An incisive study of situated learning as transformational change in everyday life, aimed at students and researchers in the social sciences, social anthropology, anthropology of education and social theory. Lave's critical theory of social practice takes assumptions about learning as key to theory and the practice of social change.
Exploring the intersection of cognitive activity and everyday experiences, the study reveals how arithmetic problem-solving transcends laboratory confines. Jean Lave emphasizes that real-world mathematics, found in activities like grocery shopping and dieting, is influenced by the interplay between culturally-informed thought and the surrounding context. This dynamic interaction not only shapes individual understanding but also influences the broader environment in which people operate.
In this important theoretical treatise, Jean Lave, anthropologist, and Etienne Wenger, computer scientist, push forward the notion of situated learning--that learning is fundamentally a social process and not solely in the learner's head. The authors maintain that learning viewed as situated activity has as its central defining characteristic a process they call legitimate peripheral participation. Learners participate in communities of practitioners, moving toward full participation in the sociocultural practices of a community. Legitimate peripheral participation provides a way to speak about crucial relations between newcomers and oldtimers and about their activities, identities, artifacts, knowledge and practice. The communities discussed in the book are midwives, tailors, quartermasters, butchers, and recovering alcoholics, however, the process by which participants in those communities learn can be generalized to other social groups.