Beyond Communities of Practice Language Poer and Social Context [Hardcover]

This book consists of a set of studies exploring the concept of 'communities of practice'.This book consists of a set of studies exploring the concept of communities of practice , which has been influential in social sciences, education, and management in recent years. Its main purpose is to emphasize the importance of areas such as language, power, and social context which are essential to understanding how communities of practice work. The concept has been a particularly influential one but has had little sustained critique, so a book of this kind is timely and necessary.This book consists of a set of studies exploring the concept of communities of practice , which has been influential in social sciences, education, and management in recent years. Its main purpose is to emphasize the importance of areas such as language, power, and social context which are essential to understanding how communities of practice work. The concept has been a particularly influential one but has had little sustained critique, so a book of this kind is timely and necessary.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.Introduction; 1. Literacy, reification, and the dynamics of social interaction David Barton and Mary Hamilton; 2. Language and power in communities of practice Karin Tusting; 3. Mediating allegations of racism in a multiethnic London school: what speech communities and communitilc"