Legitimate peripheral participation and home education

After a description of home education, Lave and Wenger's (1991) theory of legitimate peripheral participation (LPP) is applied to the situation of home educators who join a neighbourhood home education group, a community of practice. Then, it is argued that the theory of LPP, with suitable modification, can also apply to and illuminate the position of home educators who are not members of a home education community of practice but who, while home educating individually, are nevertheless engaged as legitimate peripheral participants in a social learning process through reading newsletters, visiting web sites and the daily practice of home educating their children. The extension of the theory illustrates the wide explanatory power of LPP to cover social learning in many contexts. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.