Learning to make a difference: Value creation in social learning spaces
| Author | Melissa Forbes |
| DOI | 10.1177/1035719X211038767 |
| Published date | 01 March 2022 |
| Date | 01 March 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
Book Review
Evaluation Journal of Australasia
2022, Vol. 22(1) 55–57
© The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/1035719X211038767
journals.sagepub.com/home/evj
Learning to make a
difference: Value creation in
social learning spaces
Etienne Wenger-Trayner and Beverly Wenger-Trayner, Learning to make a difference: Value
creation in social learning spaces. Cambridge University Press, 2020. ISBN 978-1-108-49716-9
(Hardback), AU$156.95; ISBN 978-1-108-73953-5 (Paperback), AU$52.95. ISBN 978-1-108-
67743-1 (Online), USD$26.00.
Reviewed by: Melissa Forbes, Academic Quality Unit, University of Southern Queensland,
Toowoomba, QLD, Australia
Evaluating the learning that occurs in groups or organisations can often be challenging.
People are the beating heart of every process or programme we evaluate, as are our
relationships and the shared learning which occurs because of these social interactions.
What is the nature of these relationships? What learning occurs through them? What
value does this learning have for participants, or organisations, and for society more
broadly?
Some years ago, I took up the challenge to explore these questions in my PhD
research on collaborative learning in higher music education. Serendipitously, I
stumbled upon an evaluation framework which had a familiar name attached to it –
Etienne Wenger, the ‘communities of practice guy’. The framework was designed to
promote and assess value creation (or, as it was defined at that time, the learning that
takes place) in communities and networks (Wenger et al., 2011). It provided a detailed
process for the collection and analysis of data, and the interpretation and presentation of
findings about the learning experiences of my first-year university music cohort. It
enabled me to identify the value of their participation in collaborative learning for
music practice and performance (see Forbes, 2020,2016). Findings took both narrative
form (value creation stories) and visual form (presented as a value creation matrix).
Not only was the framework a fundamental component of my research, it shaped the
way I think about learning –from being something done to us to something done in
relationship with others.
The value creation framework and the underlying social theory of learning have now
been significantly revised, expanded, and given greater specificity in a new book,
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