Hi Helen-- I do not know who has done such work. Sylvia Scribner was
certainly interested in the issues but it seems a huge undertaking.
Sawchuk on work?
Any examples in Rose's work?
Glynda Hull?
mike
On 12/17/06, Helena Harlow Worthen <hworthen@ad.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>
> Thanks for the prompt, Mike.
>
>
>
> Let me take a quote from Lave and Wenger (1991) to show exactly what I'm
> looking for. They offer LPP (legitimate peripheral participation) as an
> analytic focus or analytic perspective (as compared to a program) for
> looking at learning as situated in social context.
>
>
>
> They explain: "Legitimate peripheral participation provides a way to speak
> about the relations between newcomers and old-timers, and about activities,
> identities, artifacts, and communities of knowledge and practice. It
> concerns the process by which newcomers become part of a community of
> practice. A person's intentions to learn are engaged and the meaning of
> learning is configured through the process of becoming a full participant in
> sociocultural practice. This social process includes, indeed it subsumes,
> the learning of knowledgeable skills." This is on page 29 of "Situated
> Learning." Also: "Any given attempt to analyze a form of learning through
> lpp must involve analysis of the political and social organization of that
> form, its historical development, and the effects of both of these on
> sustained possibilities for learning." (page 64).
>
>
>
> I would argue that literacy practices and literacy skills within literacy
> practices are among the "knowledgeable skills" subsumed by lpp.
>
>
>
> So my question is, has anyone – to the knowledge of the people on this
> list, which is pretty good on this stuff – do you know of anyone who has
> studied the social context of work using this lens? Lave and Wenger give
> us midwives in the Yucatan, Vai and Goa tailors, meatcutters and Navy
> quartermasters, but only briefly.
>
>
>
> Two anecdotes to illustrate the kind of learning I am trying to document
> the production of: This is from a sewing shop (now defunct) in Pennsylvania.
> The two women being quoted are union representatives They are talking
> about workers who at best can hope to make $6.65 an hour, on incentive –
> piece rate – work.
>
>
>
> Sometimes the 75% workers can't make enough to make $6.65. Nobody likes
> to make less than $6.65. A 75% worker is called sub-standard. Nobody
> likes to be called sub-standard. They're grumpy. Then the supervisor will
> tell people, "I'm losing money on that worker. I'm having to pay them
> "make-up" -- that is, he's having to make up the difference between their
> production and the base rate. The person is not happy about this. You
> label someone substandard, it takes its toll. It leaves a scar. If they
> can't make rate within 8 weeks, the plant manager has a right to take a
> dollar off their earnings. So now they're down to $5.65 an hour. They
> have no right to keep a job. They can get put on any job. Then, when
> there's a layoff, they go first.
>
> This lady was listed as substandard which meant she was making $5.05 an
> hour or minimum wage at that time. She complained, and they gave her 8
> weeks, and she made rate but they were still shopping her around as if she
> hadn't. I complained to the district manager. I said, this lady has
> made rate. She filed a grievance. It took me 6 months to get it fixed,
> but they paid her $1 for every hour she'd worked substandard. They owed her
> an apology, too, but she didn't get it.
>
>
>
> The other union representative says:
>
>
>
> I have this one lady who is seventy-one years old. She's sassy. She has
> only 10 years in and she can't retire. I didn't know she was that old. She
> doesn't want anyone to know she's that old. So just last week they were
> giving her a hard time. They said, "You're not a rate-maker." Now this
> lady has made rate. We got together. Me, the shop chair, this lady, and
> the supervisor. I said, "Do you think she doesn't have feelings? The
> supervisor said, "I didn't mean to insult her." This lady said, "I'm sick
> and tired of being harassed." The supervisor said, "I'm sick and tired of
> hearing from her," and walked out. So we wrote up a grievance and I took
> it to the big boss, the plant manager. I picked up this lady in my car and
> took her with me. This lady said, "Let me do my job and leave me alone."
> The big boss said, "I will make sure the supervisor doesn't bother you. "
> I said, "Please give it to me in writing." So he wrote it down. He wrote,
> "I did not realize this was causing stress on you. We will do our best in
> the future." It took a spunky, sassy worker to do this.
>
>
>
>
>
> The learning I am interested in understanding is the kind of learning that
> produces this sort of action. Literacy is part of it ("So I wrote up a
> grievance…") but it's only a slice.
>
>
>
> Does anyone know of studies of how this kind of learning is produced?
>
> Thanks – Helena
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Helena Worthen
> NEW EMAIL: hworthen@uiuc.edu
> Chicago Labor Education Program
> Suite 110 The Rice Building
> 815 West Van Buren Street
> Chicago, IL 60607
> 312-996-8733
> ------------------------------
>
> *From:* Mike Cole [mailto:lchcmike@gmail.com]
> *Sent:* Tuesday, December 12, 2006 11:20 AM
> *To:* Helena Harlow Worthen
> *Cc:* eXtended Mind, Culture,Activity; Worthen, Helena
> *Subject:* Re: Request for work and literacy refs
>
>
>
> Hi Helena--- The work of Mike Rose comes quickly to mind. Have you checked
> that out?
> Also, it might help fire people's imaginations if you were to post some
> examples. What; is hard to imagine from your description is that the
> learning goals.contents are. Reading/writing is one highly circumscribed
> set of skills and this makes it easier to focus in, but, for example, when
> one is referring to things such as "leadership skills" the content of what
> is learned seems much more amorphous, at least to me.
>
> mike
>
> On 12/11/06, *Helena Harlow Worthen* <hworthen@ad.uiuc.edu> wrote:
>
> Hello --
>
> I sent this message about a week ago and haven't heard a peep back,
> which puzzles me. Is that because nobody can think of examples of what
> I'm asking for? Or am I asking for something too specific?
>
> I'm changing the message a bit to see if I can focus my request better.
>
> I'm looking for references on how people learn in organizations. Not
> THAT they do, but how they do. If possible, I would like references that
> deal with adults and the social context of work.
>
> Writing that asserts that people learn by participation in social
> organizations (like Stetsenko and Arievitch
> 2004) is good, but I'm really looking for writing that gives concrete
> examples of how this happens, from real-life examples. The references I
> am starting with are Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger's Situated Learning:
> LPP (1991), Wenger's Communities of Practice (1998), Engestrom's
> Learning by Expanding (1987), and Hutchins' work on distributed
> cognition.
>
> I am getting set up to write about the perceptions of high school
> seniors who observe their parents learning and developing leadership
> ability through participation in their unions (in this case, public
> sector state, county and municipal unions). The data I have are several
> thousand scholarship application essays in which students write about
> what the union has meant to their families. In many of these essays,
> students write specifically about how they have observed their parents
> developing as individuals and as leaders through participation.
>
> Literacy theory work is also good, but there's a tendency for those
> researchers to focus very tightly on the varieties of texts used, and
> I'm dealing with social contexts where literacy artifacts are not the
> focus.
>
> I would be grateful for any references that people can give me.
>
> If this topic is way outside the scope of this list, or the interest of
> people on this list, I'd appreciate hearing about that, too.
>
> Thank you --
>
> Helena Worthen
> Chicago Labor Education Program
> University of Illinois
> Suite 110 The Rice Building
> 815 West Van Buren Street
> Chicago, IL 60607
> 312-996-8733
> hworthen@uiuc.edu
>
>
>
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