A knowledge-building community for public sector professionals

Abstract

The understanding of expert knowledge as shared, distributed and contextualised has gained ground. The empirical case description in this article focuses on developing expert knowledge in a situation in which both knowledge needs and the definition of expertise fields changed radically in public sector within a social crisis. The article examines an educational process against the idea of a knowledge-building community as defined by Bereiter & Scardamalia (1993). The aim is to highlight the pattern and flow of a progressive discourse. Alongside the idea of a knowledge-building community, Boland & Tenkasi’s (1995) notion of perspective taking and perspective making is utilised. The article discusses the factors that contributed to the success of discussion in the setting in which the target group was characterised by the transcending of organisational boundaries and expertise fields.