ity
ABSTRACT
An important feature of enculturation into a community of practice is the trajectory along which a newcomer
progresses to become an old-timer schooled in the practices of the discipline. At different points along this trajectory
different expectations of knowledge and proficiency are placed on the learner/newcomer. Insights valuable to science
education practices were gained by conducting a two-year (and continuing) ethnographic study of a college-level
electrical trades program in which both theoretical and practical science knowledge was an important element. This
study consisted of two parts focusing respectively on a pre-apprenticeship college program, and on the subsequent
apprenticing on job sites. An analysis of fieldnotes, interviews, and videotape/digital picture rendering of both
college and work sites (collected as the first author engaged in an electrical trade apprenticeship) suggests that there
are several discontinuities between science knowledge in the classroom and in the field site. Understanding these
discontinuities, we can offer better science teaching in our classrooms. As well, evidence suggests that an increased
technological orientation of the electrical trades (and others) requires an increased, more thorough, and more practical
understanding of scientific principles which runs counter to many of the science programs aimed at non-university
students in high schools.
CONTEXT
Becoming a participating member in a community that enacts specific practices entails more than
simply acquiring knowledge about that domain. A newcomer is expected to acquire a body of
facts participants ought to know and to develop competency in the tool-based practices
pertinent to the domain. A third factor is the time-line along which entrance into the community
of practice is articulated. In the process of going from newcomer to full member, different
expectations of knowledge and proficiency are placed on the learner at different times.
At a time when lucrative areas of employment that traditionally required little schooling are
reduced, adult members of those (now reduced) communities are faced with the need to Science & the Electrical Trade 2
reposition themselves as members of other, often more scientifically oriented, communities of
practice. For instance, obtaining qualifications that have aspects of formal certification (such as
being a journeyman electrician) opens up lucrative employment opportunities that twenty years
as an (un-journeyed) electrician does not. The appropriation of scientific and technological
practices in order to enter, as adults, a new community of practice poses unique problems.
Scientifically and technologically oriented communities of practice, such as the electrical trade,
have historically reproduced themselves through a process of apprenticeship. Some forms of
trade apprenticeships involve working at the elbow of a single mentorbe it a Pueblo potter
(Bunzel, 1929) or a Tugen blacksmith (Coy, 1992). Electrical apprenticeships in British
Columbia, by contrast, entail periods of work in the field often at the employ of a number of
firms over the four years of the apprenticeship and periods of training in an accredited college.
Also, given the scientific rooting of electrical practices, the alternating periods of formal (college)
and informal (field) training make electrical apprenticeships akin to the scientific
apprenticeships(e.g., Traweek, 1988) currently at the center of investigation by a number of
science educators. Central to any form of apprenticeship is the availability to the apprentice of a
zone of legitimate peripheral participation (Lave and Wenger, 1991). Legitimate peripheral
participation is understood as a role offered to the apprentice allowing the apprentice to
legitimately participate in the practices of the mentor, albeit peripherally, namely without being
exposed to undue risks, and without being held unduly responsible for nefarious outcomes of the
practice. Legitimate peripheral participation is also understood in terms of a geographical zone,
defining an area in the physical proximity of a mentor. In this geographical zone, the apprentice
can both witness trade practices being enacted, and be witnesses enacting trade practices. It is in
this zone that the newcomer's knowledge and competency develop along a well-defined time-
line (Lave & Wenger, 1991). In the past, traditional newcomers to electrical practice have been
males in their early twenties. However, the current socio-economic restructuring has resulted in
male and female adult members of declining communities of practice (such as forestry) attempting
to enter the electrical trade, usually following government sponsored pre-apprenticeship courses.
Our research is concerned with understanding the nature scientific and technological practices, the
appropriation of these practices, and the manner in which newcomers are accepted by
experienced practitioners. As part of this research we have conducted long-term studies about
knowing and learning in the electrical trade, both in formal (college) and informal (field) settings.
PURPOSE
This study aims to document the manner in which electrical trade practices are taught in college
(as scientific and mathematically oriented activities) and in the field (as enacted practices) as part
of an electrical trade apprenticeship. We also document the social dynamics of the educational
process, particularly with respect to exchange of scientific notions. The study uses ethnography
to document the teaching of scientific practices pertinent to the electrical trade and the unfolding
of these practices in one pre-apprenticeship college program and in nine months of work in the Science & the Electrical Trade 3
field as an apprentice. Interviews with established members of the electrical trade in which they
related their experiences in becoming members of the community of practice were also conducted.
An analysis of the data was conducted to determine the nature of the cognitive and embodied
skills required for accomplishing scientifically and technologically oriented tasks in the electrical
trade.
THEORETICAL FRAME
This study was designed to investigate how learning scientific practices related to the electrical
trade varies between formal (college) and informal (field) settings. Our research was informed by
anthropological and ethnomethodological investigations of cognitive skills required in the
completion of material activities (Brown & Duguid, 1992; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Roth, 1996).
For our study of the reproduction of a community of scientific and technological practice we
drew on the theoretical approaches and interpretive frameworks of other anthropological,
ethnomethodological, and sociological studies of practitioners and apprentices at work (Coy,
1989; Latour & Woolgar, 1986; Lynch, 1985; Traweek, 1988). From this perspective, knowledge
does not reside exclusively in peoples heads; rather, it is decisively constituted by the way
people go about their daily business. For example, knowledge is constituted by the way people
justify what they do, the tools they use, the practices they adopt, and the stories they tell. Our
approach also considers findings indicating that tool-related practices belong to a form of
scientific knowledge that is extremely difficult to communicate, and that often has to be learned
from an expert practitioner in the context of its use (Collins, 1982; McCain, 1991; Roth, 1996).
RESEARCH DESIGN
This study came about as part of the first authors retraining from a science and education
background into a trade; the apprenticeship trajectory followed by R.R. to date is summarized in
Table 1. Entrance into the trade through a college-based pre-apprenticeship program has become
the route of choice for approximately half of the newcomers in the electricians community of
practice in British Columbia. Although no two apprenticeship trajectories are ever exactly
identical in part due to the different nature of the employment secured by apprentices the
trajectory followed by R.R. is in keeping with trajectories followed by apprentices whose
experiences were recorded in the field.
Ethnographic data collected during this time falls into the realm of auto-ethnography (see
Hayano, 1982; Orr 1990), where the first author was in many ways coming home to a trade
community, rather than investigating an exotic other. As a teenager, R.R. had worked in the
family business, assisting with the installation and maintenance of industrial laundry appliances,
while more recently he had worked as a laborer and electrician's helper in the construction of
single-family dwellings. Science & the Electrical Trade 4
Our mode of data collection also falls into the realm of participant observation research, where
the ethnographer is both observing and participating in the activity observed. However, unlike
participant observation research conducted solely to gather data addressing a research question,
R.R.s ability to perform in the electrical trade to secure work, to acquire skills, to attain
progressively higher remuneration, and to successfully avoid electrocution has very direct
implications on his daily life. This sets our data gathering apart from simple auto-ethnographic
participant observation, and into what we refer to as Lived-Life ethnography. This type of
ethnographic work allows not only for the observation of the teaching and learning of scientific
and technological practices, but also offers a profound experiential documentation of the stresses,
hurd