Talk and Conceptual Change at Work: Adequate Representation and Epistemic Stance in a Comparative Analysis of Statistical Consulting and Teacher Workgroups

Abstract

In this article we ask how concepts that organize work in two professional disciplines change during moments of consultation, which represent concerted efforts by participants to work differently now and in the future. Our analysis compares structures of talk, the adequacy of representations of practice, and epistemic and moral stances deployed when workgroups in clinical health sciences and secondary mathematics teaching seek to improve their work in discussions with colleagues and experts. Our comparative analysis highlights interactional supports for identifying, elaborating, and stabilizing relatively small-scale innovations in joint work that contribute to development at multiple timescales. These supports include comparisons over accounts of practice that borrow and extend method or technique, negotiating adequate representations of practice, use and uptake of epistemic stance toward what can be known about shared work, and surrounding organizational structures that provide for (or inhibit) the circulation of new concepts across workgroups.