Daniel Hooper, Kanda University of International Studies
Hooper, D. (2020). A pilot case study of a student learning community. Relay Journal, 3(1), 140-145. https://doi.org/10.37237/relay/030111
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Abstract
This short article summarizes a pilot study for an ongoing longitudinal case study into a student-managed language learning community within a university self-access center in Japan. Utilizing a communities of practice conceptual framework (Lave & Wenger, 1991; Wenger, 1998; Wenger-Trayner & Wenger-Trayner, 2015), this study is investigating the dynamics of the learning community and its place within a larger institutional and sociocultural setting. In addition, a key focus of this research is the process of community leadership socialization and succession that takes place over a two-year period. In this summary, the research aims, theoretical foundations, methodological approach, preliminary findings, and future directions of the study are all provided. Through detailed analysis of community dynamics, institutional support, and the leadership succession process, it is hoped that this research will provide insights that can help inform learning community support and guidance within self-access contexts.
Keywords: communities of practice, self-access, sociocultural theory, leadership succession
This is a summary of a recently completed pilot study for a larger two-year longitudinal case study of a student learning community (SLC) within a university self-access learning center (SALC). The learning community that this study centers on represents an interesting example of a student-managed learning community in which learners meet outside of regular classes in order to collaboratively develop their spoken English ability. As this community clearly exemplifies autonomous language learning, investigation into the practices of the community as a whole and its individual members could provide useful insights for self-access administrators and facilitators regarding the potential affordances and challenges that learning communities present.
Very little research to date has focused on learning communities within SALCs (Balçıkanlı, 2018; Kanai & Imamura, 2019; Murray & Fujishima, 2016; Watkins, forthcoming) and there has been increasing interest in self-access within higher education in Japan (Mynard, 2019). Consequently, detailed examination of the dynamics and history of a SLC could assist SALC administrators and staff in developing effective strategies to support and promote sustainable SLCs while ensuring the communities’ autonomy is not encroached upon. Arguably, within higher education contexts, one pivotal issue related to the sustainability of SLCs is leadership succession. Due to the fact that most members have a four-year “shelf life” as they will eventually graduate from the institution, the survival or dissolution of SLCs is hinged upon whether or not new generations of leaders are created to continue the stewardship of the communities. For this reason, this study specifically focuses on how active members of the community are socialized into core leadership roles and how they negotiate the transition.
Communities of Practice
The theoretical framework for this project is based on Lave and Wenger’s (1991) and Wenger’s (1998) work on communities of practice (CoPs). Wenger-Trayner and Wenger-Trayner (2015) describe CoPs as “groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly” (p. 1). The theory underpinning CoPs has evolved considerably over the last three decades (Cox, 2005; Kimble, 2006), but one of the more persistent claims is that CoPs are defined by the presence of three key elements: the domain, community, and practice. The domain refers to the shared purpose or common goal of the members, the community is the interaction of members as they share knowledge and help each other, and practice relates to the resources, knowledge, and strategies that the group develops and maintains (Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002; Wenger-Trayner & Wenger-Trayner, 2015). A more prevalent focus in more recent CoP research (Wenger-Trayner, Fenton O’Creevy, Hutchinson, Kubiak, & Wenger-Trayner, 2014) is the role of community boundaries and the brokering practices that help to both negotiate tensions and facilitate learning between different CoPs.
Despite the theory behind CoPs being highly-cited and applied to a vast range of fields of inquiry (Farnsworth, Kleanthous, & Wenger-Trayner, 2016), the theory is not without its critics. Some of the most enduring criticism of the theory is based on insufficient consideration for the influence of larger issues of power on CoPs as well as a lack of focus on the individuals in CoPs and the unique histories and perspectives they bring with them (Billet, 2007; Hodkinson & Hodkinson, 2004). This project hopes to build on the existing CoP research while attempting to address some of these criticisms from the literature.
Methods and Participants
In the pilot for this study, purposeful sampling was conducted via a questionnaire distributed to 13 members of the SLC. From that number, six members who consented to participate in the full study were selected based on the duration of their participation in the community (two community leaders, four regular community members). In addition to these community participants, two semi-structured interviews were conducted with the learning community coordinator in the SALC where the study was based due to their detailed knowledge of the community’s historical development and their key role as an intermediary between the institution and the community. The study to date featured four distinct data sources – questionnaire data, language learning histories, semi-structured interviews, and community artifacts. In addition to informing participant sampling, the initial questionnaire data also provided information on learners’ perceived purpose of membership of the community.
The selected six participants then carried out oral language learner histories (in English and/or Japanese) where they described their language learning experiences to date, as well as their future learning goals. The rationale behind including this data was that it provided detailed description of the unique and complex histories and beliefs that members bring into the community, which ultimately contribute to shaping it. Some critical voices have claimed that in some CoP-focused research, participants are often portrayed not as individuals, but simply as members of a broad group such as “insurance processors” or “language learners” (Billett, 2007; Hodkinson & Hodkinson, 2004). By analyzing participants’ language learning histories along with detailed interviews about their current experiences in the CoP, it is hoped that this study will be able to provide a richer description of the bidirectional way in which community influences individual and vice versa.
Two interview protocols (for core members and active members, respectively) for the semi-structured interviews were grounded in the domain, community, and practice elements of the CoP framework. The interviews were then transcribed and later analyzed through open-coding and typological analysis (Hatch, 2002) to identify any emergent themes from the data. Upon analysis of the language learning histories and interview data, validity checks were conducted by member-checking sessions with each participant. These sessions were also recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using open thematic coding and typological analysis based on the CoP framework.
Summary of Data
Although preliminary, this study has revealed the dynamic and multifaceted nature of this learning community and its members. In terms of domain, the primary purpose for attending the community appears to be to develop spoken English ability by discussing everyday topics. However, this stated purpose is also colored by a variety of other roles emerging from the community’s history such as it being a place to socialize with other internationally-oriented students and an accessible venue standing in contrast to a more intimidating English-only conversation area in the SALC.
In terms of community, this group of learners was found to have a distinct core group of three organizers who each had clearly defined roles related to how the community ran on a weekly basis and how they supported regular members. Several of the active members marked these organizers as potential role models both linguistically and in terms of their personalities. This core group, in turn, was being influenced to varying degrees by the advice and instruction of the previous leader who had utilized a strongly autonomy-supportive style of leadership. What superficially seemed like a fairly linear hierarchical relationship was made more complex by the beliefs of the previous and current community leaders, as well as the learning community coordinator. These individuals often problematized the hierarchical senpai-kohai (senior-junior) dynamic traditionally prevalent in Japanese institutions (Haghirian, 2010) as they felt, to varying degrees, that it impeded opportunities for free expression and learning.
The community’s practice was manifested in a number of different forms. One of the more notable examples of tools/practices deployed over the history of the CoP in order to address its enduring challenges and concerns was the language policy. Early in the community’s history, to maintain the community’s accessibility, key CoP members decided that members should be given opportunities to draw on their L1 to scaffold their conversation in English. Many of the current members stated that being given time to plan out their utterances collaboratively in Japanese helped them to contribute more actively to English discussion and also led to a lower-pressure learning environment. At the same time these members also emphasized that L1 use should be principled and expressed concern about it bleeding into time reserved for English use.
Future Directions
Although the results from this pilot study have revealed a number of interesting avenues of inquiry related to this autonomous language learning SLC, there are a number of adjustments that I feel need to be made as I move into my full study. The first addition is that I am planning to incorporate participant observation as part of my methodology. As this study has progressed, I have become increasingly aware of the complexity of the community’s practice and the diverse affordances and tensions that underpin it. Partially influenced by a previous research project investigating a social learning space that I was involved in (Mynard et al., in press), I came to understand the importance of viewing first-hand the behaviors exhibited by participants within a learning space—essentially viewing practice from the sidelines. I will also be able to view this practice through the community’s Line group (an “artifact” created by the community in a social communication app) that I was invited to join recently by the community leaders. Finally, in order to further monitor members’ perspectives on the “health” of the community, once per semester I will also be utilizing an adapted version of the Classroom Community Scale (Rovai, 2002), an established instrument for measuring perceptions of connectedness, sense of community, and learning. It is hoped that these additional data sources will allow me to triangulate my interview data and language learning histories as well as provide a deeper understanding of the SLC’s domain, community, and practice.
A further addition that I believe will be valuable in helping me to understand the situatedness of the community within the SALC and the institution at large is a greater focus on the perspectives of the SALC management towards the learning communities. I believe that the Learning Communities Coordinator and the community members all represent an entity within the larger institutional communities of practice of the SALC and the university as a whole. How these key organizational players manage conflicting interests and beliefs within the institution is key to the viability and continuation of SLCs in self-access settings and therefore deserves an increased focus within my study.
Notes on the contributor
Daniel Hooper has taught in Japan since 2006 and is currently a lecturer in the English Language Institute at Kanda University of International Studies. His research interests include English instruction in eikaiwa, teacher and learner identity, and learning communities.
References
Balçıkanlı, C. (2018). The ‘English Café’. In G. Murray & T. Lamb (Eds.), Space, place and autonomy in language learning (pp. 61-75). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
Billett, S. (2007). Including the missing subject: Placing the personal within the community. In J. Hughes, N. Jewson, & L. Unwin (Eds.), Communities of practice: Critical perspectives (pp. 55-67). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
Cox, A. (2005). What are communities of practice? A critical review of four seminal works. Journal of Information Science, 31, 527-540.
Farnsworth V., Kleanthous, I., & Wenger-Trayner, E. (2016). Communities of practice as a social theory of learning: A conversation with Etienne Wenger. British Journal of Educational Studies, 64(2), 139-160.
Haghirian, P. (2010). Understanding Japanese management practices. New York, NY: Business Expert Press.
Hatch, J. A. (2002). Doing qualitative research in education settings. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Hodkinson, P., & Hodkinson, H. (2004). A constructive critique of communities of practice: Moving beyond Lave and Wenger. OVAL Research Working Paper, 4(2), 1-15.
Kanai, H., & Imamura, Y. (2019). Why do students keep joining Study Buddies? A case study of a learner-led learning community in the SALC. independence, 35, 31-34.
Kimble, C. (2006). Communities of practice: Never knowingly undersold. In E. Tomodaki & P. Scott (Eds.), Innovative approaches for learning and knowledge sharing (pp. 218-234). EC-TEL 2006 Workshops Proceedings.
Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Murray, G., & Fujishima, N. (2016). Social spaces for language learning: Stories from the L-café. London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Mynard, J. (2019). Perspectives on self-access in Japan: Are we simply catching up with the rest of the world? Mélanges Crapel: Revue en didactique des langues et sociolinguistique, 40(1), 14-27.
Mynard, J., Burke, M., Hooper, D., Kushida, B., Lyon, P., Sampson, R., & Taw, P. (in press). Dynamics of a social language learning community: Beliefs, membership and identity. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.
Rovai, A. P. (2002). Development of an instrument to measure classroom community. Internet and Higher Education, 5, 197-211.
Watkins, S. (forthcoming). Creating social language learning opportunities outside the classroom: A narrative analysis of learners’ experiences in interest-based learning communities. In J. Mynard & S. Shelton-Strong (Eds.), Autonomy support beyond the language learning classroom: A self-determination theory perspective.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Wenger, E., McDermott, R., & Snyder, W. M. (2002). Cultivating communities of practice: A guide to managing knowledge. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.
Wenger-Trayner, E., Fenton O’Creevy, M., Hutchinson, S., Kubiak, C., & Wenger-Trayner, B. (2014). Learning in landscapes of practice: Boundaries, identity and knowledgability in practice-based learning. London, UK: Routledge.
Wenger-Trayner, E., & Wenger-Trayner, B. (2015). Communities of practice: A brief introduction [PDF file]. Retrieved from http://wenger-trayner.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/07-Brief-introduction-to-communities-of-practice.pdf
Interesting read Dan!
“in some CoP-focused research, participants are often portrayed not as individuals, but simply as members of a broad group such as “insurance processors” or “language learners” (Billett, 2007; Hodkinson & Hodkinson, 2004).”
I speculate that it may be the case that in many research ventures participants individuality is disregarded in favour of lumping and labelling into groups.
“an accessible venue standing in contrast to a more intimidating English-only conversation area in the SALC.”
I think ‘accessibility’ is a key word here, as it’s natural to find somewhere we feel welcoming and comfortable as humans. Also I guess perceptions of perceived communities from the outside and inside can be very different.
I also wonder if your participants interaction on their LINE group have changed in the knowledge that you are monitoring/making sense of/analysing those interactions…
A very interesting project.
An inquiry that focuses on the sustainability of social learning communities in institutional settings – and, more specifically, leadership succession ¬– holds great promise. I, for one, am very excited about the potential of this study to make a valuable contribution to our understanding of the dynamics of social learning spaces.
Your rationale is strong; however, I wonder if you might be able to cite some articles to support your claim that “within higher education contexts, one pivotal issue related to the sustainability of SLCs is leadership succession” (I seem to remember seeing appropriate articles in SiSAL Journal, for example; or perhaps Fujimoto, 2016).
As I read your report, several questions came to mind. I have listed them below. These questions are largely rhetorical; in other words, I see them as questions other readers might have as well, and/or possible things for you to consider as you plan, implement and report on your main study.
• I wonder what criteria you used to determine which of the participants were community leaders and which were regular community members? And, if you use “regular” in the sense of “ordinary” or to refer to the frequency of their participation?
• In the first paragraph of the summary of data section, you refer (metaphorically?) to the community as a place and “an accessible venue” compared to the English conversation area of the SALC. I’m wondering if the community under study is associated with a fixed, physical space and, if so, where exactly this space is located? I think it’s important for a report on a study of a social learning community to describe the physical space in which the community gathers and/or the landscape over which it moves. I also wonder if you might not need to delve into the literature on theories of space and place.
• I don’t know what the parameters were for this article were (word limitations, etc.); however, the more I read, the more I felt the need for information about the community. Who were the members in general (not necessarily a lot of detail)? English majors? 1st year students? Where did they meet? How often did they meet? Or, for that matter, what evidence is there that a community existed? This is a case study, but there doesn’t seem to be a description of the case.
• I also think there needs to be some description of the SALC in general and the management structure in relation to the community under study. In the final paragraph you refer to a “Learning Communities Coordinator.” Who is this individual? A member of the community or a member of the SALC management? If the latter, this would suggest these communities are managed and possibly even administratively generated. Again, readers need more description of the context.
• I am also wondering what the duration of your pilot study was. Also, how many times did you interview community members?
• You say you developed “two interview protocols (for core members and active members, respectively)”. I’m a bit puzzled by this. Does this mean you had two sets of interview questions/prompts, one for each group? Why? Was there overlap? My questions here harken back to the issue of identifying and distinguishing core members from active members. How did you know which was which before you carried out the study?
• In your main study, you propose to include participant observation. I’m wondering who will carry out the observation? How do you propose to minimize the impact of the presence of an observer?
• You say that you have decided to add participant observation to data collection methods due to your increasing awareness of “the complexity of the community’s practice”. I wonder if this means that you should investigate the community from a complexity perspective? From a complex dynamic systems perspective, the focus of your study might be framed as how these communities (or systems) self-organize to ensure their continuity. Capra and Luisi (2014: 318) maintain that “the aliveness of an organization [i.e. a social system or in this case a learning community] – its flexibility, creative potential, and learning capability ¬– resides in its informal communities of practice”. Therefore, in my view, it makes sense to examine a learning community that you see as community of practice from a complexity perspective.
• I am also wondering what you learned from the pilot study that will help you refine your line of inquiry in the main study. For example, what did you learn from the pilot study that might help you formulate precise research questions for the main study?
Again, as I said at the outset, these are some of the questions that came to my mind as I read your report. I hope find my comments helpful. I believe the main study has the potential to make a valuable contribution to our understanding of learning communities that can develop in social learning spaces. I look forward to reading the publications it inspires.
Possible reading:
On the issue of boundaries and CoP:
Gee, J.P. (2005). Semiotic social spaces and affinity spaces: From The Age of Mythology to today’s schools. In D. Barton & K. Tusting (Eds.), Beyond communities of practice: Language, power and social context (pp. 214-232). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Murray, G., Fujishima, N., & Uzuka. M. (2018). Social learning spaces and ‘the invisible fence’. In G. Murray & T. Lamb (Eds.), Space, place and autonomy in language learning. London: Routledge.
On sustainability:
Fujimoto, M. (2016). Management of L-café. In G. Murray & N. Fujishima (Eds.), Social spaces for language learning: Stories from the L-café (pp. 31–39). London, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
On a complexity perspective:
Capra, F., & Luisi, P.L. (2014). The systems view of life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Chapter 14)
Hiver, P., & Al-Hoorie, A.H. (2020). Research methods for complexity theory in applied linguistics. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.
Larsen-Freeman, D. & Cameron, L. 2008. Complex systems and applied linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Dear Garold,
Thank you very much for your extremely helpful comments on my project. I was very, very keen to get your perspective on my study as a lot of your work has already influenced the way I view this topic a great deal.
Thanks to your comments, I now realize that terminology is something I’m going to have to be more careful about in this project. I know that Wenger has also been plagued by issues of terminology and semantics relating to his theories and the criticism that they have attracted. It’s something that I should learn to be more sensitive to, even at this early stage. In the case of the learning community I am examining, there are three clearly defined ‘organizers’ or ‘facilitators’ who manage the logistics and, to a certain extent, the domain of the community. Therefore, I now realize that ‘core members’ is not the best category for them as their status is not purely based on participation, but rather a more demarcated administrative role. As a result, the different interview protocols I used between ‘organizers’ and regular (in terms of frequency of attendance) members were based upon this distinction. In the ‘organizer’ interviews, in addition to the general questions exploring domain, community, and practice, I focused more on their transition into their ‘organizer’ role, their beliefs about leadership, and how their learning histories had shaped those beliefs.
As you observed, the physical setting of a community can be a crucial factor. From the data I have already collected, this certainly seems to be the case for a number of reasons. Several participants commented on the positive impact of the “foreign style” of the SALC on their willingness to communicate in English, the affordances of certain areas of the SALC over others in terms of ease of interpersonal communication, promotion of the community, and general visibility/presence of their group. In future interviews, I hope to hear more from participants about this topic.
As you quite rightly surmised, I was limited in terms of word limits for this paper and wasn’t able to go into nearly as much depth as I would have liked to into the specifics of the community and its members. When I come to write up the final study, I will be spending a great deal of time describing the community and the members I spoke to. This is actually an extremely important part of the study due to the criticisms often directed at the CoP or community studies literature due to the lack of focus on individuals, their unique motivations, perspectives, and the exercise of their individual agency (Amit, 2002; Billett, 2007; Morita, 2004). This is my rationale for including language learning histories as part of my methodology. I am also interested in my participants multimembership over time across a range of different communities (across the landscape of practice [LoP] of Japanese ELT) that contributed to the construction of “knowledgeability” (Wenger-Trayner et al., 2014) and their beliefs about language learning. These beliefs impact their investment in the community’s domain and practices, the type of knowledge they regard as ‘legitimate’, and their identity as legitimate English users. Wenger has been criticized repeatedly as neglecting power in his theory (Hodkinson & Hodkinson, 2004; Hughes et al., 2007) and I feel that he has addressed this more recently as he describes CoP as a ‘plug and play’ theory. This means that other theories that address issues that CoP does not adequately address, such as power, can be ‘plugged in’ to fill in the gaps (assuming they are coherent in terms of focus, stance, and language) (Farnsworth et al., 2016; Wenger-Trayner, 2013). One example of this that Wenger cites that I feel is relevant to my study is the integration of Bourdieu’s habitus or, more specifically, a perspective taken by Mutch (2006) and Handley et al. (2006) who argue for a middle ground between Bourdieu’s ‘fatalism’ and Wenger’s ‘compartmentalism’ in terms of the interplay between structure and agency within a CoP. From my pilot data, this appears to be something worth exploring as there were many cases where the community members’ pre-formed dispositions towards language learning (and in the organizers’ case, leadership and autonomy) were being simultaneously challenged and sustained in varying ways through community participation. Some examples that emerged were attitudes towards ‘native speakers’, senpai/kouhai relationships, beliefs about language policy, and performative Japanese/foreign teaching roles (eigo/eikaiwa).
The other point you mentioned about the role of the SALC and its management structure vis-à-vis the Learning Communities is also set to be a fundamental pillar of my study. The Learning Communities Coordinator is a Learning Advisor and the person who originally created the Learning Communities program within the SALC. She continues to have an active role in supporting the communities and acting as a community ‘champion’ (Saldana, 2017; Vincent et al., 2018) who helps the communities navigate logistical and administrative hurdles. Her role is interesting in that (according to my analysis so far) her experiences as a learner and advisor have shaped her autonomy-supportive approach to managing the communities while also ensuring that their practice is in line with the mission of the SALC. When looking at some of the CoP literature (Brown & Duguid, 1991; Cox, 2005) that has a kind of ‘counter culture’ sense to it where CoPs’ non-canonical practice contradicts top-down institutional guidelines, her relationship with the Learning Communities really interests me. As the SALC aims to “develop lifelong language learner autonomy,” in what ways might the Learning Community CoPs’ practice become non-canonical? Maybe by exhibiting autonomy-killing behaviors? How much autonomy should the communities have to behave in this way? I’m really just thinking out loud here, but this pilot study has continued to raise this kind of interesting question. Mynard et al. (in press) offer some insight on this issue as they state that “giving learners freedom to act does not mean that they are left to their own devices” and that greater attention to promoting intersubjectivity within learning environments may be valuable in fostering more collaborative self-regulation in learners. In the case of my study, a non-prescriptive approach from the Learning Communities Coordinator based on her experience as an advisor helped community organizers reflect on potentially autonomy-restrictive practices (hierarchical structuring such as strict senpai/kouhai relations or the forming of cliques that could intimidate other learners) while maintaining the authenticity of their ownership of the CoP.
Unfortunately, the university and the SALC being forced to go online due to the current COVID-19 pandemic has meant that it is likely I will have to abandon my plans for participant observation of the learning community. Carrying out observation on Zoom (and especially in breakout rooms) will probably be far too obtrusive and I do not feel that it is worth jeopardizing the atmosphere in the community any more than it already will be in this tough situation. I will continue to collect online interview data over the course of the semester/year and see how things unfold.
Regarding your suggestions on utilizing a CDS perspective in my study, I would certainly need to read a lot more on this before I can judge how well a complexity perspective would gel with my project. From the layman’s understanding I have of CDS and the few presentations I have seen, I think that it has a lot of promise for analyzing a community or a classroom. I’m interested in how researchers/teachers/administrators have been able to apply findings from CDS to inform classroom/self-access practice. Wenger has been (I think both fairly and unfairly) criticized for his straddling of the worlds of the theorist and the consultant (Cox, 2005; Hughes, 2007; Wenger, 2010) but one thing that really drew me to CoP/LoP was the various case studies demonstrating its application ‘in the trenches’ so to speak! I know that in your book with Fujishima on the L-Cafe you gave some good suggestions, but is there anything else that you could direct me to that demonstrates examples of similar practical applications of CDS research? Thanks a lot in advance and sorry for the extra questions/requests!
Please once again accept my sincere gratitude for you giving up your valuable time to help me out with my project. I look forward to reading more of your valuable work in the future!
Kind regards,
Dan
References
Amit, V. (2002). Reconceptualizing community. In V. Amit (Ed.), Realizing community: Concepts, social relationships and sentiments (pp. 1-20). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
Billett, S. (2007). Including the missing subject: Placing the personal within the community. In J. Hughes, N. Jewson, & L. Unwin (Eds.), Communities of practice: Critical perspectives (pp. 55-67). Abingdon, Oxford: Routledge.
Brown, J. S., & Duguid, P. (1991). Organizational learning and communities-of-practice: Toward a unified view of working, learning, and innovation. Organization Science, 2(1), 40-57.
Cox, A. (2005). What are communities of practice? A critical review of four seminal works. Journal of Information Science, 31, 527-540.
Farnsworth V., Kleanthous, I., & Wenger-Trayner, E. (2016). Communities of practice as a social theory of learning: A conversation with Etienne Wenger. British Journal of Educational Studies, 64(2), 139-160.
Handley, K., Sturdy, A., Fincham, R., & Clark, T. A. R. (2006). Within and beyond communities of practice: Making sense of learning through participation, identity and practice. Journal of Management Studies, 43(3), 641-653.
Hodkinson, P., & Hodkinson, H. (2004). A constructive critique of communities of practice: Moving beyond Lave and Wenger. OVAL Research Working Paper, 4(2), 1-15.
Hughes, J. (2007). Lost in translation: Communities of practice. In J. Hughes, N. Jewson, & L. Unwin (Eds.), Communities of practice: Critical perspectives (pp. 30-40). Abingdon, Oxford: Routledge.
Hughes, J., Jewson, N., & Unwin, L. (2007). Conclusion: Further developments and unresolved issues. In J. Hughes, N. Jewson, & L. Unwin (Eds.), Communities of practice: Critical perspectives (pp. 171-177). Abingdon, Oxford: Routledge.
Morita, N. (2004). Negotiating participation and identity in second language academic communities. TESOL Quarterly, 38, 573-603.
Mutch, A. (2003). Communities of practice and habitus: A critique. Organizational Studies, 24(3), 383-401.
Mynard, J., Tamala, M., & Peeters, W. (Eds.) (in press). Supporting learners and educators in developing language learner autonomy. Hong Kong: Candlin & Mynard.
Saldana, J. B. (2017). Mediating role of leadership in the development of communities of practice. In J. McDonald & A. Cater-Steel (Eds.), Communities of practice: Facilitating social learning in higher education (pp. 281-312). Singapore: Springer.
Vincent, K., Steynor, A., Waagsaether, K., & Cull, T. (2018). Communities of practice: One size does not fit all. Climate Services, 11, 72-77.
Wenger, E. (2010). Communities of practice and social learning systems: The career of a concept. In C. Blackmore (Ed.), Social learning systems and communities of practice (pp.179-198). London, UK: Springer.
Wenger-Trayner, E. (2013). The practice of theory: Confessions of a social learning theorist. In V. Farnsworth & Y. Solomon (Eds.), Reframing educational research: Resisting the ‘what works’ agenda (pp. 105-118). Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
Wenger-Trayner, E., Fenton O’Creevy, M., Hutchinson, S., Kubiak, C., & Wenger-Trayner, B. (2014). Learning in landscapes of practice: Boundaries, identity and knowledgeability in practice-based learning. London: Routledge.