Make Room! Make Room!: Finding a Space and Place for Communities of Practice in Criminal Justice Studies

Critical work concerning the philosophy of space and place has had an increasing impact on recent social theory in most discourses but has had surprisingly little influence in education theory. This article considers the importance of spatial theory in constructing a new criminal justice studies course which focuses on problem-based learning methods. In particular, the spatial notions of a place for students, reflective learning spaces and communities of practice were found to be vital in constructing a learning model which challenged student feelings of isolation and commodification that arise in the mass university system.