Jean Lave
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Jean Lave is a social anthropologist who theorizes learning as changing participation in on-going changing practice. Her lifework challenges conventional theories of learning and education.


Education and career

Lave received a Bachelor's from
Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...
, and completed her doctorate in
social anthropology Social anthropology is the study of patterns of behaviour in human societies and cultures. It is the dominant constituent of anthropology throughout the United Kingdom and much of Europe, where it is distinguished from cultural anthropology. In t ...
at
Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...
in 1968. She taught at the
University of California, Irvine The University of California, Irvine (UCI or UC Irvine) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Irvine, California, United States. One of the ten campuses of the University of California system, U ...
and is currently a professor emerita of geography at the
University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...
. In 1988, Lave published her first book, ''Cognition in Practice: Mind, Mathematics and Culture in Everyday Life''. In it, she explores how
arithmetic Arithmetic is an elementary branch of mathematics that deals with numerical operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. In a wider sense, it also includes exponentiation, extraction of roots, and taking logarithms. ...
is used outside of school contexts, with implications for sociological understanding of the relationship between cognition, practice, culture, and society. For instance, she shows that grocery shoppers in
Orange County, California Orange County (officially the County of Orange; often initialized O.C.) is a county (United States), county located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in Southern California, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the population ...
who could successfully do the mathematics needed for comparison shopping were less able to do the same mathematics when they were presented with the same problems in a formal test. The work is considered a critique of learning transfer theory and challenges the drawing of sharp boundaries between theories of rationality and theories of everyday thought. In 1991, Lave pioneered the theories of situated learning and
communities of practice A community of practice (CoP) is a group of people who "share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly". The concept was first proposed by Cognitive anthropology, cognitive anthropolo ...
with the publication of her seminal text, ''Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation'' (in collaboration with her student
Étienne Wenger __NOTOC__ Étienne Charles Wenger (born 1952) is an educational theorist and practitioner, best known for his formulation (with Jean Lave) of the theory of situated cognition and his more recent work in the field of communities of practice. ...
). The theory of situated learning posits that, in the words of anthropologist Nigel Rapport, learning is a "social process" and that individuals "learn best, it is suggested, in a situation in which participants share a common identity and goals... in the middle of our lives, while doing other everyday things, alongside people with whom we identify." Furthermore, Lave's studies of
apprenticeship Apprenticeship is a system for training a potential new practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study. Apprenticeships may also enable practitioners to gain a license to practice in a regulat ...
in this and subsequent works are recognized as a significant critique of
educational psychology Educational psychology is the branch of psychology concerned with the scientific study of human learning. The study of learning processes, from both cognitive psychology, cognitive and behavioral psychology, behavioral perspectives, allows researc ...
. As of September 2024, ''Situated Learning'' has been cited over 103,000 times.


Honors and awards

In 1989, Lave was named a Spencer Senior Scholar of the Spencer Foundation. In 1994, Lave received the Sylvia Scribner Research Award from the American Educational Research Association. In 2013, Lave was jointly awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Society for Psychological Anthropology with Anthony F. C. Wallace. She holds honorary degrees from both
Aarhus University Aarhus University (, abbreviated AU) is a public research university. Its main campus is located in Aarhus, Denmark. It is the second largest and second oldest university in Denmark. The university is part of the Coimbra Group, the Guild, and Ut ...
, awarded in 2008, and the
University of St Andrews The University of St Andrews (, ; abbreviated as St And in post-nominals) is a public university in St Andrews, Scotland. It is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, oldest of the four ancient universities of Scotland and, f ...
, awarded in 2015.


Selected publications

Lave's published books include: *''Learning and Everyday Life: Access, Participation, and Changing Practice'' (2019) *''Apprenticeship in Critical Ethnographic Practice'' (2011) * ''History in Person: Enduring Struggles, Contentious Practice, Intimate Identities'' (edited with Dorothy Holland, 2000) *''Understanding Practice'' (co-authored with Seth Chaiklin, 1993) *''Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation'' (co-authored with Etienne Wenger, 1991) *''Cognition in Practice'' (1988)


See also

*
Communities of Practice A community of practice (CoP) is a group of people who "share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly". The concept was first proposed by Cognitive anthropology, cognitive anthropolo ...
*
Legitimate peripheral participation Legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) describes how newcomers become experienced members and eventually old timers of a community of practice or collaborative project. LPP identifies learning as a contextual social phenomenon, achieved through ...
* Situated learning * Sex and intelligence *
Situated cognition Situated cognition is a theory that posits that knowing is inseparable from doing by arguing that all knowledge is situated in activity bound to social, cultural and physical contexts. Situativity theorists suggest a model of knowledge and learnin ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lave, Jean American women anthropologists American educational theorists Women educational theorists People in educational technology American educational psychologists Sociologists of education 20th-century educational theorists 1939 births Living people Stanford University alumni Harvard University alumni University of California, Irvine faculty University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty