28 research outputs found

    Negotiating sacred roles:a sociological exploration of priests who are mothers

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    In 1992, in a historic move, the Church of England voted to allow women's ordination to priesthood and in 1994 the first women priests started to be ordained. Despite much research interest, the experiences of priests who are mothers to dependent children have been minimally investigated. Based on in-depth interviews with seventeen mothers ordained in the Church, this paper will focus on how the sacred-profane boundary is managed. Priests who are mothers have a particular insight into the Church hierarchy as they symbolically straddle the competing discourses of sacred and profane. However, instead of reifying these binaries, the experiences of these women show how such dualisms are challenged and managed in everyday life. Indeed, in terms of experience, ritual, ministry and preaching, priests who are mothers are resisting, recasting and renegotiating sacred terrain in subtle and nuanced ways. Mothers thus not only negotiate the practical and sacramental demands placed on priests, but also illuminate how the sacred domain is regulated and constructed

    Autoethnography in vocational psychology: Wearing your class on your sleeve

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    This paper addresses reflective practice in research and practice and takes the issue of consciousness of social class in vocational psychology as a working example. It is argued that the discipline’s appreciation of social class can be advanced through application of the qualitative research method autoethnography. Excerpts from an autoethnographic study are used to explore the method’s potential. This reflexive research method is presented as a potential vehicle to improve vocational psychologists’ own class consciousness, and to concomitantly enhance their capacity to grasp social class within their own spheres of research and practice. It is recommended that autoethnography be used for research, training, and professional development for vocational psychologists

    The genuine scientist-practitioner in vocational psychology: an autoethnography

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    This paper explores the notion of the scientist-practitioner in vocational psychology. It is suggested that despite the visage of science and technology, the actual practice of vocational psychology and career counselling is a very personal endeavour. The paper uses autoethnography to elucidate the construction of the career assessment and counselling procedure My Career Chapter. It is argued that the genuine creator of the procedure was not the chimerical scientist-practitioner; rather it was a sensitive rural, working-class boy who had transcended strictures of economic class and culture. His transformation inherently effected his doing the science and practice of vocational psychology. The paper suggests that the lamented divide between theory and practice in vocational psychology may be reduced through autoethnographic inquiry, which proffers a personal bridge between the two without diminishing commitment to orthodox forms of psychological science
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