Situated learning in practice: teaching assistants engaged with a work-based Foundation Degree in England

A qualitative case study was carried out in order to understand the enacted reality for three primary school teaching assistants of the notion of situated learning in relation to Lave and Wenger’s concept of communities of practice and their description of legitimate peripheral participation. The case study subjects were studying for a work-based Foundation Degree in Educational Studies at a UK higher education institution and took part in a longitudinal study that lasted the duration of their 2-year course. By viewing their experiences through the lens of Lave and Wenger’s work, new understandings have been developed of how useful and realistic their notion of situated learning and concepts of communities of practice and legitimate peripheral participation are in relation to learning on a work-based Foundation Degree.