Situated Learning (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780521413084)

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.

Author: Jean Lave, Etienne Wenger
ISBN-10: 0521413087
ISBN-13: 9780521413084
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Language: English
Published: 09/27/1991
Pages: 140
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 0.77lbs
Size: 9.28h x 6.37w x 0.64d