Helena,
I have read Lave and Wenger's book and found their ideas very, very helpful.
You asked how I came to choose this topic and I"ll answer you here. If
anyone else is not interested, please feel free to delete. I sort of
stumbled on to the topic of enculturation by accident. For my MA thesis I
did a study of peer response activities in a first-year writing classroom.
My intention was to see if certain peer response activities could teach
rhetorical reading skills. What I actually ended up seeing and writing
about was enculturation. Students were having a lot of trouble learning the
codes and conventions of the academy. They struggled with authority, since
often they had no idea what was going on but were required to at least try
to figure out what was happening in order to respond in workshop and
written peer critiques. I began by thinking about reading and I ended up
trying to piece together a sociocognitive view of how people move into
participation in new communities of practice. So that's the story, and now
a year later I'm still fascinated by the process of moving into new COPs,
both in academic and workplace settings.
Thanks for asking.
Elizabeth
At 07:32 AM 4/12/00 -0500, you wrote:
>Elizabeth -- sounds as if you are on a very interesting path.
>
>I'd say read Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger's Legitimate Peripheral
>Participation, a small book put out by Cambridge U Press in 1991 (sorry, I
>don't have it in front of me right now so this may not be 100% correct) which
>will help you get from thinking of acculturation as an exchange to thinking of
>it as initiation into a context of activity -- from ladders to circles.
>
>I'd love to hear how you came to choose this topic.
>
>Helena Worthen, Assistant Professor
>University of Illinois
>Chicago Labor Education Program
------------------------------
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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