Paper presented at the Wits Teaching and Learning Symposium 4 th September 2006. University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg Doctoral students as ‘legitimate peripheral participants’ in the academic community of practice. Judy Backhouse School of Education Division of Education Leadership and Policy Studies Introduction Traditional doctoral programs can be characterized as an ‘academic apprenticeship’ where the student learns the specifics of conducting research in a particular discipline, the teaching and administrative skills required to work in an academic institution and the social norms of participating in the communities of the institution and the discipline. In the sense of Lave and Wenger, this can be characterized as situated learning where the student becomes a ‘legitimate peripheral participant’ in the academic and disciplinary community of practice. However for doctoral students who are not seeking access to the academic community, the model offers a less optimal experience of peripheral participation. For students coming to doctoral studies later in life, those seeking careers outside of academia, and those in applied disciplines, the traditional doctoral program offers a less situated learning experience and may in fact remove and alienate them from their own communities of practice. This paper explores the applicability of this model of situated learning for doctoral programs. It examines examples from the literature of different doctoral programs and the extent to which they can be characterized as situated learning. It proposes ways in which doctoral programs can be changed to improve the learning experience of students. Situated learning and communities of practice Traditional doctoral programs have been characterized as an ‘academic apprenticeship’ where the student learns the specifics of conducting research in a particular discipline, the teaching and administrative skills required to work in an academic institution and the social norms of participating in the communities of the institution and the discipline. Lave and Wenger (1991) examined a number of different apprenticeship situations to arrive at the notion of situated learning within a community of practice. Wenger identifies a community of practice as “a kind of community created over time by the sustained pursuit of a shared enterprise” (Wenger 1998:45). He goes on to characterize such a community as one in which the members are mutually engaged in a joint enterprise and make use of a shared repertoire of ways of doing things (ibid.:49). While there are other definitions, they share the elements of people