Lave & Wenger Legitimate Peripheral Participation

Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1998). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Chapter 1: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (LPP)

·      "It (LPP) concerns the process by which newcomers become part of a community of practice (p. 29)."

·      "A person's intentions to learn are engaged and the meaning of learning is configured through the process of becoming a full participant in a sociocultural practice. This social process includes, indeed it subsumes, the learning of knowledgeable skills (p. 29)."

·      LPP is more than just "learning by doing." LPP recognizes the inability of learning to be separated from its situatedness.

·      Knowledge and learning require a relationship between the two. Meaning is negotiated. The learning activity involves dilemma as a form of engagement.

·      "But abstract representations are meaningless unless they can be made specific to the situation at hand (p. 33)."

From Situated Learning to Legitimate Peripheral Participation

·      "..learning is an integral part of generative social practice I the lived-in world (p. 35)."

·      "Peripheral participation is about being located in the social world. Changing locations and perspectives are part of actors' learning trajectories, developing identities, and forms of membership (p. 36)."

·      Rationale for the terminology of full participation: "There is no place in a community of practice designated 'the periphery,' and, most emphatically, it has no single core or center. Central participation would imply that there is a center (physical, political, or metaphorical) to a community with respect to an individual's 'place' in it. Complete participation would suggest a closed domain of knowledge or collective practice for which there might be measureable degrees of 'acquisition' by newcomers (p. 36)."

·      They why use the term periphery???: "In this sense, peripherality, when it is enabled, suggests an opening, a way of gaining access to sources for understanding through growing involvement. The ambiguity inherent in peripheral participation must then be connected to issues of legitimacy, of the social organization of and control over resources, if it is to gain its full analytical potential (p. 37)."

An Analytic Perspective on Learning

·      Learning is a part of all activities.

With Legitimate Peripheral Participation

·      LPP: "It is an analytical viewpoint on learning, a way of understanding learning (p. 40)."

·      Learning can occur without deliberate attempt (hence the hidden curriculum???).

The Organization of This Monograph