This review sought to locate key themes in the literature on teaching and learning thinking and practices, by examining areas of influence and mapping ideas about the themes of practice, transfer and communities in higher education or related contexts. The findings indicate that issues of pedagogical stance, disjunction, learning spaces, agency, notions of improvement and communities of interest can help to locate overarching themes and hidden subtexts that are strong influences on areas of practice, transfer and community. Nevertheless, these are areas that are sometimes ignored, marginalised or dislocated from the central arguments about teaching and learning thinking and practices in higher education. (Contains 1 figure, 4 tables and 1 note.)