42 research outputs found
âGet yourself some nice, neat, matching box filesâ: research administrators and occupational identity work
To date, qualitative research into occupational groups and cultures within academia has been relatively scarce, with an almost exclusive concentration upon teaching staff within universities and colleges. This article seeks to address this lacuna and applies the interactionist concept of âidentity workâ in order to examine one specific group to date under-researched: graduate research administrators.
This occupational group is of sociological interest as many of its members appear to span the putative divide between âacademicâ and âadministrativeâ occupational worlds within higher education. An exploratory, qualitative research project was undertaken, based upon interviews with
27 research administrators. The study analyses how research administrators utilise various forms of identity work to sustain credible occupational identities, often in the face of considerable challenge from their academic colleagues
'We have the time to listenâ: community Health Trainers, identity work and boundaries
This article contributes empirical findings and sociological theoretical perspectives to discussions of the role of community lay health workers, including in improving the health of individuals and communities. We focus on the role of the Health Trainer (HT), at its inception described as one of the most innovative developments in UK Public Health policy. As lay health workers, HTs are tasked with reducing health inequalities in disadvantaged communities by supporting clients to engage in healthier lifestyles. HTs are currently sociologically under-researched, particularly in relation to occupational identity work, and the boundary work undertaken inter-occupationally with other health workers. To address this research lacuna, a qualitative study was undertaken with 25 HTs based in the Midlands region of the UK. In theorising our findings, we employ a combination of symbolic interactionist conceptualisation of 1) identity work, and of 2) boundary work. The article advances knowledge in the field of health and exercise by investigating and theorising how HTs construct, work at, manage, and communicate about professional/occupational boundaries, in order to provide personalised support to their clients in achieving and sustaining healthy behaviour change within the constraints of clientsâ lifeworlds
'Working outâ identity: distance runners and the management of disrupted identity
This article contributes fresh perspectives to the empirical literature on the sociology of the body, and of leisure and identity, by analysing the impact of long-term injury on the identities of two amateur but serious middle/long-distance runners. Employing a symbolic interactionist framework,and utilising data derived from a collaborative autoethnographic project, it explores the role
of âidentity workâ in providing continuity of identity during the liminality of long-term injury and
rehabilitation, which poses a fundamental challenge to athletic identity. Specifically, the analysis
applies Snow and Andersonâs (1995) and Perinbanayagamâs (2000) theoretical conceptualisations
in order to examine the various forms of identity work undertaken by the injured participants, along
the dimensions of materialistic, associative and vocabularic identifications. Such identity work was
found to be crucial in sustaining a credible sporting identity in the face of disruption to the running
self, and in generating momentum towards the goal of restitution to full running fitness and reengagement
with a cherished form of leisure.
KEYWORDS: identity work, symbolic interactionism, distance running, disrupted identit
Modern Sri Lanka: A Society in Transition. Edited by Tissa Fernando and Robert Kearney. Syracuse: Syracuse University, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs (Foreign and Comparative Studies, South Asian Series No. 4), 1979. viii, 297 pp. Index. $7.50.
The Significance of "Others" in the Thought of Alfred Schutz: a Reply to Malhotra and Deegan's Comments
Multidisciplinary Teamwork in a UK Regional Secure Mental Health Unit a Matter for Negotiation?
Multidisciplinary teamwork in healthcare is strongly advocated in policy documents and the professional literature, but evidence about its value is sparse. This paper argues that multidisciplinary rhetoric disguises the complexity of the relational processes involved. These processes are explored with reference to a qualitative study, conducted during 2002â2004, of a UK medium secure forensic mental healthcare unit. Although some instructive examples of selective collaboration emerged from the present study, in general, non-medical professionals felt that their capacity to negotiate new ways of working was thwarted by medical dominance. Patients, the recipients of interventions from a range of professions, mostly bracketed them together as an all-powerful 'they'. Multidisciplinary working promoted only limited partnership in this organizational setting, and became primarily a process through which structural differences were reproduced. The paper draws on insights derived from symbolic interactionist theory to explore the achievement of, and failure to achieve, collaboration across professional boundaries. It will be argued, firstly, that organizational constraints on multidisciplinary collaboration together with actors' attempts to overcome them can be usefully analysed in terms of a dialectic between role-taking and role-making; and, secondly, that the impact of professional power differences can be understood through analysis of organizations as autopoietic systems