2,654 research outputs found
Harold Garfinkel and ethnomethodology
No full textThis chapter explores the influence of Harold Garfinkel and the approach to studying social action known as ethnomethodology. The chapter explores the distinct approach to studying organizing ‘as it happens’ developed by ethnomethodologists. We identify the differences between ethnomethodological approaches and mainstream structural-functionalist sociology and also identify the methodological concerns and requirements this approach brings with it. We conclude by identifying fruitful lines of enquiry for future research in management and organizational settings
The usability of security devices
No full textAn increasing number of hardware devices help users achieve a higher level of security in authentication systems. The usability of these devices, however, is lacking research studies and experimental evaluations. The goal of this chapter is to start meeting this need. After briefly reviewing security devices, we define an experimental approach suitable for their usability evaluation. We apply this approach to the class of cryptographic smart card devices and we report and comment the results, including the impact of usability on security. We conclude by presenting general recommendations to minimize usability problems while deploying security devices
Foundations of ethnomethodology : aspects of the problem of meaning in the social sciences
No full textIn this thesis I have set out to perform two interlocking, although separable,
tasks. The first is to provide some insight into the philosophical and theoretical
roots of ethnomethodology by investigating the work of Garfinkel and others who
have in some way assimilated, borrowed from, or been influenced by his work, in
a context provided by a discussion of the work of Husserl and Schutz on the one
hand and that of Wittgenstein on the other. I will show the ways in which Schutz
has adapted Husserlian phenomenological insights to further his own fundamentally
sociological ends and how Garfinkel, borrowing only selectively from Schutz and
allowing many other influences to play upon his work (here Kaufman, Parsons and
Gurwitsch are important sources of ideas), transforms ideas generated in the
phenomenological tradition to an extent which suggests that his writings should be
seen in a context set by Wittgenstein's writings (in terms particularly of
notions such as 'form of life' and trulel in a sense of those terms which will
become apparent), rather than encumbering it with too uuch phenomenological baggage
I will move on from there to investigate the writings of other ethnomethodologists,
showing how some - for example Cicourel - remain more firmly within the
phenomenological tradition, whilst others have taken various of Garfinkel's
ideas (although few have taken them whole and undiluted) and investigated, in their
various ways, their implications for the study of -social order and society. In
the process of this arm of the discussion I will point out some of the weaknesses
and strengths of various ethnomethodological positions, suggesting in conclusion
that there is important work being done and waiting to be done in the areas
currently being investigated.
The second task of the thesis is less historically oriented. Here the focus
will be upon theoretical issues surrounding the problem of social order and the
problem of meaning, problems which will be seen to be interrelated. The chief
concern here will be to show the ways in which Wittgenstein and Garfinkel
struggle to present and make coherent a sense of 'meaning' which is fundamentally
different from that which is espoused by phenomenologists like Schutz and by many
other contemporary sociologists, and how this difference rests side by side, in
Garfinkel's work, with a radically different approach to the problem of social
order from that which characterises the work of Parsons and others. The thrust
of this difference lies in an attempt to reconceptualise 'meaning' in a way that
does not posit as fundamental the distinction between 'subjectivity' on the one
hand and an 'objective' world on the other, but which instead, by emphasising the
omniprevalence of 'language games' and the 'indexicality' of expressions, focuses
attention on some notion of 'form of life' or of the 'formal structures of
practical actions'. The effect of this shift of emphasis, I will suggest, is that
'meaning' becomes transformed from seeming to be a 'thing' of some kind contained
within a 'structure' of meanings to become instead an 'embedded' phenomenon, bound
up with what we do in the social world, where the things we do generate and exhibit
those orderly features which make meaning possible
Wisconsin’s W-2 Program: Welfare as We Might Come to Know It
No full textWisconsin’s welfare reform program, Wisconsin Works (W-2), is among the most ambitious and comprehensive state reforms supported by the U.S. government’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant. This paper describes the W-2 program in Wisconsin, compares distinctive features of the program to TANF programs in selected other states, discusses how Wisconsin came to offer such a program, and describes early trends in W-2 program implementation. The paper also makes suggestions for evaluating distinctive features of W-2.
The Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study: Questions, Design, and a Few Preliminary Results
No full textNonmarital childbearing is important because it is increasing and because there is concern (and some evidence) that it is damaging to children and perhaps parents as well. We refer to the unions of unwed parents as fragile families because they are similar to traditional families in many respects, but more vulnerable. Most people believe that children in fragile families would be better off if their parents lived together and their fathers were more involved in their upbringing. Indeed, public policy is now attempting to enlarge the role of unwed fathers both by cutting public cash support for single mothers and by strengthening paternity establishment and child support enforcement. Yet the scientific basis for these policies is weak. We know very little about the men who father children outside marriage, and we know even less about the nature of their relationships with their children and their children’s mothers. The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFS) is designed to remedy this situation by following a new birth cohort of approximately 4,700 children, including 3,600 children born to unmarried parents. The new data will be representative of nonmarital births in each of 20 cities and in U.S. cities with populations over 200,000. Both mothers and fathers will be followed for at least 4 years, and in-home assessments of children’s heath and development will be carried out when the child is 4 years old. The survey is designed to address the following questions: (1) What are the conditions and capabilities of new unwed parents, especially fathers? (2) What is the nature of the relationships in fragile families? (3) What factors push new unwed parents together and what factors pull them apart? In particular, how do labor markets, welfare, and child support public policies affect family formation? (4) How do children fare in fragile families and how is their well-being affected by parental capacities and relationships, and by public policies? The paper discusses what we know about each of these questions and how the FFS addresses each of them. It also presents preliminary findings based on data from Austin, Texas, and Oakland, California.
The credibility of central bank announcements
No full textIn this paper, we present a monetary policy game in which the central bank has a private forecast of supply and demand shocks. The public needs to form its inflationary expectations and can make use of central bank announcements. However, because of the credibility problem that the central bank faces, the public will not believe a precise announcement. By extending the arrangement proposed by Garfinkel and Oh (1995) to a model that includes private information about both demand and supply shocks, we investigate the feasibility of making imprecise credible announcements concerning the rate of inflation. Klassifikation:E52;E5
Pragmatics and the consequentiality of talk: a study of members' methods at a planning application meeting
No full textThis study explores how talk is consequential by examining the sequential and pragmatic phenomena in talk-in-interaction. Reflecting the work of conversation analysis (CA), the approach assumes that the consequentiality of a 'context' must be demonstrated by the informants' sequential practices (cf. Schegloff 1987, Boden and Zimmerman 1991). However, in this study a model of consequentiality is proposed, in which not only sequential phenomena but also pragmatic categories are included within the repertoire of members' methods. In this way, the indexicality of language as explained by pragmatic theory is seen to contribute to the account of talk as consequential. The data represent a meeting between an urban planning department and a national development company in which a planning application is discussed. As such, members' methods are seen to invoke the institutional nature of the encounter, in which the formality of the setting and the work-related membership of the interactants is systematically oriented to. The talk consists of a series of negotiated issues in which the developers and the planners propose different candidate outcomes reflecting each party’s professional aims and the constraints they consider themselves to operate under. In particular, the analysis shows that candidate outcomes are largely managed by sequential preference systems and pragmatically characterized face-address (Brown and Levinson 1978, 1987).The notion of reflexivity is also seen as a significant component in the study of consequentiality. While the concept is a basic assumption in a CA framework (Garfinkel and Sacks 1969) and is also recognized as fundamental in pragmatic inquiry (Lucy 1993), few studies provide a detailed analysis of members' reflexive awareness of the contexts they create. In this study, the interactants' metalinguistic and metapragmatic orientation, invoked by both pragmatic and sequential methods, is shown to be a prevalent members' resource for indicating awareness of consequentiality. Finally, observations of the kind made in this thesis, wherein pragmatic categories both work together and are systematically related to the sequential environment, contribute to a general re-analysis of pragmatic meaning. At the same time, the interaction of pragmatic and sequential features also represents a dynamic starting point for developing new methodological categories for investigating talk-in-interaction
Introduction to the symposium on the foundations of organizing: the contribution from Garfinkel, Goffman and Sacks
No full textThis paper outlines a case for bringing the work of three scholars — Garfinkel (ethnomethodology), Goffman (interaction order/dramaturgy), Sacks (conversation analysis) — into the management and/or organization studies field. It specifically attends to the ways their work adds to understandings of the foundations of organizing. Further, we argue for studies of naturally occurring interaction in ways forged by these scholars and substantiate this move through touching on a number of domains of study where a contribution would be forthcoming, indicated here through the conceptual terrain of practice, identity, power and process theorizing. It is an endeavour which also problematizes the interview `method'. Crucially too, as part of this discussion, we not only summarize elements from these three scholars' legacies for our field, but also introduce the four papers selected for this Symposium Issue. We highlight the ways they take up particular threads and offer empirical illustrations of fine-grained studies of the foundations of organizing
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