Re: Kathie--Workplace enculturation and authority

From: Elizabeth A Wardle (ewardle@iastate.edu)
Date: Fri Apr 14 2000 - 21:43:18 PDT


Kathie,
I've be very interested to see that study, if anyone can remember who wrote
it or if it has gotten published. The idea that someone could be IN a COP
but not in it--really not invested in it or engaged with it--or even
WANTING to be invested or engaged--is a new one to me, although maybe it
shouldn't be. Now that I think of it, it seems sort of obvious. But most of
what I've read talks about enculturation as though it is something that of
course the new worker will want and try to work toward. David Russell has
briefly said in a 1997 Written Communication article that sometimes people
find their values, etc. incompatible with their new COP and they have to
come to terms with that. But this idea that people might not ever really
come to terms with it is new to me. If you think about it, though, you can
probably imagine lots of people in jobs they loathe--with codes and
conventions they detest--but staying at the job because they need it. In
these cases, do they ever really enculturate? I suppose this points to the
problem of what, exactly, enculturation is. Or, as one of my fellow
graduate students asked me, "How will you know when your research subject
has enculturated?" Lave and Wenger's definition of legitimate peripheral
participation would probably prove useful here, but I still think there's
more to be said about the possibility of functioning and living in a
community of practice with which you don't identify and have no intention
of identifying.

Anyway, if you or Mike can remember that article, I'd appreciate it.

Elizabeth

>i reviewed an article for mind, culture, and activity that so far hasn't
>made it to publication.
>maybe mike remembers.
>it was an ethnographic research on physics students somewhere in europe
>who were sitting side my side in classes, but, according to the author,
>engaged in different activity systems with different objects, rules, etc.
>the overlapping activity systems was persuasively argued.
>
>
>kathie
>
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>.........Our words misunderstand us..............................
>.....We are our words, and black and bruised and blue.
>Under our skins, we're laughing....................................
>.........................Adrienne Rich..................................
>^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>Katherine_Goff@ceo.cudenver.edu
>http://ceo.cudenver.edu/~katherine_goff/index.html

------------------------------
Elizabeth A. Wardle <ewardle@iastate.edu>
Doctoral Program in Rhetoric & Professional Communication
Iowa State University of Science & Technology
http://www.stuorg.iastate.edu/phorum/
www.public.iastate.edu/~ewardle

"What good fortune for those in power that people do not think."
                           --Adolf Hitler



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