Legitimate peripheral participation
Lave and Wenger argue learning is entry into a community of practice, starting from peripheral, low-risk tasks. Newcomers move toward full, competent membership as they participate more centrally.
Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives)
6 ideas
Communities of practice
Knowledge lives in social practice and relationships, not only in individual heads. Learning means changing one's mode of participation within such a community.
Learning is social, not just cognitive
They reframe learning as an aspect of situated activity and identity change rather than internal information transfer. The unit of analysis shifts from the mind to the practice.
Apprenticeship as a general model
Cases of tailors, midwives, and quartermasters show mastery acquired through graded participation under practitioners. Real competence is built by doing alongside experts, not by formal instruction.
Identity through participation
Becoming a practitioner is inseparable from forming an identity within the community. Learning and belonging co-produce each other rather than occurring separately.
Decontextualized schooling is limited
Because knowing is embedded in practice, abstract classroom transfer often fails to reproduce real competence. Stripping knowledge from its practice weakens the learning.