Communities of Practice: Critical Perspectives

Description

This benchmark text provides an accessible yet critical introduction to the theory and application of communities of practice and their use in a diverse range of managerial and professional contexts, from education to human resource development. This book charts the development of the idea of communities of practice and explores the key relationship between learning and identity among: newcomers and ‘old timers’ male and female workers the low skilled and the high skilled professionals and managers adults and adolescents. Drawing on international empirical studies and adopting a multi-disciplinary approach, this book is useful reading for all students, researchers, practitioners and policy makers with an interest in work, employment, labour markets, learning, training or education. Cover Communities of Practice: Critical perspectives Copyright Contents Notes on contributors 1 Introduction: Communities of practice: a contested concept in flux 2 Critiquing theories of learning and communities of practice 3 Lost in translation: communities of practice: The journey from academic model to practitioner tool 4 From communities of practice to mycorrhizae 5 Including the missing subject: Placing the personal within the community 6 Cultivating network analysis: Rethinking the concept of 'community' within 'communities of practice' 7 Theorizing sport as a community of practice: The coach-athlete relationship in British professional basketball 8 The transition to work and adulthood: Becoming adults via communities of practice 9 English apprenticeship from past to present: The challenges and consequences of rampant 'community' diversity 10 Sexuality, gender and legitimate peripheral participation: An ethnographic study of a call center 11 The learning trajectories of 'old-timers': Academic identities and communities of practice in higher education 12 Unemployment as a community of practice: Tales of survival in the new Germany 13 Communities of practice in their place: Some implications of changes in the spatial location of work 14 Conclusion: Further developments and unresolved issues Index