Lave, Jean, and Etienne Wenger. Situated Learning : Legitimate Peripheral Participation. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Cambridge Univ Pr , 1991.

Summary: This book presents research to support the analytical perspective that legitimate peripheral participation in communities of practice is the principle defining activity in learning. They cite examples of situated learning in the apprenticeships of midwives, tailors, butchers, and others.

Use: At first I thought situated learning theory was in complete contradiction to my aims until I realized that I was taking advantage of a mobile situations and communities of practice before even knowing these terms. Personal experience tells me that their complete dismissal of internalization models of learning is too extreme, but they have reintroduced an effective and well-researched perspective of learning as a social and situated phenomenon to the academic and learning communities. Since coming to this understanding, situated learning has become the major influential theory for the development of this thesis.