International Journal of Educational Research 50 (2011) 5561

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International Journal of Educational Research

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijedures

Commentary

Learning at the boundary: A commentary

David Guile *
Faculty of Policy and Society, Institute of Education, University of London, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL, United Kingdom

A R T I C L E I N F O

Article history: Received 15 October 2010 Received in revised form 31 March 2011 Accepted 1 April 2011 Available online 8 June 2011

1. Introduction The shared interest of all the authors who have contributed articles to this Special Edition of the International Journal of Educational Research is the forms of learning that can occur at the boundary of social practices. In some ways this form of learning has been a consistent feature within the development of human societies over many centuries. The work of, for example, hunters and beaters in traditional societies or doctors and nurses in modern societies, could both be viewed as involving some form of learning at the boundary. Interest in investigating learning that occurs at the boundaries of social practice has, however, become a much more central concern in Educational Psychology over the last two decades (Saljo, 2003). Before discussing the work of the contributors to this Special Edition and the conceptual and methodological questions and issues their work raises about future investigations of learning at the boundary, I would like to briey consider the origins and development of the concepts of boundary crossing and boundary objects. In brief, it seems to me that the legacy of the origins of these concepts continues to cast a shadow over their subsequent development and deployment by researchers. 2. Origins and development of the concept of boundary objects and boundary crossing The issue of boundaries and crossing boundaries has been a topic of discussion in Social Science for many years. In a recent review of this work in the Annual Review of Sociology, Lamont and Molnar (2002) distinguish between symbolic and social boundaries. They dened the former as: conceptual distinctions made by social actors to categorize objects, people, practices, and even time and space. They are tools by which individuals and groups struggle over and come to agree upon denitions of reality . . .; and, the latter as: . . .objectied forms of social differences manifested in unequal access to and unequal distribution of resources (material and nonmaterial) and social opportunities (p. 168). The distinctions reected, therefore, the sociological concern from Durkheim onwards with social categorization, and from Marx onwards with social inequalities. Interest in crossing boundaries in Social Science received considerable momentum though the publication of Star and Griesemers (1989) article Institutional Ecology, Translations and Boundary Objects: Amateurs and Professionals in Berkeleys Museum of Vertebrate Zoology. Star and Griesemer emanate from Symbolic Interaction a tradition that is

* Tel.: +44 0207 612 6849. E-mail address: D.Guile@ioe.ac.uk. 0883-0355/$ see front matter 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.ijer.2011.04.010

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primarily concerned with the identication and categorization of the mechanisms and processes that facilitate the effective co-ordination of human action in a range of social (Blumer, 1969) and/or work settings (Strauss, Fagerhaulgh, Suczek, & Weiner, 1985). Star and Griesemer became interested in the heterogeneous nature of scientic work because it requires many different actors, viewpoints and cooperation, and the tensions that surface between divergent viewpoints can make it difcult for actors to produce generalizable ndings. Following their observations of the work of amateurs, professionals, administrators and others connected to the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology at the University of California, Berkeley, Star and Griesemer formulated a model of how different groups of actors could successfully manage this tension. In doing so, they paved the way for the focus of boundary crossing in social science to move away from a concern for social categorization and inequalities and towards a concern for social learning. Star and Griesemer accomplished this goal by extending their interest in the co-ordination of human activities with insights from the concept of interessement, which originates from Actor Network Theory, and refers to the alliances and interests that groups/networks mobilise to help them to accomplish their goals. This move allowed Star and Griesemer to identify two activities that were central for translating between viewpoints. The rst is activities that help professionals to standardize their methods of inquiry and, in the process, replicate the values of scientic methodological practice in professional settings. The second is the activities that facilitate the identication of extant objects that can be deployed by members of heterogeneous teams to overcome profession-specic vision and reasoning. Furthermore, they identied four types of boundary objects repositories, ideal types, coincident boundaries and standardized forms that intra- and interprofessional communities used to assist them to translate viewpoints. Star and Griesemer maintained that the challenge for researchers investigating learning at the boundary was to: (i) reveal the multi-faceted ways in which members of heterogeneous teams create a shared space (Star, 2010, p. 602), and (ii) use boundary objects to explain specic viewpoints or explore how to relate different viewpoints to one another. In parallel to this development, a number of researchers began to express concern about the conventional wisdom that learning is a vertical process through a hierarchy of domain-based concepts, and argued instead that learning should also be conceptualized as a horizontal process across different types of material and /or symbolic boundaries (Engestrom et al., 1995; Phelan et al., 1991; Suchman, 1994). The net effect was that researchers in elds, such as, Computer Supported Cooperative Work, Educational Psychology; Management/Organizational Science, Workplace Learning and School to Work transitions, started to use the concept of boundary object and boundary crossing interchangeably to explore the way in which members of different organizations and/or heterogeneous teams learnt to work with one another. Akkerman and Bakkers introduction concentrates on how researchers in the above elds, extended Star and Griesemers work empirically and conceptually. In the case of the former, researchers shifted the focus from the heterogeneous nature of science to encompass the heterogeneous nature work in modern organizations per se (Engestrom, 2008), explored how to overcome boundaries between educational institutions and workplaces to facilitate more effective school-to-work transitions (Tuomi-Grohn & Engestrom, 2003), and reveal how boundaries could inhibit learning in settings that had been the object of investigation for some considerable time, for example, teacher education (Edwards et al., 2010). In the case of the latter, researchers broadened Star and Griesemers concern for the translation of different viewpoints by acknowledging that boundary crossing has many afnities with the concept of transfer and therefore presupposes some form of learning (Saljo, 2003; Tuomi-Grohn and Engestrom, 2003). This move enabled researchers to uncover the mechanisms of learning that can be used to facilitate learning at the boundary of social practices. Akkerman and Bakker argue, as we have seen in their Introduction to the Special Edition, that opportunities for learning occur where previous lines of demarcation between practices are ambiguous or destabilized due to feelings of threat or due to increasing similarities or overlap between practices. Moreover, they identify four dialogical learning mechanisms identication, coordination, reection, and transformation that organizations and individuals can use to develop new forms of expertise, transform existing patterns of activity within single organizations, and create new forms of activity between organizations. Akkerman and Bakker have therefore advanced our understanding of what hitherto has seemed to be the black box of learning associated with boundary crossing. They provide a language of description for the learning mechanisms that individuals and groups selfgenerate or are supported to generate when lines of demarcation between practices are ambiguous or destabilized. In doing so, they offer the research community a comparative perspective on what has previously been rather fragmented studies of boundary crossing, and a starting point to explore the way in which learning mechanisms may be combined in different ways to support boundary crossing. A focus on learning mechanisms can, however, deect attention away from the purpose of learning that occurs at the boundary of social practices and the way in which purposes always affect the use of boundary objects and learning mechanisms. Fortunately, the articles in this Special Edition address this issue by employing two different strategies. I shall refer to one as the interpretivist and the other as the interventionist strategy. Akkerman, Beauchamp and Thomas, and Ward et al.s articles fall into the rst category, Daniels, Kerosuo and Toiviainen, and Bakker, Kent, Hoyles and Noss articles fall into the second category, and Edwards article spans both categories. I will use these two categories to organize my discussion of the way in which the contributors, in advancing our conceptual understanding of the phenomenon or the methods that can be used to analyse boundary crossing, have simultaneously highlighted new conceptual and methodological issues about learning at the boundary that requires further research. I will also use my commentary to comment on how far the work of the contributors overcomes or embodies either the two criticisms or the methodological reections that Star voiced in a article reecting on the concept of boundary objects which was published posthumously (Star, 2010, p. 601). In the case of her criticisms, Star observed that much of the use of the concept of boundary object has

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rstly concentrated on the aspects of interpretative exibility and has often mistaken or conated this exibility with the process of tacking back-and-forth between the ill-structured and well-structured aspects of the arrangements (i.e. of work). Secondly, it failed to distinguish with sufcient care whether the use of objects to support people to cross boundaries was based on consensus about goals or cooperation to achieve a goal (Star, 2010, p. 604). In the case of her reections on methodology, Star (ibid.) argues that one of the challenges is to identify effective ways to make objects [i.e., a focus of research: DG] of the actions people engage in so as to help them to understand, develop and even change those actions. 2.1. Interpretivist investigations The conceptual link between Akkerman, Beauchamp and Thomas, and Ward et al.s articles is that they explore different aspects of mediated relation between concepts, objects and social practices. Their explorations differ substantively because Beauchamp and Thomas focus on the development of expertise or identity in intra-professional learning while Akkerman focuses on the development of common knowledge (Edwards, this issue) in inter-professional learning. The methodological link is that all three writers pursue their interest through recourse to post-event interviews that seek to identify the strategies that support people to learn at, and then cross, boundaries. Akkerman did, however, supplement her interviews with observation and video recording. Ward, Nolen and Horn and Beauchamp and Thomas both focus on the way in which tensions at the boundary of teacher education programme (TEP) can prove to be productive or un-productive as regard the development of expertise or identity. The former writers locate the tension that surfaces in TEP through reference to longstanding debate about the way in which the tension between the two worlds of knowledge (Ward et al.), that is, knowledge provided by, respectively, the TEP or FieldWorld (i.e., world of schools) play out in teaching practice. Ward et al. tackle this issue ontologically by invoking Hagel and Browns (2005) notion of productive friction to explore the way in which beginning teachers, working with their university supervisor and cooperating teacher, were able to successfully resolve this tension, and forced, when this learning partnership did not function, to leave the tension un-resolved. Ward et al. reveal the way in which, for example, beginning teachers were able to apply new pedagogic practices that had been introduced to them in the TEPWorld provided they were supported to do so in the FieldWorld by their university supervisors and cooperating teachers. In contrast, Beauchamp and Thomas uncover how the assumptions that lay behind the design of professional formation in the TEPWorld, for example, the development of identity through enculturation into an educational and professional community, can unravel in the FieldWorld. They do so by highlighting the way in which some beginning teachers gradually develop a more inward perspective and only look for advice and support from within their school as they assume increasing responsibility for supporting students development, while others develop a relational perspective and turn to their external communities for advice and support. The critical determinate of these different courses of action, according to Beauchamp and Thomas, is the extent to which beginning teachers exercise agency in their immediate or external context. The articles from Ward et al. and Beauchamp and Thomas offer a new perspective in the literature on boundary crossing about some well-known issues in Educational Psychology: the temporal dimension of learning and the discontinuous nature of identity formation. Much of the literature on boundary crossing in educational psychology, despite drawing on CulturalHistorical and Socio-cultural traditions, tends to be overly spatially and temporally specic in two senses. Both are a result of the way in which the original focus in Symbolic Interaction on the identication of the mechanisms that facilitate the coordination of human action has led researchers to concentrate on the use of boundary objects to facilitate boundary crossing within and/or between organizations. This has led some researchers to rstly, play down the way in which biography inuences participation in boundary crossing activities (Hodkinson et al., 2004) and secondly, the interplay between cooperation and consensus inuences the extent to which the use of boundary objects can results in the creation of ephemerally and/or standardized practice (Star, 2010). Ward et al. and Beauchamp and Thomass articles offer a salutary reminder that the insights generated from research on boundary crossing, for example, Akkerman and Bakkers identication of learning mechanisms, would benet from being complemented with a more longitudinal perspective on the down-theline outcomes that ow from particular modes of learning at the boundary of social practices. Rather than taking the boundary between different social practices, such as universities and schools, for granted, Akkermans article considers the way in which boundaries are revealed and experienced during interactions. Drawing on extant case studies of national and European research teams, Akkerman demonstrates that when boundaries remain implicit in social practice they can exercise an inhibiting inuence on inter-cultural and-disciplinary understanding, whereas when boundaries are made explicit through recourse to explication mechanisms, such as, re-voicing the position of another member of the team, people are able to remediate their own understanding of an issue or why an issue requires further deliberation. Apart from reinforcing extant understanding that the tensions generated by boundaries between social practices can be used to facilitate or frustrate learning, Akkermans article raises two important issues about learning. The rst is that boundaries are an important condition for learning because they support us to develop, for example, domain expertise and cultural traditions, that constitute the bedrock of human understanding (Toulmin, 1978). Unfortunately, such boundaries then constitute an obstacle that has to be overcome in inter-cultural and/or inter-professional situations. The second issue follows from the rst: the role of educational institutions and workplaces in supporting people to learn at the boundaries of social practice. One way of understanding the answer Akkermans article proposes is to say that the challenge is to identify and overcome rstly, the problem that implicit mediation (Wertsch, 2007) sets for collective action because that can inhibit

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understanding and result in forms of marginalisation. Secondly, the way in which boundaries are dialogically and materially constructed in on-going interactions to demarcate topics and issues to work on and legitimate the adoption of particular approaches to address them (Bechky, 2003). 2.2. Interventionist investigations Daniels and Kerosuo and Toiviainens articles are rmly located in the Developmental Work Research (Boundary Crossing Laboratory and Cycle of Expansive Learning) tradition that was pioneered by Engestrom (1987, 2008). The conceptual and methodological challenges in this tradition are interrelated: to analyse how researchers support members of a single or network of activity systems to expand the object of their activity, that is, re-think the purpose and design of work and to implement the new object of activity. In contrast, Bakker et al.s article draws on a more eclectic range of socio-cultural theories of human action, and uses the notion of design experiments (Cobb, Confrey, diSessa, Lehrer, & Schauble, 2003) as a strategy to support members of mortgage-company to interpret statistical statement issues by the company more effectively. All three articles presuppose that some form of transfer will occur as a result of people being supported to cross boundaries. Moreover, all three articles highlight a new issue about how researchers can support people to learn in laboratory or formally structured teaching situations. One of the overlooked issues in discussion about boundary crossing, according to Daniels, is the way in which researchers understand and investigate the relationship between human action and the structure of the social setting in which that action takes place in the DWR tradition. He maintains that in order to address this issue it is vital researchers take note of the strength or power of the boundaries that form the categories of the persons and work that inhabit institutions (ibid). Daniels argues that Bernsteins (2000) analysis of power and control in pedagogic practice in educational institutions can be modied contextually to offer researchers a way to tackle the aforementioned challenge. Specically, Bernsteins distinctions between instructional (transmission of knowledge and skill) and regulative (principles of social order, relation and identity) discourse can, according to Daniels, be used to analyse the way in which the tension between these competing discourses inuenced how members of schools and departments of social work negotiated solutions to shared problems in a Boundary Crossing Laboratory. In making the above argument, Daniels offers researchers a way to avoid allowing the spatially and temporally situated character of the context of their research, for example, a bank, school, hospital, exercising a hidden inuence on their selection of the unit of analysis for their research. The tendency to focus on the spatially and temporally situated character of human action occurs in Symbolic Interaction because that traditions focus on coordination often leads researchers to play down the inuence of culturalhistorical forces that lie outside of the immediate situation on human action in that situation. A good example would be the way in which scientists in Berkeleys Museum of Vertebrate Zoologys historic view of their role to support aamateurs to conduct scientic inquiries predisposed both parties to collaborate effectively with one another. Bernsteins distinctions between instructional and regulatory discourses, as Daniels points out, may offer researchers a way to construct a broader unit of analysis. These conceptions of discourse are, however, characterised by a rather strong sense of social determination: Bernstein claims that boundaries form the categories of persons and work within institutions. This suggests that researchers would have to modify contextually Bernsteins notions of discourse to take account of the multiple forms of engagement with the object of activity that can occur in workplaces (Kaptelinin, 2006), and the multi-voiced expressions of individual and collective agency such engagements give rise to (Miettinen, 2005; Nardi, 2005). Another under-researched issue in discussions of boundary crossing in the DWR tradition is, according to Kerosuo and Toiviainen, the multi-faceted types of incidents or episodes that surface in the tension between socio-spatial (parties involved in the remediation of practice) and instrumental-developmental (tools for the remediation of practice) boundaries. Kerosuo and Toiviainen invoke the concept of transitional learning episode to encapsulate the general nature of these events and identify four sub-divisions of this category: identication of socio-spatial boundaries and boundary crossing in workplace development; exploration of instrumental-development boundaries through questioning the learning activity; mastering asynchrony at the instrumental-development boundaries through the cultivation of tools; and, transcending the socio-spatial boundaries of the learning forum. Using these sub-divisions to analyse discussions between members of a Trainers Network in Finland which occurred in different Boundary Crossing Laboratories, Kerosuo and Toiviainen suggest that they have rstly, identied four ways in which the object of activity can be expanded (see Table 1 for a summary of their argument). They are learning to: work at multi-levels; transform the object into the tool; work with multiple asynchronous cycles of development; and, transform the object workplace-specic activity to the regional level. Secondly, these four ways have the potential to assist people to cross extant socio-spatial and instrumental-developmental boundaries in networks and, as such, could constitute a new kind of learning in networks. By introducing a comparative perspective on the forms of learning that can occur within BCLs, Kerosuo and Toiviainen enable researchers to develop a more nuanced and differentiated sense of the manifestations of the process of re-thinking the object of activity that occurs in BCLs. This is extremely valuable because the learning episodes that occur in BCLs through the use of the Cycle of Expansive Learning and which assist groups to grasp how to re-think the object of their activity have, hitherto, been a rather and under-exposed and discussed feature of the DWR tradition (a notable exception being Edwards and Kintis discussion of professionals negotiating their expertise and identity). The potential that Kerosuo and Toiviainen claim for the new learning that has occurred to move from members of the Trainers Network who are participating in the BCL

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to workplaces is, as they note, a promissory rather than substantive accomplishment. This is partly because Kerosuo and Toiviainen have only had the space to include in their article very brief details of each type of transitional learning episode. These details indicate that there was considerable cooperation and consensus Stars (2010) amongst participants in the BCL as regard the value of the Cycle of Expansive Learning in assisting trainers to re-think the object of their activity. It is also partly Kerosuo and Toiviainen were only able to note the potential scope and scale (Star, 2010) of this consensus amongst trainers, rather than report on the extent to which the trainers had been able to persuade the companies they support to use the DWR methodology to re-think the object of their activity. Finally, Bakker et al. tackle head-on the longstanding concern in Educational Psychology to design learning episodes to assist people to transfer knowledge and skill acquired in one context to another as well as the legacy of the post-Lave and Wenger concern to design situationally informed learning episodes. They identify a problem with a particular class of boundary objects (in Star and Griesemers terms standardized forms) that mortgage companies expect their employees to use in their conversation with customers. Bakker et al. refer to these objects as pseudo-mathematical artefacts, that is, mathematical in form but not function because the assumptions that underline them are not stated explicitly. Bakker et al. maintain that the aforementioned dilemma can be overcome if researchers and members of the mortgage company co-design a new class of boundary object technology-enhanced boundary objects (TEBOs). By this they mean, learning resources that make explicit the mathematical concepts and/or assumptions that underpin graphs, spreadsheets, etc. Bakker et al. argue unless mortgage companies replace existing boundary objects employees are expected to use with clients with TEBOs, the former will struggle to answer what if questions and the latter will struggle to receive a meaningful answer to their questions. Star and Griesemers original formulation of boundary objects rested on the use of extant objects to coordinate on-going actions. The issue of educational researchers and members of workplaces co-designing boundary objects raises therefore important issues that do not surface in Stars (2010) nal conceptual and methodological reections. In the case of the former, the formulation of TEBOs, like Engestroms work on the formation of new concepts, offers a way to supplement Star and Griesemers four-fold conception of boundary objects. Bakker et al., like Engestrom and colleagues, highlight the importance of working with members of workplaces to create boundary objects that those members can then use to evolve or radically transform practice. Because Bakker et al. are interested in the production of learning materials their work offers us a way to consider the difference between bespoke, rather than generic, learning materials. Bakker et al. reveal that when tools (i.e. TEBOs) are produced, which are sensitive to context and based on the creative deployment of technology, it is possible to support people who lack domain-specic knowledge to develop a fuller understanding of their practice. This outcome suggests, at least, one new challenge for educational institutions: to supplement their traditional approach of teaching domain-specic knowledge based on extant learning materials with bespoke materials. In the case of the methodological issue, the preceding discussion of the DWR and design experiments conrms Sannino, Daniels, and Gutierrez (2009, p. xix) observation that intervention literature is still relatively limited, and constructive methodological debates are only beginning to be undertaken within activity theory, and extends that observation by demonstrating the value of relational perspective on interventionist methodologies. 2.3. Learning at the boundary: conceptual and methodological questions and issues Drawing on empirical data collected via the DWR methodology and traditional methodological strategies, such as, questionnaires and interviews, Edwards explores how professionals use relational agency and expertise to build common knowledge is built at the boundaries of social practice. The gist of her argument can be summarised as follows:  boundary spaces emerge when the resources from different practices are brought together to expand the interpretations of a task;  bringing social practices and other resources together presupposes some form of relational agency (Edwards, 2005).  when social practices and resources are regularly brought together in a common forum sources of common knowledge are formed and sustained (Carlile, 2004).  managing common knowledge presupposes the development of the capability to reason from anothers point of view (Edwards, this issue, after Benhabib, 1992).  reasoning from anothers point of view implies an open-ended conversation where none of the contributing parties in heterogeneous communities ever really know the background (Taylor, 1995) on which other parties draw when identifying issues, advocating solutions, etc. In making this argument, Edwards introduces an issue that does not appear in Akkerman and Bakkers review of the extant literature on boundary crossing the contribution of reason to human understanding and acting. She explores the issue of reason by arguing that taken together, Taylors ideas about the hermeneutic strategies that enable us to make certain experiences intelligible and Benhabibs notion of communicative ethics, constitute the basis of a conceptual framework to explore the relational aspects of knowledge work at the boundaries of intersecting practices (Edwards). This focus on sharing meaning enables Edwards to highlight that it is only as we gradually understand the way in which other people use their concepts that we can begin to grasp their common, and all too often, tacit knowledge. Once we have developed a working sense of that knowledge, we are in a position to collaborate with other people and jointly mobilise one anothers common knowledge to address shared goals.

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The idea of developing a working sense of other peoples common knowledge implies an implicit or explicit understanding of the reasons that underpin their discursive and/or material actions. The role of reason is just beginning to surface in discussions of learning at the boundary of social practice (Bakker & Derry, 2011; Derry, 2008; Guile, in press-a, in press-b). This is partly because it has been recognised that much of the research on learning at the boundary of social practice has, as Guile (in press-a) pointed out, been predicated on the representational paradigm (Brandom, 2000, p. 11). Researchers have assumed, in other words, that discourse and/or signifying practices, for example, inscriptions and pictures can be used as direct referents for ideas. What this conception of human discursive and/or visual signifying practices glosses over is, as Guile (in press-a, in pressb) further argues, that it is predicated on a process of inferential articulation (Brandom, 2000, p. 165). In other words, the distinctive feature of human thinking is our ability to be responsive to the reasons that underpin discourse and action. The notion of being responsive to the reasons implies forming a judgement about the meaning of an utterance and/or an action by developing a practical mastery of what appears to follow from such utterances and/or actions (Brandom, 2000, p. 48). Thus from the perspective Guile advances, it is only as we engage in a process of giving and asking for reasons, in other words, why did you do or say that, what effect were you hoping to achieve, that we to probe the meaning of utterances and actions, that we are able to gain a working understanding of a verbally articulated command or suggestion or a disciplinary/ professional concept. Thus it follows that having established this type of working understanding, we are in a position to infer what might follow conceptually and/or practically. This concept of inference allows us to see that, rstly the meaning of a boundary object emerges through a process of practical reasoning and acting in Edwards term building and using common knowledge as we bring a boundary object into some functional relationship with other human practices and objects. Secondly, the basis of our practical reasoning lies in our ability to use, as Bernstein (1983, p. 57) argued many years ago, exemplars and judgemental interpretation as opposed to determinate rules that spell out what is the case. This notion of practical reasoning is predicated upon, as Bernstein (ibid.) further notes, an acceptance that exemplars are open to different interpretations, and that these interpretations will be mediated by a mix of disciplinary, professional and contextual considerations. There is no sufcient space in this commentary to fully explore the educational implications of the concept of inference. I will therefore restrict myself to two brief observations. The concept of inference implies: (i) in educational contexts that learners should be supported to analyse domain-specic discursive and symbolic signifying practices in terms of the role that they play in facilitating the process of reasoning and acting in the domain as opposed to conveying representations that are then applied in some way in the world (Bakker & Derry, 2011); and (ii) one of the future challenges for research on learning at the boundary of social practice is to identify the way in which people use different resources, for example, learning episodes, learning mechanism, boundary objects, to infer what follows from other peoples discursive and/or material signifying practices, and then use those inferences to propose and justify new courses of action (Guile, in press-b). Finally, I would like to return to the argument that constitutes a unifying link between the articles I included in the interpretivist and interventionist investigations of learning at the boundary, namely that sources of friction, tension or contradiction tend to emerge when different social practices are brought together to achieve a common goal. I would like to do so to raise a methodological issue. It is easier to see in all the contributors to this Special Issue how the identication of frictions/ tensions/contradictions may help parties at the boundary of social practice to identify the rhythms of activity that needs to occur to overcome those frictions, etc. (Langemeyer & Roth, 2006, p. 30). What is less clear is how people embody their understanding of the changes that will have to occur in their practice, and develop the potential and capabilities to sustain the change process that they are engaged in implementing. This observation suggests that, as I have indicated at different points in my commentary, the future methodological challenge for studies of learning at the boundary is to research:  the strategies people employ to cross the next set of boundaries they encounter to enact their learning;  the resources they have to mobilise to accomplish this goal.

Acknowledgements The author would like to thank Sanne Akkerman and Arthur Bakker, and the two anonymous reviewers, for some very helpful comments on an earlier version of this commentary.

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