Educational Psychology—Limitations and Possibilities

CHAPTER 19
Jean Lave
INTRODUCTION
VALERIE HILL-JACKSON
Does knowledge occur in isolation—disconnected from the environment and social interactions?
Can knowledge be stored away, in discrete packages, and retrieved later in life and applied
to certain behaviors and practices? Jean Lave is a social anthropologist with a strong interest in
social theory at the University of California, Berkeley, whose work seeks to address these questions.
Much of her work has focused on the importance of culture and context and reimagining
the study of learning, learners, and educational institutions in terms of social practice. In this way
Lave pursues a social, rather than psychological, theory of learning. Lave argues that learning is
a function of the activity, context (environment and world), and culture (ways of being) in which
it occurs; in other words, it is situated.
This idea is remarkably different from nearly all classroom learning activities and knowledge
that is abstract and out of context. Situated learning, or situated cognition, is a general theory
of how knowledge is acquired. Situated learning has made a significant impact on educational
psychology since it was first introduced by Lave, whose work has been instrumental in providing
the research base for several related theories. In addition, community of practice, the belief that
learning involves a deepening process of participation in a community, has also become an
important focus within situated learning theory.
Lave is a formidable author with several books and articles to her credit. But three of them,
Cognition in Practice (1988), Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (with
Wenger, 1991), and Understanding Practice (with Chaiklin, 1993), stand out as her most influential
texts that have helped develop a new direction in knowledge acquisition.
In this chapter I examine the impact of Lave’s work on educational psychology by comparing
it to other learning theories in education. To better understand Lave’s work, it is best to review
the competing theories in knowledge acquisition that it challenges. Next, I outline the phases
of the sociocultural theory that helped to shape the broad and interdisciplinary situated learning
theory. Third, I inspect Lave’s situated learning theory more closely. And finally I briefly review
the implications on organizational practice and instructional design.