Situated Learning

Situated learning is a theory of learning developed by Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, most fully set out in their 1991 book Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation, holding that learning is not the transfer of abstract knowledge from teacher to student but a social process that occurs through participation in the practices of a community. Newcomers begin at the edge of a community of practice, taking on simple, low-stakes tasks under the guidance of more experienced members, a position Lave and Wenger called legitimate peripheral participation, and gradually move toward fuller participation as their skill and identity within the group develop. The theory grew out of studies of apprenticeship in settings such as Yucatec midwives, tailors and butchers, and it has since informed education research on internships, professional training and classroom communities that treat learning as inseparable from the social and cultural context in which it happens.