Argument :
This paper will provide a critical overview of research and practice in the field of autonomy in language learning over the past forty years and will argue that it has for many years been closely related to issues of inclusion (Lamb 2017). To support this, I will draw autoethnographically on my own work throughout this period, which has largely mirrored the development of the field as manifested in a number of ReN symposia, showing how my engagement in this field has always been driven by my original commitment to social justice and inclusion in my early days as a language teacher in urban secondary schools. I will first draw on my research into flexible learning, which I developed in the 1980s and 1990s as a way of enabling all learners in heterogeneous classrooms to flourish (e.g., Lamb 1998). This research started as practitioner research before developing an ethnographic approach, focusing on learners' voices, metacognitive knowledge, motivation and critical learner autonomy, resulting in the development of a 'powerful language learning curriculum' to enable learners and teachers to address constraints and empower themselves by "finding the spaces for manoeuvre" (e.g., Lamb 2000; 2009). Building on this, I will demonstrate how a pedagogy for autonomy was developed through the work of EuroPAL, a European project which led to a new common definition of critical autonomy for learners and teachers that offered a transformative "vision of education as (inter)personal empowerment and social transformation" (Jiménez Raya et al. 2017: 17) and which mapped autonomy at the levels of the learner, the teacher and the context/environment.In the mid-2010s we saw the spatial (Murray and Lamb 2018) and multilingual (Benson and Lamb 2021) turns in autonomy research. I will illustrate these by describing my ethnographic, participatory and activist research with local language communities, as well as my cross-disciplinary review of the construct of critical and collective autonomy, which facilitated an understanding of the processes by which diverse language communities appropriate and use urban spaces in order to ensure that their languages are learnt and used by the next generations, at the same time challenging the monolingual habitus which persists in many contexts (e.g., Lamb and Vodicka 2018). A connection will briefly be made to my ongoing practice-based and policy-related research into the development of plurilingual education in Europe and its relationship to learner autonomy and inclusion.ReferencesBenson, P. & Lamb, T. (2021) 'Autonomy in the Age of Multilingualism', in Jiménez Raya, M. & Vieira, F. (eds) Autonomy in Language Education: Theory, Research and Practice. New York & London: Routledge: 74-88Jiménez Raya, M., Lamb, T.E. and Vieira, F. (2017) Mapping autonomy in languages education: A framework for learner and teacher development. Frankfurt am Main: Peter LangLamb, T.E. (2009) 'Controlling learning: relationships between motivation and learner autonomy' in Pemberton, R., Toogood, S. and Barfield, A. (eds) Maintaining control. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press 67-86Lamb, T.E. (2009) 'Controlling learning: relationships between motivation and learner autonomy' in Pemberton, R., Toogood, S. and Barfield, A. (eds) Maintaining control. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press 67-86Lamb, T.E. (2000) 'Reconceptualising disaffection – issues of power, voice and learner autonomy', in Walraven, G., Parsons, C., Van Veen, D. and Day, C. (eds.) (2000) Combating Social Exclusion through Education. Louvain, Belgium and Apeldoorn, Netherlands: Garant: 99-115Lamb, T.E. (1998) 'Now You're On Your Own: Developing Independent Language Learning', in Gewehr, W. (ed.) (1998) Aspects of Language Teaching in Europe. London: Routledge: 30-47Lamb T. (2017) 'Knowledge About Language and Learner Autonomy', in Cenoz J., Gorter D., May S. (eds) Language Awareness and Multilingualism. Encyclopedia of Language and Education (3rd ed.). Cham, Switzerland: Springer: 173-186Lamb, T.E. and Vodicka, G. (2018) 'Collective autonomy and multilingual spaces in super- diverse urban contexts: Interdisciplinary perspectives', in Murray, G. and Lamb, T.E. (eds) Space, place and autonomy in language learning. London: Routledge: 9-28Murray, G. and Lamb, T.E. (eds) (2018) Space, place and autonomy in language learning. London: Routledge
