Waldo, blind inquirers, and an elephant: Locating learning in social movements

ABSTRACT This special issue introduces a new focus for inquiry in the learning sciences. When research attention turns to learning that takes place within social movements, the scope and scale of inquiry expands dramatically. It becomes difficult to see learning, as we usually conceive it. The author’s commentary begins with two metaphors for difficulty in this new arena of research. A first metaphor is that of “Waldo,” a cartoon figure visually represented as located somewhere within crowds of persons that are similarly dressed. This illustrates the problem of scale in the study of social movements, in attempts to monitor activity that is widely dispersed in space and time. A second metaphor is that of blind inquirers attempting to study an elephant—each inquirer only gets a partial apprehension of the whole. This points to the multiplicity of opportunities to learn within social movements—raising awareness in social critique, acquiring skills in organizing, developing fluency in rhetorics of persuasion. Because movement-situated learning is so multidimensional it is difficult for a single study to account for the full range of learning opportunities that a movement affords. In its middle section the commentary surveys specific examples of limits and affordances in research on learning in social movements, by reviewing briefly the empirical studies reported in the journal articles and by recounting the author’s personal experience in the Civil Rights movement in Chicago in the 1960’s. The commentary concludes on a cautionary note, observing that many of the processes of social movement formation, and of learning opportunities that develop within such movements, are similar in movements that are regressive as well as in those that are progressive in aim.