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.

本书作者莱夫是加利福尼亚大学伯克利分校的教育学教授，温格则是一位从事学习研究的科学研究者。在此书中，他们从根本上对有关学习的概念进行了极其深刻的反思。他们站在人类学的立场上，将研究的重点放在完整的人的身上，将知识视为个人和社会或物理情境之间联系的属性以及互动的产物，并将研究学习的焦点移至实践共同体中学习者社会参与的特征，从而将参与视作学习的关键成分。由此，该理论认为意义和身份的同时在互动中建构的，这一建构受到所在更广泛的情境脉络的极大影响。本书共包括四个部分：1、合法的边缘参与；2、实践、人、社会世界；3、助产士、裁缝、军需官、屠夫、戒酒的酗酒者；4、实践共同体中的合法的边缘参与。总之，本书是一本极其短小精悍的专著，但其研究学习的新颖视角、脚踏实地的研究风格、字里行间跃动着的原创性思维却让人叹为观止并深受其益。