  The Magellanic Clouds offer unique opportunities to study star formation both
on the global scales of an interacting system of gas-rich galaxies, as well as
on the scales of individual star-forming clouds. The interstellar media of the
Small and Large Magellanic Clouds and their connecting bridge, span a range in
(low) metallicities and gas density. This allows us to study star formation
near the critical density and gain an understanding of how tidal dwarfs might
form; the low metallicity of the SMC in particular is typical of galaxies
during the early phases of their assembly, and studies of star formation in the
SMC provide a stepping stone to understand star formation at high redshift
where these processes can not be directly observed. In this review, I introduce
the different environments encountered in the Magellanic System and compare
these with the Schmidt-Kennicutt law and the predicted efficiencies of various
chemo-physical processes. I then concentrate on three aspects that are of
particular importance: the chemistry of the embedded stages of star formation,
the Initial Mass Function, and feedback effects from massive stars and its
ability to trigger further star formation.
