Synthèses

"The distinction between historical cases of apprenticeship and a theory of situated learning was strengthened as we developed a more comprehensive view of different approaches to situatedness. Existing confusion over the meaning of situated learning and, more generally, situated activity resulted from differing interpretations of the concept. On some occasions "situated" seemed to mean merely that some of people's thoughts and actions were located in space and time. On other occasions, it seemed to mean that thought and action were social only in the narrow sense that they involved other people, or that they were immediately dependent for meaning on the social setting that occasioned them. These types of interpretations, akin to naive views of indexicality, usually took some activities to be situated and some not.
In the concept of situated activity we were developing, however, the situatedness of activity appeared to be anything but a simple empirical attribute of everyday activity or a corrective to conventional pessimism about informal, experience-based learning. Instead, it took on the proportions of a general theoretical perspective, the basis of claims about the relational character of knowledge and learning, about the negotiated character of meaning, and about the concerned (engaged, dilemma-driven) nature of learning activity for the people involved. That perspective meant that there is no activity that is not situated. It implied emphasis on comprehensive understanding involving the whole person rather than "receiving" a body of factual knowledge about the world; on activity in and with the world; and on the view that agent, activity, and the world mutually constitute each other.
We have discovered that this last conception of situated activity and situated learning, which has gradually emerged in our understanding, frequently generates resistance, for it seems to carry with it connotations of parochialism, particularity, and the limitations of a given time and task. This misinterpretation of situated learning requires comment. (Our own objections to theorizing in terms of situated learning are somewhat different. These will become clearer shortly.) The first point to consider is that even so-called general knowledge only has power in specific circumstances. Generality is often associated with abstract representations, with decontextualization. But abstract representations are meaningless unless they can be made specific to the situation at hand. Moreover, the formation or acquisition of an abstract principle is itself a specific event in specific circumstances. Knowing a general rule by itself in no way assures that any generality it may carry is enabled in the specific circumstances in which it is relevant. In this sense, any ' 'power of abstraction" is thoroughly situated, in the lives 1 of persons and in the culture that makes it possible. On the other hand, the world carries its own structure so that specificity always implies generality (and in this sense generality is not to be assimilated to abstractness): That is why stories can be so powerful in conveying ideas, often more so than an articulation of the idea itself. What is called general knowledge is not privileged with respect to other "kinds" of knowledge.
It too can be gained only in specific circumstances. And it too must be brought into play in specific circumstances. The generality of any form of knowledge always lies in the power to renegotiate the meaning of the past and future in constructing the meaning of present circumstances."

Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991/2003). Situated learning. Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press (pp.32-34).

http://www.cc.gatech.edu/classes/AY2004/cs7460_fall/readings/lave wenger - lpp.pdf

-------


Foreword by William F. Hanks

“On the one hand, it implies a highly interactive and productive role for the skills that are acquired through the learning process. The individual learner is not gaining a discrete body of abstract knowledge which (s)he will then transport and reapply in later contexts. Instead, (s)he acquires the skill to perform by actually engaging in the process, under the attenuated conditions of legitimate peripheral participation. This central concept denotes the particular mode of engagement of a learner who participates in the actual practices of an expert, but only to a limited degree and with limited responsibility for the ultimate product as a whole. There is no necessary implication that a learner acquires mental representations that remain fixed thereafter, nor that the “lesson” taught consists itself in a set of abstract representations. On the contrary, Lave and Wenger seem to challenge us to rethink what it means to learn, indeed to rethink what it means to understand. On this point their project joins a growing literature in cognitive studies, discourse analysis, and sociolinguistics, which treats verbal meaning as the product of speakers’ interpretive activities, and learning are all defined relative to actional contexts, not to self-contained structures”


Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991/2003). Situated learning. Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press (pp.14-15).