This dissertation investigates heterosexed reality as an ongoing accomplishment by the members at a workplace. Observations were carried out sporadically for two years at a museum. During this period twelve formal interviews, fifteen informal interviews, three formal group interviews and three informal group interviews were also conducted. The study rests on an ethnomethodological understanding of how reality and order is achieved by actors in interaction through the use of ethnomethods, such as common sense. Order is produced in a number of situations and it is situations, as locations of shared practices, which are primarily focused. It is concluded that the members try to, in different ways, realise the museum as a nice place. The concept of straight-framing is introduced to describe one of the pleasure procedures performed by the members in order to generate good mood, solidarity and familiarity in everyday working life. To successfully straight-frame situations, the members must utilise the heterosexual matrix and produce themselves and others as intelligibly sexed beings, belonging to either the category women or men, and as relatable to people of the other sex in couple-like and/or sexualised (explicitly or implicitly) ways. Three different forms of straight-framing are distinguished; direct, mock direct and indirect. The members also routinely realise the museum as a nice place by creating a discourse of political correctness. The easiest way to produce and use this discourse appears to be to talk about gender equality. In conversations about gender equality women and men are commonsensically turned into a standardised relational pair and this is referred to as the body count routine. While the body count routine makes the issue of gender equality intelligible for the members and enables them to come across as politically competent, it also provides them with an opportunity to organise the working units at the museum. Sex-mixed units can be placed above non-mixed in a moral hierarchy.

Diss. Linköping : Linköpings universitet, 2007.

Using an ethnomethodological approach, this research sought to describe how Restorative Justice is integrated into the daily world of the prosecution. This was achieved through the use of in-depth interviews with ten Crown attorneys from different sites in Eastern Canada alongside limited periods of participant observation. This research described how Crown attorneys inhabit a world in which it is necessary to perform an in-depth analysis of the defendant, their characteristics and how much blame can be accorded to them in order to then consider what sanction, if any, is required. Their world also demonstrated that protection of the victim and of society are paramount. Nevertheless, issues such as delay and the reputation of the criminal justice system were shown to be an important factor to also consider as a competent member of the prosecution. Through these methods, participants described a world in which Crowns embody a quasi-judicial role by evaluating and deciding on the proper course of action in regards to a criminal file. When applied to the use of Restorative Justice, these factors helped demonstrate that Crown attorneys thought of it as something which allowed victim and defendant to communicate with one another regarding the consequences of a crime. Restorative Justice was able to be justified through certain factors mentioned above; however, certain other aspects did not find support through them. Indeed Crowns appreciated such a process because they felt it would not endanger victims, that it might contribute to the safety of the public, and because it does not supersede the criminal justice system. Furthermore, for some, it might reduce delay. However, aspects such as attaining victim and or defendant satisfaction did not easily align with the aforementioned factors despite the positive manner in which these potential consequences of Restorative Justice were described by most participants. It was hypothesized then that Restorative Justice is used in a seemingly appropriate manner due to the ways in which it can respond to issues which are important to the prosecution. Other potential positive consequences are simply viewed as beneficial but not offering strong justification for the use of such programs on their own. Indeed, through Restorative Justice, Crowns stay in some measure of control over proceedings while it may also help bolster the legitimacy criminal justice system by responding to certain criticisms levelled against it. Thus, to a certain degree, Crowns are able to reconcile the two different approaches by highlighting the benefits it brings to the criminal justice system while not drawing attention to the ways it does not.

This dissertation considers the rhetorical use of the term “spontaneity” and action affiliated with it from the perspective of ethnomethodology, as a dynamic social practice emergent from concrete interactions among people. I first consider a variety of existing operationalizations of “spontaneity” in academic research from the perspective of what is ethnomethodologically accomplished by these operationalizations, i.e., what questions do they answer or attempt to answer? I then turn to a detailed rhetorical analysis of the term “spontaneity” as an ideograph in improvisational theatre, a social practice in which enactment of spontaneity is treated as criterial to identity and recognition of the practice. In this ideographic analysis, I consider both a set of popular improv method texts and a collection of interviews with improviers who relate narratives about their experiences or observations of spontaneity. I assess the rhetorical practices in these artifacts both through the operationalization framework I identify and from a critical perspective, asking how practices of spontaneity in improv relate to social structures and practices of privilege, oppression and power.

No description available.

Conversation analytic (CA) and ethnomethodological (EM) techniques are employed in this study to explore the ways speakers within and between interactional turns build and resist gender category by resisting its activities/predicates. It aims to reveal how a sex-reassigned child’s identity is pertinent to the construction of membership categorization and the doing of resistance towards category-bound activities/predicates.  The study attempts to explain how the child tries to design her answers in a way that - both explicitly and implicitly - resist both the gender membership categorization she is being assigned to be and its ties (predicates/activities) she is being asked to accomplish. Membership categorization analysis (MCA), formulated by Sacks (1979), is employed here to show that the identity categories used in talk are tools by which participants organize and perform activities/predicates to establish their categories. The human subject that this project concentrates on is an immigrant family having a sex-reassigned child called Aidan. The data, which is analyzed, was collected during a dispute around the haircut and clothing style for the sex-reassigned child between the child and the parents. During the interaction the parents try to generate the category predicates for building up a set of activities around what might be considered ‘normal’ within a community that enables them to define and validate the child particular membership category. The main resistance strategies adopted by the child are dispreferred actions such as refusals mainly through accounting (e.g., justification and explanation) and disagreement.

Scholars in the field are of the opinion that the early simultaneous bilingual and bicultural exposure not only does not harm the bilinguals, but also strengthens their social and cultural foundations and keeps them from getting vulnerable to external environment (Deuchar and Quay 1999, 2000; Genesee 1989; Genesee, Nicoladis, and Paradis 1995; Holowka, Brosseau-Lapre ́, and Petitto 2002; Lanza 1992; Meisel 1989; Petitto et al. 2001). Also it has been demonstrated that bilingual children have differentiated systems to provide them with the ability to distinguish between their two input languages from the beginning of language acquisition (Petitto & Holowka, 2002). However, the driver of the children’s language preference patterns at home needs to be further explored. The present study is indeed an attempt to answer the question of why it is that some children regularly exposed to their heritage language from a very young age actually continue to actively use it, and other children involving in similar parental policy about bilingualism do not? It aims to examine the impacts of parental language strategies during the childhood on children language preference at home after they achieve the key competences in each of the two languages. The foci are parental attitudes towards the patterns of language choice and their influence on child language preference. Data are collected from two Iranian immigrant families; one has been experiencing additive bilingualism, while the other has been involved in the process of subtractive phenomenon. Some implications for parent-child closeness, heritage language and the risk of language contamination are touched on briefly.

The contextual evaluation framework (CEF) is a requirements engineering technique that incorporates a particular sociological orientation, Ethnomethodology, in the development of a rigorous and systematic approach for requirements elicitation. This qualitative approach examines how well a system may be aligned with the endogenous organisation of work within a community of practice. Assessing how well a system supports the knowledge, skills and practices that already exist within a community is equally as important as developing solutions that will eventually reconfigure those practices, create new ones and extend modes of collaboration. The aim of this thesis is to address the absence of a systematic approach to quasi-naturalistic prototype evaluation which may be useful to a broader community such as requirements engineers, computer scientists and others not familiar with the details of sociological approaches. Such an aim is in line with the ways in which prototype evaluation approaches, particularly in HCI, have successfully been disseminated throughout the computer science research community - with the provision of guidelines. Likewise, the CEF is conceived of to be implemented in a similar manner. Its focus is on the analysis of a prototype’s relevance as a tool that is in some manner familiar to those who might use it. Specifically, professionals within a discipline share complex skills and knowledge where they learn to use similar tools, instruments and processes necessary for their work. Implicit in these social practices, practitioners gradually acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to become full members of a community of practice. In this way, the processes, objects and artefacts of practice come to possess specific meaning and significance. The CEF examines how this complex architecture of meaning is supported, constrained or transformed when using a prototype and makes possible an assessment of the ways in which participants interpret its usefulness and usability.

The focus for this thesis is instructions and their role in guiding students’ activities and understandings in the context of textile craft. The empirical material consists of video recordings of courses in textile craft offered as part of teacher education programs. In four empirical studies, instructions directed towards competences in craft are investigated with the ambition to provide praxeological accounts of learning and instruction in domains where bodily dimensions and manual actions are prominent. The studies take an ethnomethodological approach to the study of learning and instruction. In the studies, instructions related to different stages of the making of craft objects are analysed. Study I highlights instructional work related to objects-yet-to-be and the distinction between listening to instructions as part of a lecture and listening to instructions when trying to use them for the purpose of making an object is discussed. Study II and III explore instructions in relation to developing-objects and examine instructions as a collaboration of hands and the intercorporeal dimensions of teaching and learning craft are scrutinised. In Study IV, objects-as-completed are analysed by investigating a certain way of addressing assessment as an educational topic. The manifest character of skills and understandings in craft provide specific conditions for learning and instruction. In craft education, skilled action is not just explained but also shown and established through bodily instructions that make the targeted skills available through bodily understandings of moving and touching. The bodily conduct of students comprises a resource for teachers to assess students’ understanding of the subject matter being taught as the materiality of craft activities reveal the crafters’ understanding of the activity at hand. The thesis demonstrates how skills in craft are made available to students in and through opportunities to see, feel and act in craft-specific ways. / At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 2: Submitted. Paper 3: Accepted. Paper 4: Submitted.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis & Malaria (GF) offers new approaches and challenges in international aid for health. Little research is available exploring the experiences of individuals and communities working within the confines of GF policies in Latin America. The study fills this gap through a qualitative exploration of local experiences with tuberculosis (TB) services and the GF in Nicaragua. <p>This study sought to examine local stakeholders (administrators, health personnel and persons affected by TB) experiences related to GF policies relevant to TB services in Nicaragua. The study drew from a population health perspective and was informed by an ethnomethodological approach. Key themes focused on TB control, health systems and health rights. Data collection involved contextual analysis, participant observation, in-depth interviews and focus groups. The study involved 6 months of fieldwork in Nicaragua from November 2005-April 2006. Fieldwork was conducted with the support, participation and assistance of the Centre for Health Research and Studies, the Damian Foundation and the National Tuberculosis Control Program. <p>Analysis of findings shows various internal and external challenges in communication/procedural and disbursement/execution aspects of the GF grant. In TB control, participants identified private sector participation, case detection & reduced abandonment as improvements resulting from the GF project, though sustainability was a key concern. In health systems, concerns of efficiency and efficacy in the use of funds were commonly expressed. The focus on human resource development via the GF was considered a strength of the project. Community participation and the reduction of stigma, two facets of health rights, were perceived to have improved through the GF grant; however, remain identified as key issues for improving the context of TB in Nicaragua. The experiences of people working to implement or receiving TB services and GF activities in Nicaragua offer valuable insight into the strengths and challenges of this country-driven approach to aid for health. The GF needs to give more attention to such experiences a resource for improving flexibility and assuring sustainability in program strengthening and human resource development.