Crossed wires : challenges to traditional apprenticeship in the electrical trade
Date
2003
Authors
Racca, Ruggero Lucio
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Abstract
This work investigates the reproduction of communities of practice. Focusing on apprenticeship into the electrical trade in British Columbia, the work reports findings of three years of ethnographic fieldwork. The work documents challenges to traditional apprenticeship -the historical learning model of transmission of domain knowledge and domain practices in the trade. Discontinuities between the acquisition of domain knowledge and domain practices, in light of the evolution of electricity from work energy to information energy, are the principal challenges faced by the apprenticeship model currently in place in British Columbia. The present study also documents the emergence of a form of cognitive apprenticeship in workplaces where non-traditional practices of the electrical trade are enacted. The nature and merits of cognitive apprenticeship as an alternative to traditional apprenticeship are discussed, and implications of the findings for educational programs are offered.