The purpose of this paper is to investigate Korean newspapers (Chosun ilbo & Donga ilbo) articles on
the underachievers from Community of Practice (CoP) perspectives. According to CoP (Wenger, 1998),
learning is referred as participation in contexts. Learning is not a matter of individual activity, but it needs
to be recognized as a social practice which is negotiation of meaning, the interaction between experience
and competence. This paper discuss on the newspaper accounts of underachievers in the following
domains: firstly, learning as social participation, secondly, three dimensions of Cop (mutual engagement,
joint enterprise, and shared repertoire, thirdly practice and identity, fourthly, participation and modes of
belonging, finally organizational design. 152 articles between 2003 and 2012, selected from the Chosun
ilbo and Donga ilbo on underachievers, presented prevailing trends that learning is a matter of individual
activity. Interaction often plays an important role in negotiation of meaning with participating in joint
enterprise, but the social participation is rarely commented or implied in the newspaper articles on
underachievers. While learning theory of CoP highly values participation, practice, meaning negotiation, the
newspaper articles have concentrated on individuality, such as input and output self-directed learning
produced. More research topics discussed in this paper need to be explored to minimize the gap between
learning theory and practice, or between real-life agenda reported in media and research topics carried out
in academia.