Cited by 13,645Innovative Education and Learning PracticesInnovative Teaching and Learning MethodsEducational Theory and Curriculum Studies

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 46 of the 46 references it cites were found in a registry or an index; 2 of the 50 sources its claims cite were checked for support.

Situated Cognition and the Culture of Learning

Open access
Brown, John Seely, Collins, Allan, Duguid, Paul·1989·Educational Researcher

Abstract

Many teaching practices implicitly assume that conceptual knowledge can be abstracted from the situations in which it is learned and used. This article argues that this assumption inevitably limits the effectiveness of such practices. Drawing on recent research into cognition as it is manifest in everyday activity, the authors argue that knowledge is situated, being in part a product of the activity, context, and culture in which it is developed and used. They discuss how this view of knowledge affects our understanding of learning, and they note that conventional schooling too often ignores the influence of school culture on what is learned in school. As an alternative to conventional practices, they propose cognitive apprenticeship (Collins, Brown, & Newman, in press), which honors the situated nature of knowledge. They examine two examples of mathematics instruction that exhibit certain key features of this approach to teaching.

Overview

AI snapshot

Written from the paper’s full text.

TL;DR

The paper argues that knowledge is fundamentally situated—partly a product of activity, context, and culture—so teaching methods that treat concepts as abstract, self-contained, and transferable are often misleading and ineffective. As an alternative, it proposes “cognitive apprenticeship,” illustrated through two mathematics teaching examples.

Key findings

  • Knowledge is not independent of situations; it is a co-production of mind and world, and abstraction/explication provides an “inherently impoverished and often misleading” view of knowledge.
  • Vocabulary taught from dictionary definitions is slow and unsuccessful: the average 17-year-old learns vocabulary at 5,000 words per year (13 per day) over 16 years through listening, talking, and reading, whereas classroom definition-based teaching can cover only 100 to 200 words per year and produces errors such as “I was meticulous about falling off the cliff.”
  • Learning is a process of enculturation into authentic activity and culture; school activity is often “ersatz” and self-confirming, so success in school may have little bearing on performance elsewhere.
  • Cognitive apprenticeship—using modeling, coaching, fading, social interaction, and collaboration—can enculturate students into authentic practices; the paper examines Schoenfeld’s magic-square problem-solving class and Lampert’s fourth-grade multiplication teaching through coin problems and student-generated stories.

Methods

  • Conceptual and theoretical paper, not an empirical study; it synthesizes research on everyday cognition, apprenticeship, situated learning, indexicality, and enculturation.
  • Uses illustrative cases and examples, including Miller and Gildea’s vocabulary teaching, Lave’s Weight Watchers cottage-cheese problem, Schoenfeld’s mathematics teaching, and Lampert’s multiplication teaching.
  • Main analysis is argumentative: it contrasts JPF, student, and practitioner activity (Table 1) and proposes cognitive apprenticeship as an alternative to conventional didactic schooling.

Limitations

  • Stated: the authors describe the exploration as “consciously speculative” and “admittedly tentative”; they say the paper does not attempt a historical survey or critical analysis, and that “major theoretical work” on situated cognition remains to be done.
  • Stated: future work must frame the relationship between explicit knowledge and implicit understanding.
  • Evident: the paper presents no controlled outcome data or systematic evaluation; its claims about transfer, school culture, and cognitive apprenticeship rest on conceptual argument and illustrative examples.

Model-written summary. Check it against the paper before relying on it.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.3102/0013189x018001032

Cites

46 of 46 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Nothing to recompute.

Verification

Claims the paper makes

118 Own interpretation · 41 Sources not found · 4 No full text of the sources · 2 No basis given · 1 Partly supported · accuracy not yet measured

Show all 87 claims

  • Probably not a substantial claim. 54
  • It may state two separate claims as one. 36
79 of 79
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Most school activity exists in a culture of its own.

    “The idea that most school activity exists in a culture of its own helps explain many of the difficulties of cultivating robust domain learning in school.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Schools demand a qualitative change in behavior.

    “Schools do seem to demand a qualitative change in behavior, however.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    What a student is expected to do and what a JPF does are significantly different.

    “What the student is expected to do and what a JPF does are significantly different.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    The school situation is extremely specialized.

    “But the school situation is extremely specialized.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    An unacknowledged dependency on school-based cues makes learning extremely fragile when viewed from outside school.

    “Viewed from outside, where problems do not come in text books, an unacknowledged dependency on such school-based cues makes the learning extremely fragile.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Many professions with generally acknowledged cognitive content (e.g., law, medicine, architecture, business) have traditionally been learned through apprenticeship.

    “Certainly many professions with generally acknowledged cognitive content--for example, law, medicine, architecture, business, etc.--have nonetheless traditionally been learned through apprenticeship.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Advanced graduate students in humanities, social sciences, and physical sciences acquire extremely refined research skills through apprenticeship with senior researchers.

    “Moreover, advanced graduate students in the humanities, the social sciences, and the physical sciences, acquire their extremely refined research skills through the apprenticeship they serve with senior researchers.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Advanced graduate students, like all apprentices, must recognize and resolve ill-defined problems that issue out of authentic activity, in contrast to well-defined exercises typically given in textbooks and exams throughout earlier schooling.

    “Then they, like all apprentices, must recognize and resolve the ill-defined problems that issue out of authentic activity, in contrast to the welldefined exercises that are typically given to them in text books and on exams throughout their earlier schooling.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Students who are taught individually rather than collaboratively can fail to develop skills needed for collaborative work.

    “Students who are taught individually rather than collaboratively can fail to develop skills needed for collaborative work.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    For centuries epistemologists have concentrated primarily on conceptual representation and its problematic relation to objects in the world, assuming that representation is cognitively prior to all else.

    “For centuries epistemologists have concentrated primarily on conceptual representation and its problematic relation to objects in the world, assuming that representation is cognitively prior to all else.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    Teachers rarely have the opportunity to hear enough of what students think to recognize when the information offered back by students is only a surface retelling for school purposes that may mask deep misconceptions about the physical world and problem-solving strategies.

    “Teachers rarely have the opportunity to hear enough of what students think to recognize when the information that is offered back by students is only a surface retelling for school purposes (the handing back of an uncomprehended tool, as we described it at the beginning) that may mask deep misconceptions about the physical world and problem-solving strategies.”
  • The paper relies on this without support.

    A common strategy in trying to overcome difficult pedagogic problems is to make as much as possible explicit.

    “A common strategy in trying to overcome difficult pedagogic problems is to make as much as possible explicit.”
12 of 12

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Citations

Cites

Show all 44 references

Research works printed but not linked: 9

  1. Geertz C, 1983, Local knowledge
  2. Hutchins E, Situated Learning
  3. Lave I, 1977, The Quarterly Newsletter of the institute for Comparative Human Development, 1, 1
  4. Lave J, 1988, Paper presented at AERA annual conference
  5. Pea RD, 1988, Paper presented at the meeting of the Cognitive Science Society
  6. Resnick L, 1988, Educational Researcher, 16, 13
  7. Rogoff B, 1984, Everyday cognition: Its development in social context
  8. Scribner S, 1984, Everyday cognition: Its development in social context, 9
  9. Shanker A, 1988, New York Times, 7

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Items 12,301–12,400 of 13,065

Metadata

Authors
Brown, J. S., Collins, A., & Duguid, P.
Affiliations
  • Institute for Research on Learning, 2550 Hanover Street, Palo Alto, California 94304.
  • BBN Inc, 10 Moulton Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02238
Venue
Educational Researcher
Published
1989-01
Volume
18
Issue
1
Pages
32-42
ISSN
  • 0013-189X (ISSN-L)
  • 1935-102X
OpenAlex
W2164599981
Cited by
13,645
References
44
Citations by year
2026: 324 · 2025: 322 · 2024: 255 · 2023: 271 · 2022: 384 · 2021: 446 · 2020: 520 · 2019: 472 · 2018: 467 · 2017: 513 · 2016: 525 · 2015: 585 · 2014: 628 · 2013: 637 · 2012: 651
FWCI
128.32
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Educational Researcher (publishedVersion)
  • Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Education › Innovative Education and Learning Practices
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Innovative Teaching and Learning Methods
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Educational Theory and Curriculum Studies
Keywords
situated cognition, learning culture, cognitive apprenticeship, situated knowledge, school culture, mathematics education, conceptual knowledge, everyday cognition, teaching practice

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