 Beyond Communities of Practice: Language, Power, and Social Contextreviewed by Jo Anne Kleifgen - March 05, 2007  Title: Beyond Communities of Practice: Language, Power, and Social Context Author(s): David Barton & Karin Tusting (Eds.) Publisher: Cambridge University Press, New York ISBN: 0521544920 , Pages: 256, Year: 2005 Search for book at Amazon.com Buzzwords have a way of making the rounds. Recently, in the context of a university’s strategic planning, a dean invoked the term “communities of practice,” which in the business world is applied to the design of work environments and knowledge-management systems that offer a competitive advantage. Ironically, a term originating in academia and taken up by management had circled back to the university setting with a new corporate veneer. The original idea behind Communities of Practice (CoP) was developed by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger (1991), who were primarily interested in re-conceptualizing learning as a socially-situated activity, a process of participation that moves gradually from being legitimately peripheral to being fully engaged in a community’s practice. The CoP concept receives detailed treatment in Beyond Communities of Practice: Language, Power, and Social Context, a collection edited by David Barton and Karin Tusting. As the word “beyond” in the title suggests, the contributing... (preview truncated at 150 words.) To view the full-text for this article you must be signed-in with the appropriate membership. Please review your options below:
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