SITUATED COGNITION
An understanding of learning from a sociocultural perspective can be gained
through situated cognition theory. Proponents of situated cognition suggest
that knowledge is situated in the everyday activities of an individual,
and in the product of the activity, context and culture in which it is used
(Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1989). The process of acquiring new knowledge,
skills, and ideas is integrally linked to the learners' everyday social practices and
interactions. These ideas are directly linked to the anthropological and critical theory traditions
of Lave, and Vygotskian sociocultural learning theory (Kirshner & Whitson, 1997), and provide the
"conceptual and methodological resources for investigating the fundamental processes
of cognition as social and situated activity" (p. 3).
According to Kirshner and Whitson, the primary and critical key to understanding
situated cognition theory is the recognition that it shifts the focus away "from the individual
as the unit of analysis toward the sociocultural setting in which activities are embedded" (p. 5).
SITUATED LEARNING AND SOCIAL PRACTICE
Although situated learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991) is closely aligned
with the ideas of situated cognition, it could be argued that the issue of
internalization is the point from which the two ideas depart slightly. Situated cognition,
by its very use of the term cognition, suggests that learning, although
a situated and social activity, becomes meaningful in the cognition or internalization
of the activity. Whereas in situated learning, according to Lave
and Wenger, learning becomes meaningful in an external domain, and not through
internal processes. The external domain is described as the legitimate peripheral
participation of an individual in a community of practice. Learning occurs when an individual
is engaged in the social practices of a community, and learning is also "an
integral and inseparable aspect of social practice" (p. 31). At its most
basic understanding, the concept of social practices is the recognition that
what we do and who we are is moderated, influenced, silenced, and shaped by
our communities and culture. Through an understanding of a culture's
social practices, we can better understand that culture. Social practice theorists,
such as Pierre Bourdieu (in Wenger, 1998), use "the concept of practice
to counter purely structuralist or functionalist accounts of culture and to
emphasize the generative character of structure by which cultural practices
embody class relations" (p. 281–282). At the core of any discussion
of a culture or community using a sociocultural perspective is an understanding
of social practices. This study will use the concept of social practices
to focus on the learning and literacy practices apparent in the employment preparation program.
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