Ethnomethodological Perspective Research Articles

Understanding efficacy in psychotherapy: An ethnomethodological perspective on the therapeutic alliance.

In recent years there has been considerable interest in the discovery of a universal paradigm to explain how psychotherapy works. One potential paradigm, known as the therapeutic alliance, is highly correlated with positive patient change. However, the phenomenology and clinical significance of the alliance remains ambiguous. Using a sociological subdiscipline known as ethnomethodology, the author advances a novel perspective on the therapeutic alliance that promises to resolve this ambiguity.

Medjugorje's Living Icons: Making Spirit Matter (for Sociology)

The sociology of religion is at an impasse in its analysis of the mystical dimension of its object. Inspired by the ethnomethodological perspective, this paper proposes an alternative analytical strategy. This approach maintains that claims of mystical influence can be dealt with by sociological enquiry without transforming their self-definition. The strategy is exemplified in the analysis of video accounts of apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Medjugorje, Bosnia-Hercegovina. It is argued that the accounts constitute the apparitions through a process of transubstantiation, the visionaries becoming the embodiment of the Virgin Mary's aesthetic qualities, moral features and historical role, and her religious function.

Re‐discovering practical reading activities in homes and schools

This paper explores issues arising from the long‐standing theoretical and empirical attention to reading as a specifiable set of psychological processes, and the consequences of this attention for parents’ and educators’ deliberations and practices. The argument is developed that these theorisations and research projects have both driven and been driven by the social and interactional configurations that teaching has traditionally been taken to entail. It then offers a critique of available theories and research findings from the perspective of ethnomethodology, along with a brief description of an ethnomethodological approach to reading as a co‐ordinated set of practical social activities. The paper proceeds to exemplify what an ethnomethodological approach could look like, through the examination of transcripts of reading sessions. The paper concludes that theories of reading need to deal fundamentally with the practices that learners, teachers and parents display as they engage in and ‘bring off’ as reading sessions, as phenomena to be explained in their own right, rather than as representations of available theories.

Evaluating medical information systems: ethnomethodological and interactionist approaches

This paper examines how qualitative research can contribute to the evaluation of medical information systems. Most qualitative studies of the use of medical computer systems adopt either an interactionist or, less commonly, an ethnomethodological perspective. The paper compares and contrasts the two approaches through the detailed discussion of two case studies, one rooted in each tradition. It identifies the implications of using these different analytical approaches and assesses their strengths and weaknessess. The paper argues that the preference for interactionism has led qualitative researchers to overlook important aspects of the social processess which surround the use of computer systems and that, consequently, a shift in emphasis towards ethnomethodological research is necessary. Nonetheless, it concludes by asserting that both strands of qualitative research can illuminate the organizational impact of medical computer systems.

Evaluating medical information systems: ethnomethodological and interactionist approaches.

This paper examines how qualitative research can contribute to the evaluation of medical information systems. Most qualitative studies of the use of medical computer systems adopt either an interactionist or, less commonly, an ethnomethodological perspective. The paper compares and contrasts the two approaches through the detailed discussion of two case studies, one rooted in each tradition. It identifies the implications of using these different analytical approaches and assesses their strengths and weaknessess. The paper argues that the preference for interactionism has led qualitative researchers to overlook important aspects of the social processess which surround the use of computer systems and that, consequently, a shift in emphasis towards ethnomethodological research is necessary. Nonetheless, it concludes by asserting that both strands of qualitative research can illuminate the organizational impact of medical computer systems.

On "Technomethodology": Foundational Relationships Between Ethnomethodology and System Design

Over the past 10 years, the use of sociological methods and sociological reasoning have become more prominent in the analysis and design of interactive systems. For a variety of reasons, one form of sociological inquiry—ethnomethodology—has become something of a favored approach. Our goal in this article is to investigate the consequences of approaching system design from the ethnomethodological perspective. In particular, we are concerned with how ethnomethodology can take a foundational place in the very notion of system design, rather than simply being employed as a resource in aspects of the process, such as requirements elicitation and specification. We begin by outlining the basic elements of ethnomethodology and discussing the place that it has come to occupy in computer-supported cooperative work and, increasingly, in human-computer interaction. We discuss current approaches to the use of ethnomethodology in systems design, and we point to the contrast between the use of ethnomethodology for critique and for design. Currently, understandings of how to use ethnomethodology as a primary aspect of system design are lacking. We outline a new approach and present an extended example of its use. This approach takes as its starting point a relationship between ethnomethodology and system design that is a foundational, theoretical matter rather than simply one of design practice and process. From this foundation, we believe, emerges a new model of interaction with computer systems, which is based on ethnomethodological perspectives on everyday human social action.

Zen Sociology: The Un-TV Experiment

respond-to-the-question). In a sense it's not the so-called answers that are important, but rather gaining access to a way of questioning, a way of seeing. In my Introduction to Sociology class, the experiment that I describe here takes place after an Unoccupied, unemployed experiment and after we examine labor, structure, and the mode of production. It functions as an introduction to our examination of the mode of consumption, of socialization, of the media and of the culture of consuming. It is a small attempt to address that vast complex of meanings, actions, and institutions that make up the accomplished structure of consuming. Regarding the question to my class about knowing how to watch TV, we soon acknowledged that we were all experts, as Garfinkel (1967) would say, in the practice and accomplishment called In our ordinary experience we watch television. The purpose of our Un-TV experiment was to provoke us into seeing television, in don Juan's sense: Thus, as a teacher...don Juan's...contention was that he was teaching me how to 'see' as opposed to merely 'looking,' and that 'stopping the world' was the first step to 'seeing' (Castaneda 1972, p.ix). In our Un-TV experiment we engage in stopping the world by stopping the As a society we view television as real. We watch our wars on the same sets as our football games. W.I. Thomas taught us long ago, if humans define situations as real, they become real. From an ethnomethodological perspective in our Un-TV experiment, we bracket the natural (Heritage 1984, pp. 38-43) ofrealism while watching TV. We engage in a phenomenological reduction of that attitude and thereby attempt to see McLuhan's cool medium of participation. That is, we attempt to see that the practice/institution called TV is a contingent, highly active, hermeneutic practice, a managed, precarious yet routinized, ongoing accomplishment rather than the passive, transparent perception of an indifferent exteriority. We are dealing here with the social construction of reality (Berger and Luckman 1966); if this is experienced personally regarding the practice of watching TV, it can be extended with great force and effectiveness to other practices and other institutions: the school, the economy, the family, the polity.

Reconceptualizing gender in physician-patient relationships

In this paper, I propose that existing research on how women physicians relate to patients differently from men might benefit from a reconceptualization of gender. Toward this end, I present an ethnomethodological perspective on gender as an accomplishment and show how it contrasts with conventional perspectives on 'sex differences' and 'sex roles'. I review results of existing research on women and men physicians' relationships with their patients, highlighting the inadequacies of conventional perspectives to address this topic. Finally, I recast results of my own research on 'doctors' orders' in an effort to illustrate the utility of this perspective to research on gender's effects on the physician-patient relationship.

Game-Rules and Social Theory

Game Theory, Experimental Games and many other social theorists use games as an analytic device to understand non-game social processes, yet operate with a narrow conception of games restricted to the formal or codified rules. This formalist imagery of games provides an inadequate account of agency in games and fails to access the interpretive work by players in negotiating with game-structures. In contrast Garfinkel's ethnomethodological perspective on social processes provides the basis for identifying five interdependent dimensions of rule-following in games. This suggests that game processes are necessarily under-determined by formal rules, and that players can explore the essential insufficiency of the rules in pursuit of their interests in winning. This provides the basis for understanding changes to game-structures over time and has broader application to other social processes.

The Cognitive as the Social

This article explores the uses of ethnomethodology in developing a robust sociocognitive theory of writing. Ethnomethodology, a radical movement in sociology that studies people's sense-making practices, has some parallel interests with cognitive-process research in composition. At the same time, because ethnomethodology is attuned to how sense-making involves organizing social structure, it also shares parallel interests with social-constructionist thought in composition. This article uses ethnomethodological perspectives to translate the language of Flower and Hayes's cognitive theory of writing into a more thoroughly social vocabulary as a way of articulating the role of social context and social structure in individual acts of writing.

Understanding Ethics in Practice: An Ethnomethodological Approach to the Study of Business Ethics

Business ethics is an eclectic blend of intellectual traditions that seeks to exam ine the question of “what should I do in my business relationships.” This paper attempts to widen this discussion by proposing an alternative view of the nature of ethical behaviour: ethical behaviour as a situated social accomplishment. From an ethnomethodological perspective, norms and rules have the status of interpretive aids which are used to negotiate an acceptable meaning for a situation; norms and rules are constituted by, and in part constitute, the situations in which they occur. While most work in business ethics has tended to reify ethical practices, this paper stresses the contingent and situational nature of ethical decision making. In addition to presenting an ethnomethodological perspective, this paper discusses the methodological ramifications of this perspective through an examination of three ethnographic studies of situated rule usage.For any worthwhile study of society must be philosophical in character and any worthwhile philosophy nzust be concerned with the nature of human society.– Peter Wirch (1958: 3)

Ethnomethodology I: an approach to nursing research

This is the first of two papers outlining and demonstrating an ethnomethodological perspective upon nursing research. The aim of this paper is to introduce the reader to some of the basic ideas of ethnomethodology, and to stimulate nursing researchers into questioning some of the presuppositions involved in their work. To this end ethnomethodology is explored through a series of contrasts between the conventional approach to the sociology of nursing and an ethnomethodological approach. To conclude, some of the areas of interest for ethnomethodological nursing research are outlined.

‘Lingua franca’ negotiations: towards an interactional approach

ABSTRACT: Kachru [World Englishes, 9, 3–20 (1990)] observes that studies in English as a non‐native language are dominated by either ‘deficit’ or ‘deviational’ approaches. What is lacking, he notes, is an interactional approach, i.e. one which considers how language is used interactively to accomplish social goals. This paper attempts to develop the theme of an ‘interactional approach’ and discusses its theoretical underpinnings. The proposed method entails the adoption of ethnomethodological perspectives on social knowledge, combined with conversation analytic interests in detailing the locally managed character of spoken interaction. The setting of international (trading) negotiations, conducted in ‘lingua franca’ English, provides the focal point for discussion. The term ‘lingua franca’ English is introduced to describe the language used exclusively by and among non‐native speakers. A distinction is made between: (1) intranational lingua franca, and (2) international lingua franca. Finally, the notion of ‘internationalization’ of negotiating behaviour and language use is discussed.

On task in classroom discourse

A redefinition of “task” is presented in terms of a situated ethnomethodological perspective. The “situation”, which is the focal point of this article, is a series of reading lessons in a third-grade classroom. My aim is to suggest that the ways in which the basic Initiation-Response-Feedback sequence is expanded may be task specific. I describe, analyze, and provide empirical examples of expanded Initiation-Response-Feedback formats in which I note that expansions of the format might be related to task needs.

Contested Rules: An Explanation of How Games Change

Games such as basketball, hockey and different codes of football change their rules frequently, but little is known of the particular interactive processes through which such changes are impelled. Building upon an earlier ethnomethodological perspective on games- playing, an explanation is offered which conceives rule changes as the unintended and unanticipated outcome of the interaction between groups who have different interests in the games-playing process. Rule changes are impelled because game legislators (rules committees) do not and cannot wholly anticipate the ways in which their legislative action will be interpreted by game-players and by coaches. To explain how games change, the rules need to be understood as both the medium and the outcome of the interaction processes amongst interdependent interest groups.

Book Reviews: Method in Social Science: A Realist Approach, The Perspective of Ethnomethodology, Sociology, Ethnomethodology and Experience, The Social Dimension: European Developments in Social Psychology, Rethinking Cognitive Theory, Beyond the State? Dominant Theories and Socialist Strategies, War, State and Society, Prisons and the Process of Justice, Regulating Society: Marginality and Social Control in Historical Perspective, Terrorism in Northern Ireland, Classes

Book Reviews: Method in Social Science: A Realist Approach, The Perspective of Ethnomethodology, Sociology, Ethnomethodology and Experience, The Social Dimension: European Developments in Social Psychology, Rethinking Cognitive Theory, Beyond the State? Dominant Theories and Socialist Strategies, War, State and Society, Prisons and the Process of Justice, Regulating Society: Marginality and Social Control in Historical Perspective, Terrorism in Northern Ireland, Classes

Recidivism as a Process

Abstract This paper approaches recidivism from the perspective of ethnomethodology and views “recidivism” as the product of, various decisions and interactions. Consequently, rehabilitation and measures of its success or failure must be considered as a process. An example is presented of the use of failure rate anlaysis in analyzing the recidivism of 468 men released from a penitentiary in Iowa. While the need for better theory and its utilization is not denied, it is suggested that the development of valid theories in corrections is dependent upon greater attention to the measurement of “what works?” and “for whom?”

ORGANIZATIONAL RULES AND THE ACCOMPLISHMENT OF NURSING WORK ON GERIATRIC WARDS

ABSTRACTThe data on which this paper is based come from an ethnography of rehabilitation of the elderly. Two main themes, methodological and substantive, predominate. Some methodological issues surrounding ethnographic techniques are highlighted. These include gaining access, establishing relationships and the researcher having a number of roles rather than just one.The ethnomethodological perspective on organizations as a constellation of rules informs the substantive theme of the paper. Within this perspective rule use is situated and the meanings of particular rules are discerned from their use in specific contexts. This approach enables attention to be directed to the practical problems with which individuals are confronted in doing organizational work and how actors orient to them in action. The ways in which organizational rules may be defeased, manipulated or suspended are detailed with reference to nurses working on geriatric wards.

Problems of Rural Development in Central Java: An Ethnomethodological Perspective

Rural development, when it has been conceived of as a science at all, has generally been conceived of as a quantitative science. Numbers are used to establish the baseline of the population at issue, to plan changes in the population, and to measure the impact or success of these changes. It is the argument of this paper that this confident quantification led to critical weaknesses in much of the past and pre sent work in development. More specifically, it will be argued here that developmental studies suffer from a false appreciation of quantitative data and an equally false misappreciation of qualitative data, based on an erroneous epistemological distinction between the two. This argument will be advanced beginning with a discussion of the historical roots of quantitative analysis in social science, followed by a critique of these methods, including a critique of their use in the development of Indonesian agriculture. An alternative research methodology supported by case material from a study of rural development in the regencies of Sleman and Jepara in Central Java is then proposed.

Comparative Education from an Ethnomethodological Perspective

In a 1977 issue of the Comparative Education Review two of its editors (Andreas Kazamias and Karl Schwartz) wrote: Despite considerable intellectual endeavor, the expansion of institutional programs for teaching and research, the growth of an international professional organization, and the publication of a respected scholarly journal, comparative education continues to be highly problematic (Comparative Education Review, 21, p. 151). This paper seeks to suggest an explanation for this by examining comparative studies from the perspective of recent work in the sociology of knowledge, and particularly from that approach to the study of social reality called ethnomethodology. Many social scientists are devoting more and more of their research time to the study of language as a way to uncovering what have been called, in traditional social research, 'social facts'. These 'social facts' include many of the variables used in comparative education in studies of educational opportunity and attainment and their relationship to social class, sex, IQ, expenditure on education, national policies on educational provision, ideology, language, ethnicity, etc. (Comparative Education Review, Special Issue: State of the Art, Vol. 21, June/October 1977.) Perhaps the most widely publicised and supported of these studies has been the IEA study of mathematics (Husen, 1967). Virtually all such studies approximate in their research model to an epistemology whereby social facts function, in their relationship with some aspect of the educational system, as dependent or independent variables. Comparative educationalists have tried to use this relationship to explain the role of education in society or to explain society's effect on education. A projection of this interest in functional relationships has been an attempt to provide information that would be useful to educational planners, policy makers and reformers. In both explaining the inter-relationship between education and society, and in providing useful information to bureaucrats and civil servants, comparative studies of education seem to have been singularly unsuccessful. It seems that we know very little about the society/education relationship as a result of comparative research that we would not know through common-sense. In the issue of the Comparative Education Review (1977, 2/3), mentioned earlier, North American work in the field over the past 20 years is summed up and evaluated in a series of useful articles on such diverse topics as education and: social stratification; economics; politics; development; anthropology; ethnicity; achievement; curriculum and pedagogy; and social change. In so far as this gives us an accurate picture of comparative studies it suggests good reasons for the paucity of useful work coming out of this research. Virtually all the studies ignore what goes on in dayto-day interaction in schools. In normal social science fashion data are gathered on indicators for phenomena, rather than observing the phenomena themselves. To paraphrase Mehan & Wood (1975, p. 48) commenting on sociological studies: The trouble with [comparative education] is