Beyond Communities of Practice: Language Power and Social Context

Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives

by David Barton (Editor), Karin Tusting (Editor)

The concept of "communities of practice" (Lave and Wenger 1991, Wenger 1998) has become influential in education, management, and social sciences in recent years. This volume emphasizes the significance of language, power, and social context in understanding how communities of practice work. Domains of empirical research reported include schools, police stations, adult basic education, higher education and multilingual settings. The relationship between communities of practice and literacy studies, critical language studies, the ethnography of communication, socio-cultural activity theory, and sociological theories of risk is also evaluated.

258 pages, Hardcover

First published October 3, 2005

About the author

David Barton is the Founder and President of WallBuilders, a national pro-family organization that presents America's forgotten history and heroes, with an emphasis on our moral, religious and constitutional heritage.

WallBuilders is a name taken from the Old Testament writings of Nehemiah, who led a grassroots movement to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem and restore its strength and honor. In the same way, WallBuilders seeks to energize the grassroots today to become involved in strengthening their communities, states, and nation.

David is the author of numerous best-selling books, with the subjects being drawn largely from his massive library of tens of thousands of original writings from the Founding Era. He also addresses well over 400 groups each year.

His exhaustive research has rendered him an expert in historical and constitutional issues and he serves as a consultant to state and federal legislators, has participated in several cases at the Supreme Court, was involved in the development of the History/Social Studies standards for states such as Texas and California, and has helped produce history textbooks now used in schools across the nation.

Reviews

[Diane Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mostly Brits contributing to the theoretical constructs of situated learning. Their literacy roots in anthropology (American roots are in psychology and cognition, very in-the-head rather than in the community), I think, give them a different kind of take on language, activity, and power. There are some powerful contributions here.

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Goes beyond Lave & Wenger's Communities of Practice idea to look at issues of power and language, among others.