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Brown-Bag Lunches, Fall semester 1997
CREW EVENTSThursday, September 18, 1997
Harley Shaiken, Professor of Social and Cultural Studies in Education: "Some Implications of the Recent UPS Strike"
Thursday, October 30, 1997
Jean Lave, Professor of Social and Cultural Studies in Education: "Producing Families, Trading Histories: An Ethnographic Historical Study of the Douro Region (Portugal)"
Thursday, November 6, 1997
David Levine, Haas School of Business: On knowledge-managemement and related research in workplaces.
Brown-Bag Lunches, Spring semester 1998
Thursday, February 19, 1998
David Stern and Norton Grubb, Directors for the National Center for Research on Vocational Education: "New Directions for NCRVE"
A video of this colloquium is available for viewing. Please contact CREW for information.
Thursday, April 9, 1998
Richard Kazis, Vice President for Policy at Jobs for the Future, will join us for lunch before his talk that afternoon at 4 pm. Time and location of lunch tba.
Thursday, April 30, 1998
Steve Herzenberg, University of Pennsylvania will have lunch with CREW members before his talk that afternoon at 4 pm. Time and location of lunch tba.
1997-98 Colloquia
April 28, 1997
Chuck Darrah, Professor of Anthropology, San Jose State University
"Always Working: Work, Identity, and Community in the Silicon Valley."
Once the Valley of Heart's Delight, Silicon Valley is now a laboratory in which work, identity, and community are connected in ever more complex ways. Exploring the results of these "experiments" is the goal of the Silicon Valley Cultures Project, a collaborative effort currently being conducted by anthropologists at San Jose State University.
A video of this colloquium is available for viewing. Please contact CREW for information.
Thursday, February 5, 1998 4 - 5:30 pm (locationtba)
Lucy Suchman, Xerox PARC
"Work-Oriented Design: Learning from Workers and Users."
This talk will describe a research program at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center aimed at bringing anthropological studies of everyday work practices to bear on the design of more genuinely useful technologies. The program includes two related lines of research. The first is concerned with developing an approach to the analysis of work practices in specific sites, and to the generalization of findings across sites. The second line of research is aimed at bringing studies of work practice into the process of technology design, through the co-design of prototypes with intended system users. The talk will provide an introduction to our research program, illustrated with materials drawn from past and current projects.
A video of this colloquium is available for viewing. Please contact CREW for information.
Thursday, April 9 ,1998 4-5:30 pm (2515 Tolman Hall)
Richard Kazis, Jobs for the Future
"Employers and High School Reform: Case Studies from Four Cities"
Various school reform initiatives, from school-to-work to standards-driven reform efforts, emphasize the importance of involving employers in schools as resources, supports, and outside pressure. What investments are employers willing to make in high school reform efforts? What kinds of investments are most useful for schools trying to rethink high school instruction and learning? How can employer involvement be best organized to promote reforms that improve both academic achievement and career preparation? What are the pros and cons of different strategies? And what kinds of incentives are most likely to bring employers to the table as reform partners?
Richard Kazis, Vice President for Policy at Jobs for the Future in Boston, will report on case studies of employer involvement in district-wide reform efforts in four cities--Boston, Philadelphia, Louisville, and Fort Worth--conducted as part of a project on "The Employer's Role in Linking School and Work," conducted by JFF for the Committee for Economic Development.
Thursday, April 30, 1998 4-5:30 pm (2515 Tolman Hall)
Steven Herzenberg, University of Pennsylvania
"Achieving Post-Industrial Prosperity Through the Promotion of Learning within Occupational Communities."
Based on a forthcoming book, New Rules for a New Economy, this talk will contrast today's post-industrial service-centered economy with the manufacturing-oriented economy of the past. This comparison draws from an empirically-grounded theoretical framework on the service sector labor market. It picks up where a previous generation of institutional labor economists -- preoccupied with manufacturing -- left off.
New Rules suggests that the framework of 'rules' under which the U.S. economy and labor market operate needs to be changed to reflect the new realities of service industries from banking to insurance, retailing to and health care, child to elder care. By reshaping its institutions, the United States can create better opportunities for workers and enable businesses to improve their performance. Both better opportunities and better economic performance are necessary to recreate the prosperity and sense of optimism in the industrial America of the 1950s and 1960s.
Among the institutions needed are new career ladders and worker associations that cut across firm boundaries. One of the central advantages of such structures is their capacity to strengthen work-related communication within groups of workers and occupational communities. This type of communication -- and the work-based learning to which it would contribute -- could substantially enhance "economies of depth" within a wide range of customer-contact and customized service work.