Your contradictory role as the mac "expert" in school reminds me of Julian
Orr' s report about repair technicians of xerox copy machines.
Your case is very important for the view point to see school as workplace.
The following is part of paper I have ever written.
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Learning as mutual accomplishment sometimes emerges as reciprocal
disconnectedness as shown by Orr(1990), Wenger(1990) and Brown &
Duguit(1991). Further, there are boundary objects that disconnect the
relation among multiple contexts, divisions of labor, or communities. Orr,
Brown and Duguit, and Wenger analyse that normative or canonical
description of actions, knowledge and procedures of work in management
side reciprocally disconnect each practice and are embedded in disconnected
practice of both sites.
Brown and Duguit (1991) describe the situation as shown in the
following along with introducing Orr's ethnography of repair technicians of
copy machines.
Many organizations are willing to assume that complex tasks can be
successfully mapped onto a set of simple, Tayloristic, canonical steps that
can be followed without need of significant understanding or insight.
..............
Through a reliance on canonical descriptions (to the extent of overlooking
even their own noncanonical improvisations), managers develop a conceptual
outlook that cannot comprehend the importance of noncanonical
practices.....................Although the documentation becomes more
prescriptive and ostensibly more simple, in actuality the task becomes more
improvisational and more complex....................As a result, a wedge is
driven between the corporation and its reps (repair technicians): the
corporation assumes the reps are untrainable, uncooperative, and unskilled;
whereas the reps view the overly simplistic training programs as a
reflection of the corporation's low estimation of their worth and skills.
(Brown & Duguit, 1991. p. 42)
Wenger (1990) also pointed out that management side in the insurance
company imposes normative structures such as an external definition of
correct behavior, of the content of activities, and of the quality of work.
The organization of the setting in terms of these overarching normative
structures gives a sense of disconnected community, which does not
participate in serious ways in the meaning of what its occupation is about
beyond its local set of activities.
(Wenger, 1990. p. 55)
.......identities of non-participation are a reciprocal phenomenon in the
corporation............ claim processors see management as something very
distant and mostly irrelevant to their lives. But of course management does
not participate in the world of claim processors any more than the
processors participate in the world of management.............This profound
and reciprocal disconnectedness is something very striking to the
newcomer........
(Wenger, 1990. p. 60)
Normative structures such as the ones I have described play an essential
role with respect to this reciprocal disconnectedness.......... Normative
structures act as a specific type of 'boundary objects" (Star, 1989; Star
and Griesemer, 1989) between the communities of workers and the communities
of management.
(Wenger, 1990. p. 61)
I would like to explore the issue of 'learning disconnetedness' further.
Although this isssue formulated by Orr, Wenger and Brow & Duguit under the
influence of Chicago School ethnography and Willis's ethnography about
"learning to labour" is critical, it seems to me that the issue of
'learning as disconnectedness' should be integrated with the issue of
mutually constituting multiple contexts....................
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Your case is very similar to mutualy disconnectedness or mutual
organization of communities in the cases of Orr and Wenger.
In the case of lathe machine factories I am doing fieldwork in Japan, the
situation is not like Orr and Wenger's cases although situated practice of
technicians of Orr and my case is very similar.
At least, so far, the disconectedness of management side and techinicians
side is not so clear at least for my research in Japan.
That is my future issue. So, I will try to do the fieldwork in US similar
factories.
Anyway, your case of contradictory role as the "expert" looks very critical.
Naoki Ueno
NIER, Tokyo