[this would best be done with illustrations that would require an artist]

Developing a model from Lave's (& Wenger's) foundational text on "communities" of practice is essentially to be found in a few pages of Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation (1991) particularly pp. 29, 48-49, 95.

These pages mention one dichotomy: that between "newcomers" and "old timers." The emphasis is on "participation" and what happens when "legitimate peripheral participants" become "full members."

In the various vocabularies used to talk about the "communities" within which eventually takes place, more is added than just the initial distinction. So we now have

• newcomers
  • who are legitimate
  • who participate
  • in something (always) already there
• oldtimers
  • who are (legitimate) full members
  • shape participation
  • reproduce that which may not remain there unless newcomers eventually become full members

Implicit but not developed is the issue of recruitment:

• where do the newcomers come from? What are the mechanisms allowing for entry into participation?
• while there will always be learning through participation, is the movement from peripheral to full a direct one or one that might meander a lot, with the possibilities (likelihood?) of encountering obstacles that may be essential affordances of the setting ("social structure")?
  • for example: given a (Chinese imperial, Euro-American, etc.) school, in the movement between beginning and end of years of schooling, "failure" of some (many?) students is essential to the "success" of the classroom as identifying merit (Varenne & McDermott 1998). And year all students will have learned much about the curriculum (though perhaps not "as much as" teachers might have wanted), about schools, their properties and affordances.

By implication, wondering about the implicit aspects of the theory leads to further questions:

• What is the authority of the oldtimers in accepting (or not) potential, probable, or inescapable, newcomers (gatekeeping at entry points)
  • infants?
  • in laws?
  • immigrants?
  • refugees?
  • applicants for admission?
  • etc.
• How are we to account for those who are
  • applying for admission (but not yet through the boundary)
    • from "fetus" to "infant"
    • from [noone] to "daughter-in-law"
  • those who are not accepted
• How are we to account for the process of seeking admission that implies an acknowledgment of the "community" as object-ive, material, "thing-in-the-world"?
  • for non US people seeking admissions into an US university
    • on becoming aware of possibilities
    • on exploring possibilities
    • on consulting oldtimers (those who have received admission)
• Wondering about whether some polity are more attractive (in the physical sense) than others
  • on the "gravity wells" of imperial polities (or their institutions)
    • America -> Harvard -> Business School

and more:

• communities among communities in an intensive care unit