Garold Murray is associate professor in the Language Education Centre, Okayama University, Japan. His research employs ethnography and narrative inquiry to explore autonomy, metacognition, and community in relation to classroom, out-of-class, and self-access language learning.Xuesong (Andy) Gao is assistant professor at the Department of English, Hong Kong Institute of Education. His research interests include language learning strategy, learner narratives and teacher development.Terry Lamb is based in the School of Education, University of Sheffield, England. He has published widely in the fields of learner and teacher autonomy, multilingualism, language policy, and teacher development.

• Xuesong Gao and Terry Lamb: Exploring Links between Identity, Motivation and AutonomySection I: Emerging Theoretical PerspectivesEma Ushioda: Motivating Learners to Speak as ThemselvesXuesong Gao and Lawrence Jun Zhang: Joining Forces for Synergy: Agency and Metacognition as Interrelated Theoretical Perspectives on Learner AutonomyLiliane Assis Sade: Emerging Selves, Language Learning and Motivation through the Lens of ChaosVera Lúcia Menezes De Oliveira E Paiva: Identity, Motivation, and Autonomy in SLA from the Perspective of Complex Dynamical SystemsSection II: Independent Learning SettingsGarold Murray: Imagination, Metacognition, and the L2 Self in a Self-Access Learning EnvironmentE. Desirée Castillo Zaragoza: Identity, Motivation and Plurilingualism in SACsLinda Murphy: ‘Why am I Doing This?’ Maintaining Motivation in Distance Language LearningHayo Reinders and Noemí Lázaro: Beliefs, Identity and Motivation in Implementing Autonomy: The Teacher’s PerspectiveSection III: Cultures and ContextsAlice Chik and Stephan Breidbach: Identity, Motivation and Autonomy: A Tale of Two CitiesStephen Ryan and Sarah Mercer: Natural Talent, Natural Acquisition and Abroad: Learner Attributions of Agency in Language LearningMartin Lamb: Future Selves, Motivation And Autonomy In Long-Term EFL Learning TrajectoriesDiane Malcolm: “Failing” to Achieve Autonomy in English for Medical PurposesNeil Cowie and Keiko Sakui: Crucial but Neglected: EFL Teachers’ Perspectives on Learner MotivationJing Huang: A Dynamic Account of Autonomy, Agency and Identity in TEFL LearningGarold Murray: Identity, Motivation and Autonomy: Stretching our Boundaries

Through the use of qualitative research methods, the authors explore the complex, contingent, and dynamic nature of motivation, identity, and autonomy-both for language learners and teachers-in many different parts of the world. Importantly, they also look for relationships among the three constructs. This is precisely the integrative approach that should be encouraged as we seek to understand the lived experience of individuals.