Lave, J. (1996). Situating Learning in Communities of Practice. Perspectives on Socially Shared Cognition. L. Resnick, J. Levine and S. Teasley.
Washington, D.C.,
American Psychological Association.
"Counter-intuitive definitions of learning, reversed points of cultural view, and historical analysis of cognitive processes- are ways to move closer to an encompassing theory of persons learning, while exploring the implications of a more general theory of socially situated activity."
LEARNING
"I propose to consider learning not as a process of socially shared cognition that results in the end in the internalization of knowledge by individuals, but as a process of becoming a member of a sustained community of practice."
THREE GENRES OF SITUATED APPROACHES
Cognition plus:
"Researchers should extend the scope of their intraindividual theory to include everyday activity and social interaction." In other words, cognition depends on social factors, that should be included when thinking about cognition.
Interpretive:
"In the interpretive view, meaning is negotiated, the use of language is a social activity rather than a matter of individual transmission of information, and situated cognition is always interest-relative."
Situated Social Practice:
(also situated learning)
"This theoretical view emphasizes the relational interdependency of agent and world, activity, meaning, cognition, learning and knowing. It emphasizes the inherently socially negotiated quality of meaning and the interested, concerned character of the thought and action of persons engaged in activity. But, unlike the first two approaches, this view also claims that learning, thinking, and knowing are relations among people engaged in, with, and arising from the socially and culturally structured world."
APPRENTICESHIP
Being an apprentice is not the same as being a pupil. Apprenticeship for Lave here is learning as a peripheral participant. Lave uses examples of Yucatec midwives and newcomers to Alcoholics Anonymous to show how new members learn by participating with increasing depth with old members.
INTERNALIZATION AND LEARNING TRANSFER VS. SITUATED LEARNING
Lave sees both internalization and learning transfer as being overly simplistic, and that learning does not involve a "straight pipe" method. Internalization is overly simplistic because it treats learning as a simple process of ingestion, while the learning transfer theory is simplistic because its overly reductionistic about the process of information transfer.