The Diag: Diverging Views of a Meeting Place

http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/51284/1/520.pd

Feminist Reflections on the Relation of Emotions to Ethics: A Case Study of Two Awkward Interviewing Moments

In Canada, social scientists are accountable to ethical guidelines, including the minimization of harm. Simultaneously, they are accountable to an academic community. But what of those moments in the researcher-participant relationship when these principles clash? They have at times done so resoundingly in our careers as qualitative interviewers, especially when we sought to ensure that information we implicitly understood and perceived as crucial would be duly stated by participants for the research record. Such attempts gave rise to deeply awkward interactions rife with emotions that even risked the premature termination of the interviews. In this article, we use methods from a feminist paradigm, and specifically standpoint and discursive positioning theory, to reflexively analyze the ethics in practice surrounding two of our own cases of awkward moments. Our analysis illustrates how the emotions of awkward moments can be symptomatic of everyday ethical conundrums. We particularly consider whether and how our engagement in reflexivity from these two vantage points can mitigate any real or imagined harm. We indicate how the understanding we develop from our analysis can lead to proactive recommendations for researchers to engage with their emotions and conduct themselves more ethically, both in the field and in analyses

Gender differences in conversation topics, 1922–1990

Gender differences in conversation topics were first systematically studied in 1922 by Henry Moore, who theorized that the gender differences in topic choice he observed in a field observation study would persist over time, as they were manifestations of men's and women's “original natures.” In this paper, I report a 1990 replication of Moore's study, in which similar but smaller gender differences in topic choice are found. In order to explore further the apparent trend toward smaller gender differences, reports of quantitative observation studies conducted between 1922 and 1990 are examined. Other explanations besides change over time—such as variations in conversation setting and audience, target populations, and researcher's intentions—may account for the decline in gender differences in topic choice. Social influences are seen more clearly in the discourse about gender differences in conversation than in gender differences in conversation topics themselves.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45599/1/11199_2004_Article_BF00289744.pd

Papers in Holocaust and genocide studies.

This dissertation consists of three papers in Holocaust and genocide studies. The first, Social Influences on Holocaust Knowledge, explores the relationships between a survey measure of Holocaust knowledge and generation, education, ethnicity, and gender. The data come from a United States national sample survey of 491 respondents, a University of Michigan undergraduate student survey with 512 respondents, and a set of 40 qualitative interviews conducted with a subsample of the University of Michigan survey respondents. By combining qualitative and quantitative data analysis, we find that generation, education, and ethnicity are strong predictors of Holocaust knowledge because of underlying social psychological processes of identity. Other key findings in this paper are a theoretical critique of research in generations and collective memory suggested by analyzing knowledge of Anne Frank, and a methodological comparison of national and student samples. The second paper, Hidden Assumptions about Methods and Meaning in Holocaust Knowledge Surveys, uses the same data, in combination with a review of theoretical perspectives in Holocaust and genocide studies, to identify flaws in survey research about Holocaust knowledge. Specifically, current survey research places undue faith in the ability to determine absolute knowledge levels, treats knowledge and emotion as distinct categories although theory predicts that both are valuable, and uses closed questions that do not address the critical thinking skills that would be essential in predicting or preventing genocides. Alternative methods of studying Holocaust knowledge within a survey framework are sketched out here. The third paper, Border Lines: Indigenous Peoples in Genocide Studies, critically examines the conceptual framework in genocide studies that serves to exclude the experiences of indigenous peoples. Drawing on research about a variety of genocides, including the Holocaust, the Cambodian genocide, the former Yugoslavia, and genocides of indigenous peoples, a broader comparative approach to three areas in genocide studies--victims' responses to genocide, healing, and justice--is demonstrated. This study challenges assumptions about universals in genocide studies and contributes to overarching theoretical frameworks in the field. Questions about its practical value to indigenous peoples lead, in the conclusion, to a discussion of the nature and functions of knowledge and academic research.Ph.D.European historyPsychologySocial SciencesSocial psychologySocial researchUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/129671/2/9610079.pd

Revisiting a Boy Named Jim

Using examples from qualitative health research and from my childhood experience of reading a poem about a boy devoured by a lion (Belloc, 1907), I expand on a framework for reflexivity developed in Bischoping and Gazso (2016). This framework is unique in first synthesizing works from multidisciplinary narrative analysis research in order to arrive at common criteria for a “good” story: reportability, liveability, coherence, and fidelity. Next, each of these criteria is used to generate questions that can prompt reflexivity among qualitative researchers, regardless of whether they use narrative data or other narrative analysis strategies. These questions pertain to a broad span of issues, including appropriation, censorship, and the power to represent, using discomfort to guide insight, addressing vicarious traumatization, accommodating diverse participant populations, decolonizing ontology, and incorporating power and the social into analyses overly focused on individual meaning-making. Finally, I reflect on the affinities between narrative – in its imaginatively constructed, expressive, and open-ended qualities – and the reflexive impulse

Sınır Çizgileri: Soykırım Çalışmalarında Yerli Halklar

Yerli halkların soykırıma ilişkin deneyimleri, karşılaştırmalı soykırım araştırmaları çerçevesinin dışında bırakıla gelmektedir. İlk olarak bu dışlamanın kavramsal nedenleri tartışılacaktır. Soykırım tanımlamaları, soykırım tipolojilerindeki ideolojik alana karşı yayılmacı ayrımlar ve soykırım suçunu işleyenleri güdüleyici etkenler üzerine soykırım tipolojileri vurgusu tartışmanın odağını oluşturacaktır. Daha sonra, soykırım çalışmalarının iki önemli odağı olan tepkiler ve iyileşme kavramlarını inceleyerek yerli soykırımlar ile diğer soykırımlar arasındaki ilişki sergilenecektir. Bu karşılaştırma ve karşıtlıklardan yola çıkarak, yerli soykırımların önemini kabul eden daha kapsamlı bir karşılaştırmalı yaklaşımın, soykırım çalışmalarına daha önemli bir katkıda bulunacağı sonucuna varılacaktır. Sonuç olarak, soykırım çalışmalarında, Avrupalı bir dünya görüşüne sadık kalmanın, yapıcı çözümleme imkanını sınırlayacağı vurgulanacaktır.The experiences of indigenous peoples have been left outside the framework of comparative genocide research. We first discuss conceptual reasons for this omission, focusing on the role of genocide definitions, ideological vs. developmental distinctions in genocide typologies, and the emphasis in genocide typologies on the motivations of perpetrators. We then illustrate the relation between indigenous genocides and other genocides by examining Two important foci of genocide studies: responses and healing. From these comparisons and contrasts, we conclude that a broader comparative approach that acknowledges the importance of indigenous genocides would contribute significantly to genocide studies. Finally, we note that adherence to European worldviews in genocide studies limits the potential for constructive analysis

The Forgotten Work of Cultural Workers

This paper is based on work history interviews with a group of nine Toronto theatre workers covering a three-year period. During the interviews, participants did not spontaneously mention 13.1 per cent of their jobs in the creative cultural sector. Because forgotten work fails to register in surveys attempting to assess cultural workers’ contributions to the economy or to ameliorate their precarious conditions, it is important to explore why and how such work could go unreported. We locate the forgetting of cultural work in relation to the complexity and stresses of cultural workers’ schedules and to a discourse that opposes a devotion to art to the pursuit of money. Further, we explore how the participants’ particular tendency to forget their shortest-term jobs is informed by another discourse that prioritizes the building of a goals-based, coherent résumé. Last, we suggest that their surprising propensity to also forget their longest-term jobs can be understood in reference to the “piecework” model of cultural work and to a lack of socially supported remembering strategies. Based on these findings, we recommend improvements to the design of surveys on cultural workers’ work history.Ce document se base sur des entrevues de l’histoire du travail avec un groupe de neufs travailleurs de théâtre à Toronto, qui ont eu lieu dans une période de trois ans. Pendant les entrevues, les participants n’ont pas mentionné spontanément 13,1 pour cent de leurs postes dans le secteur culturel créatif. Comme les travaux oubliés ne parviennent pas à s’inscrire dans les sondages visant à évaluer les contributions économiques des travailleurs culturels ou à améliorer les conditions précaires dans leurs milieux de travail, il est important d’évaluer pourquoi et comment les travaux en question pourraient passer sans être déclarés. On associe l’oublie des postes au secteur culturel avec les nombreuses complexitées et stresses quant aux horaires irréguliers, et à un discours opposant le dévouement à l’art à la poursuite de l’argent. De plus, nous explorons le raisonnement des participants de prendre en compte l’importance de leurs postes de plus courtes durées, afin de ne pas nuire à l’allure d’un résumé cohérant centré seulement sur les objectifs ambitieux. En dernier lieu, on déduit que la propensité étonnante d’oublier également leurs postes de plus longs termes est dû au modèle de « travail à la pièce » et à un manque de stratégies socialement soutenus de mémoire. Avec ces résultats, nous recommandons des améliorations aux modèles de sondages sur l’historique de travail dans le secteur culturel

The Generational Basis of Historical Knowledge

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/91775/1/Schuman-Generational_Basis_Historical_Knowledge.pd

Post-secondary education and underemployment in a longitudinal study of Ontario baby boomers

We focus first on the changing nature of skill-job mismatch among post-secondary graduates, using longitudinal data to assess the impact of gender, socioeconomic status, field of study, and other factors, on mismatch. Second, we provide a detailed comparison between college and university graduates to determine whether predictors of mismatch are identical for these two groups. Third, we analyse the exposure of post-secondary graduates to alternative education, such as private vocational schools, and assess the relationship between skill-job mismatch and pursuit of further education. In concluding, we argue that the "school-to-work transition" for post-secondary students is becoming more complex. There is little coordination among post-secondary educational offerings and students' choices are often individualized. In order to address the skill-job mismatch problem, greater coordination between suppliers of conventional and extra-institutional forms of post-secondary education is needed