Dana Kovarsky, Judith Duchan, & Madeline Maxwell (eds.), Constructing (in)competence: Disabling evaluations in clinical and social interaction. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1999. Pp. vi, 381. Hb $89.95.

Abstract

The 15 articles in this book focus on the evaluation of competence in clinical, educational, and other contexts in which people are regularly judged as incompetent. Several focus on interactions involving adults and children with communication disorders; others present issues of competence and incompetence in foreign-language learning, educational assessment, the discussion of medical diagnoses between medical staff and clients, and psychotherapy sessions. Although there is no single prevailing research methodology used throughout, a consistent theme is that competence and incompetence are socially constructed within interaction, and that the evaluation of (in)competence is central to the creation and negotiation of social identity in everyday life.