Communities of Practice. A thread.
My argument is that CoP theory continues to have much to offer educational researchers. But the term gets used so indiscriminately that it risks losing explanatory potential and criticality. Not everything is a CoP.

So what to do next? [cont.]

My argument is that a critical and worthwhile use of CoP [Lave and Wenger 1991 and Wenger 1998] needs to have:

1. A sufficient conceptual grasp.
2. An appropriate empirical foundation.
3. A consideration of what is being learned.
4. An aligned assumptive framework.

[cont.]

1. A sufficient conceptual grasp. By this, I mean to stress the necessity of demonstrating a critical and robust understanding of the theory, depth of scholarship, and a
use of CoP theory that rests on a robust and lively engagement with the literature. [cont.]

2. An appropriate empirical foundation. By this, I mean
to stress the ethnographic and anthropological foundations of CoP, which are lost sight of in accounts of learning and teaching: mutual engagement, joint enterprise and shared repertoire. [cont.]

3. A consideration of what is being learned. A CoP is a social configuration of people, tools, artefacts and so forth, all concerned with a particular form of practice, which in turn necessarily involves learning through legitimate peripheral participation. [cont.]

4. An aligned assumptive framework. The use of other frameworks can resolve those deficiencies that might emerge through a critical use of CoP. But any and all such additional theories need to share both the epistemological and the ontological standpoints of CoP. [end]