Jean Lave - Böcker

In this important theoretical treatist, Jean Lave, anthropologist, and Etienne Wenger, computer scientist, push forward the notion of situated learning - that learning is fundamentally a social process. The authors maintain that learning viewed as situated activity has as its central defining characteristic a process they call legitimate peripheral participation (LPP). Learners participate in communities of practitioners, moving toward full participation in the sociocultural practices of a community. LPP provides a way to speak about crucial relations between newcomers and old-timers and about their activities, identities, artefacts, knowledge and practice. The communities discussed in the book are midwives, tailors, quartermasters, butchers, and recovering alcoholics, however, the process by which participants in those communities learn can be generalised to other social groups.

In this extended meditation, Jean Lave interweaves analysis of the process of apprenticeship among the Vai and Gola tailors of Liberia with reflections on the evolution of her research on those tailors in the late 1970s. In so doing, she provides both a detailed account of her apprenticeship in the art of sustained fieldwork and an insightful overview of thirty years of changes in the empirical and theoretical facets of ethnographic practice. Examining the issues she confronted in her own work, Lave shows how the critical questions raised by ethnographic research erode conventional assumptions, altering the direction of the work that follows. As ethnography takes on increasing significance to an ever widening field of thinkers on topics from education to ecology, this erudite but accessible book will be essential to anyone tackling the question of what it means to undertake critical and conceptually challenging fieldwork. "Apprenticeship in Critical Ethnographic Practice" explains how to seriously explore what it means to be human in a complex world - and why it is so important.

Most previous research on human cognition has focused on problem-solving, and has confined its investigations to the laboratory. As a result, it has been difficult to account for complex mental processes and their place in culture and history. In this startling - indeed, disco in forting - study, Jean Lave moves the analysis of one particular form of cognitive activity, - arithmetic problem-solving - out of the laboratory into the domain of everyday life. In so doing, she shows how mathematics in the 'real world', like all thinking, is shaped by the dynamic encounter between the culturally endowed mind and its total context, a subtle interaction that shapes 1) Both tile human subject and the world within which it acts. The study is focused on mundane daily, activities, such as grocery shopping for 'best buys' in the supermarket, dieting, and so on. Innovative in its method, fascinating in its findings, the research is above all significant in its theoretical contributions. Have offers a cogent critique of conventional cognitive theory, turning for an alternative to recent social theory, and weaving a compelling synthesis from elements of culture theory, theories of practice, and Marxist discourse. The result is a new way of understanding human thought processes, a vision of cognition as the dialectic between persons-acting, and the settings in which their activity is constituted. The book will appeal to anthropologists, for its novel theory of the relation of cognition to culture and context; to cognitive scientists and educational theorists; and to the 'plain folks' who form its subject, and who will recognize themselves in it, a rare accomplishment in the modern social sciences.

In this important theoretical treatist, Jean Lave, anthropologist, and Etienne Wenger, computer scientist, push forward the notion of situated learning - that learning is fundamentally a social process. The authors maintain that learning viewed as situated activity has as its central defining characteristic a process they call legitimate peripheral participation (LPP). Learners participate in communities of practitioners, moving toward full participation in the sociocultural practices of a community. LPP provides a way to speak about crucial relations between newcomers and old-timers and about their activities, identities, artefacts, knowledge and practice. The communities discussed in the book are midwives, tailors, quartermasters, butchers, and recovering alcoholics, however, the process by which participants in those communities learn can be generalised to other social groups.

Understanding Practice brings together the many different perspectives that have been applied to examining social context. From Ole Dreier's work on the therapeutic relationship, to Hugh Mehan's work on learning by disabled students, to Charles and Janet Keller's work on blacksmithing, the chapters form a diverse and fascinating look at situated learning. A distinctive feature of the book is the wide range of theoretical and methodological approaches to the problem of understanding cognition in everyday settings.

This book brings together an international team of scholars to explore participation, change and transformative possibilities in everyday life. Drawing on critical ethnographic and participatory research from Brazil, Denmark, and Italy, it examines how people in marginalized positions - socially excluded children and young people, former gang members, rock musicians, bank employees and sex workers - engage in learning practices across diverse contexts. The chapters challenge conventional notions that oppose equality and difference, offering a critical perspective grounded in social practice theory, critical psychology, and urban anthropology. With a strong focus on co-produced knowledge and learners' perspectives, the book offers new conceptual tools for understanding learning as a dynamic, relational and political process rooted in everyday struggles. Essential reading for researchers, students, and professionals across education, anthropology, psychology, social work, pedagogy, and human geography.

This book brings together an international team of scholars to explore participation, change and transformative possibilities in everyday life. Drawing on critical ethnographic and participatory research from Brazil, Denmark, and Italy, it examines how people in marginalized positions - socially excluded children and young people, former gang members, rock musicians, bank employees and sex workers - engage in learning practices across diverse contexts. The chapters challenge conventional notions that oppose equality and difference, offering a critical perspective grounded in social practice theory, critical psychology, and urban anthropology. With a strong focus on co-produced knowledge and learners' perspectives, the book offers new conceptual tools for understanding learning as a dynamic, relational and political process rooted in everyday struggles. Essential reading for researchers, students, and professionals across education, anthropology, psychology, social work, pedagogy, and human geography.

Written by world-renowned social anthropologist, Jean Lave, with an afterword by Brazilian anthropologist Ana Maria R. Gomes, this book weaves together ethnographic accounts of work and learning, apprenticeship and everyday life, through a critical theory of practice. Each chapter explores in different ways the proposition that learning is a collective, transformative process of change in the historically political complex relations of everyday life. At the same time, the book demonstrates the changing character of Lave's own research practice over two decades. Lave addresses work practices and everyday life and discusses the problem of context and decontextualization. Analyzing two decades of ethnographic studies of craft apprenticeship, she explores teaching as learning and examines the reciprocal effects of theories of everyday life and learning.