"I'm not that kind of person": learning to be a non-participant

We report the findings of a project funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which explored the participation of children in out-of-school recreational activities. Our aim was to explore these out-of-school activities as sites of learning and to identify the impact of the children's experiences on the development of individual 'learning identities'. Through in-depth interviews with 55 children we concluded that there were substantial differences in levels of participation and in the learning gained from these activities by two different groups of children and show stages in the development of their different dispositions towards the activities. Our attempts to identify the roles occupied by the children within a community-of-practice led us to question the extent to which the terms core and periphery can adequately account for the activity within such a community. We argue that children who are non-participants in the community-of-practice nevertheless position themselves in relation to the community, albeit beyond the periphery.