract

This chapter attempts to use the concept of communities of practice to describe the process of professional learning in a student-run consulting group. The central thesis put forward is that communities of practice within educational settings can act as intermediary zones between university and professional settings, providing students with opportunities to learn social and professional norms that would be difficult to acquire in traditional classroom settings. Drawing on theories of theories of ritual and identity in organizations (e.g. Trice and Beyer, 1993; Pratt, 2000), the chapter examines a studentrun consulting practice that draws on university support and professorial expertise, but whose managerial processes are centered around a self-selected group of students that is best described as a community of practice. It is argued that this student group, through various means of socialization and competency development, constructs a space in between institutionalized fields that eases the transition between educational and work settings.