Re: MCA and Burke's parlor

Eugene Matusov (ematusov who-is-at cats.ucsc.edu)
Tue, 25 Jun 1996 09:01:20 -0700

Hello everybody--

Russ seems to raise an interesting question about different ways of how
people join communities. However, I'm not sure that Gordon and Kenneth
Burke are so different in ways of people's joining academic conversations
but rather they are different to what people are joining. I think this way
of joining is a white middle class one. Compare Gordon and Kenneth Burke's
descriptions with the following principles for successful joining of play in
white middle class kindergarten children taken from Garvey (1984):

"The Don't's:
-- don't ask questions for information (if you can't tell what's going on,
you shouldn't be bothering those who do);
-- don't mention yourself or state your feelings about the group or its
activity (they're not interested at the moment);
-- don't disagree or criticize the proceedings (you have no right to do so,
since you're an outsider).
The Do's:
-- be sure you understand the group's frame of reference, or focus (are they
playing house?);
-- understand the participation structure of the activity;
-- slip into the ongoing activity by making some relevant comment or begin
to act in concert with the others as if you actually were a knowledgeable
member of the group;
-- hold off on making suggestions or attempting to redirect until you are
well into the group (pp. 164-165) [the format of the text is mine, EM]."

However, I was told that in some other communities (e.g., low-class Black
children in the US) there is rather different pattern of successful joining
which based on idea immediate challenge of existing norms of the community
by a newcomer. In the school that Barbara Rogoff and I study, we observed
both types of joining. As to xmca, I also have observed both types:
"noisy"-"reformist" type and "quiet"-"peripheral" type. I'm going to send a
paper to Cognition & Instruction with discussion and illustration of this
phenomenon next month.

Gordon wrote,
>I certainly concur with Eva's characterization of xmca. In particular,
>her image - "people who first enter this "garden party" in the middle
>of ongoing interaction" - reminds me of a similar image that, borrowed I
>believe from Courtney Cazden, I have often used to concretize the idea of
>LPP.
I may disagree with Gordon's illustration of Lave's LPP with
"quiet"-"peripheral" type of joining community as a middle class bias.

Reference
Garvey, C. (1984). Children's talk. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Eugene Matusov
UCSC

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Eugene Matusov
Psychology Department
University of California
Santa Cruz, CA 95064
office (408) 459-5180
fax (415) 493-8917
e-mail: ematusov who-is-at cats.ucsc.edu
http://www2.ucsc.edu/people/ematusov
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