'Pretend I was Mummy': Children's Production of Authority and Subordinance in Their Pretend Play Interaction During Disputes

Purpose – This chapter examines an episode of pretend play amongst a group of young girls in an elementary school in Australia, highlighting how they interact within the membership categorization device ‘family’ to manage their social and power relationships. Approach – Using conversation analysis and membership categorization analysis, an episode of video-recorded interaction that occurs amongst a group of four young girls is analyzed. Findings – As disputes arise amongst the girls, the mother category is produced as authoritative through authoritative actions by the girl in the category of mother, and displays of subordination on the part of the other children, in the categories of sister, dog and cat. Value of paper – Examining play as a social practice provides insight into the social worlds of children. The analysis shows how the children draw upon and co-construct family-style relationships in a pretend play context, in ways that enable them to build and organize peer interaction. Authority is highlighted as a joint accomplishment that is part of the social and moral order continuously being negotiated by the children. The authority of the mother category is produced and oriented to as a means of managing the disputes within the pretend frame of play.

Making Arrangements : Remote proposal sequences and attendant structural phenomena in social interaction

In this thesis, I contribute to the study of how arrangements are made in social interaction. Using conversation analysis, I examine a corpus of 375 telephone calls between employees and clients of three Community Home Care (CHC) service agencies in metropolitan Adelaide, South Australia. My analysis of the CHC data corpus draws upon existing empirical findings within conversation analysis in order to generate novel findings about how people make arrangements with one another, and some of the attendant considerations that parties to such an activity can engage in: Prospective informings as remote proposals for a future arrangement – Focusing on how employees make arrangements with clients, I show how the employees in the CHC data corpus use ‘prospective informings’ to detail a future course of action that will involve the recipient of that informing. These informings routinely occasion a double-paired sequence, where informers pursue a response to their informing. This pursuit often occurs even after recipients have provided an initial response. This practice for making arrangements has been previously described by Houtkoop (1987) as ‘remote proposing.’ I develop Houtkoop’s analysis to show how an informing of a future arrangement can be recompleted, with response solicitation, as a proposal that is contingent upon a recipient’s acceptance. Participants’ understanding of references to non-present third parties – In the process of making arrangements, references are routinely made to non-present third parties. In the CHC data corpus, these third parties are usually care workers. Prior research (e.g., Sacks & Schegloff, 1979; Schegloff, 1996b) explains how the use of ‘recognitional references’ (such as the bare name ‘Kerry’), conveys to recipients that they should be able to locate the referent from amongst their acquaintances. Conversely, the use of ‘non-recognitional references’ (such as the description ‘a lady called Kerry’), conveys that recipients are unacquainted with the referent. I examine instances where the selection of a recognitional or non-recognitional reference form is followed by a recipient initiating repair on that reference. My analysis provides further evidence thatthe existing analytic account of these references corresponds to the way in which participants themselves make sense of them. My analysis also advances an understanding of how repair can be used, by recipients, to indicate the inappositeness of a prior turn. Post-possible-completion accounts – In a case study of a problematic interaction, I examine a misunderstanding that is not resolved within the repair space, the usual defence of intersubjectivity in interaction (cf. Schegloff, 1992b). Rather, I explore how the source of trouble is addressed, outside of the sequence of its production, with a ‘post-possible-completion account.’ This account specifies the basis of a misunderstanding and yet, unlike repair, does so without occasioning a revised response to a trouble-source turn. By considering various aspects of making arrangements in social interaction, I highlight some of the rich order that underpins the maintenance of human relationships across time. In the concluding section of this thesis I review this order, while also discussing practical implications of this analysis for CHC practice.

Managing the therapeutic relationship in online cognitive behavioural therapy for depression: Therapists' treatment of clients' contributions

This article examines how therapists and clients manage the therapeutic relationship in online psychotherapy. Our study focuses on early sessions of therapy involving 22 therapist-client pairs participating in online Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) for depression. Using Conversation Analysis (CA), we examine how therapists can orient to clients’ contributions, while also retaining control of the therapeutic trajectory. We report two practices that therapists can use, at their discretion, following clients’ responses to requests for information. The first, thanking, accepts clients’ responses, orienting to the neutral affective valence of those responses. The second, commiseration, orients to the negative affective valence of clients’ responses. We argue that both practices are a means by which therapists can simultaneously manage developing rapport, while also retaining control of the therapeutic process.

Exploring emotional climate in preservice science teacher education

Classroom emotional climates are interrelated with students’ engagement with university courses. Despite growing interest in emotions and emotional climate research, little is known about the ways in which social interactions and different subject matter mediate emotional climates in preservice science teacher education classes. In this study we investigated the emotional climate and associated classroom interactions in a preservice science teacher education class. We were interested in the ways in which salient classroom interactions were related to the emotional climate during lessons centered on debates about science-based issues (e.g., nuclear energy alternatives). Participants used audience response technology to indicate their perceptions of the emotional climate. Analysis of conversation for salient video clips and analysis of non-verbal conduct (acoustic parameters, body movements, and facial expressions) supplemented emotional climate data. One key contribution that this study makes to preservice science teacher education is to identify the micro-processes of successful and unsuccessful class interactions that were associated with positive and neutral emotional climate. The structure of these interactions can inform the practice of other science educators who wish to produce positive emotional climates in their classes. The study also extends and explicates the construct of intensity of emotional climate.

An interpretative phenomenological analysis of participation in a pro-anorexia Internet site and its relationship to disordered eating

Pro-anorexia Internet sites aim to promote, support and discuss anorexia nervosa. Media coverage has raised concerns that sites may increase the level of eating disorders. This research examines the meaning of participation in a pro-anorexia Internet site and its relationship with disordered eating by using an interpretative phenomenological analysis of fifteen separate message ‘threads’ followed over a six-week period. Four themes were identified: (1) tips and techniques; (2) ‘ana’ v. anorexia nervosa; (3) social support; and (4) need for anorexia. Findings suggest participation was multi-purpose, providing a coping function in relation to weight loss, and the contribution of sites to increased levels of eating disorders is not inevitable.

A conversation approach to business model innovation

Sense making through conversation plays a key role in channelling and furthering participatory business model innovation. The designer as facilitator, with conversation as a core tool, is an emerging area of interest within the design research literature. This paper will discuss preliminary findings of a case study of Second Road, a strategy and innovation consultancy that employed a design thinking approach and conversational methods to redesign a client’s business development model. Through this study conversation based co-creation emerged as the primary method for participatory innovation.

Culture in and culture of health promotion: tensions at the interface of Australian Indigenous health promotion

With persisting health inequalities across and between diverse populations, health promotion must consider its engagement with the culture concept in achieving better health for all. By way of a conversation between an Indigenous and non-Indigenous health promotion practitioner, this unique presentation will critically examine the cultural practice of health promotion for Indigenous Australians. Culture becomes the central tenant of this conversation – but not culture in the sense of something to “fix” to improve Indigenous health, or import to make mainstream practices “culturally appropriate”. Rather, the somewhat invisible culture of Australian health promotion practice itself is highlighted. The enthusiasm of mainstream health promotion practice for risk and reductionism supplants biological determinism with a cultural determinism that constructs culture as illness-producing. This is in contrast to Indigenous perspectives of culture in which it is described as integral to individual and community health and well-being. Whilst empowerment features strongly within global health promotion discourses, the preoccupation of health promotion with the inherent deficit/behavioural change approach is an all too convenient distraction from the broader structural factors impacting on the health of Indigenous Australians. That Indigenous Australians have not benefitted from successful public health policy interventions in the same way as the general population is in itself revealing of the culture of health promotion practice in Australia and it is somewhat ironic that the health promotion fraternity seems not to have questioned its own practice. This conversation aims to encourage health promotion practitioners, researchers and policy makers to interrogate the cultural assumptions of their own practice and of the public health system they are part of and consider how to embed and empower the voices and experiences of those who are ‘culturally othered’ within health promotion practice.

Shaping the conversation : how management consultants engage knowledge boundary processes

This paper aims to contribute to an understanding of what actually takes place during consulting engagements. It draws on data collected from a qualitative case study of eight engagements by a niche consultancy in Australia to describe how consultants actively engage boundary crossing processes to address knowledge boundaries encountered during formal interactions with clients. While consultants actively managed knowledge boundary processes during interactions, by applying techniques such as evoking an ‘ideal state’ for clients, the engagements also yielded many missed opportunities for knowledge transformation.

Playing with Grammar in the Early Years : Learning about Language in the Australian Curriculum : English

As teacher/researchers interested in the pursuit of socially-just outcomes in early childhood education, the form and function of language occupies a special position in our work. We believe that mastering a range of literacy competences includes not only the technical skills for learning, but also the resources for viewing and constructing the world (Freire and Macdeo, 1987). Rather than seeing knowledge about language as the accumulation of technical skills alone, the viewpoint to which we subscribe treats knowledge about language as a dialectic that evolves from, is situated in, and contributes to a social arena (Halliday, 1978). We do not shy away from this position just because children are in the early years of schooling. In ‘Playing with Grammar’, we focus on the Foundation to Year 2 grouping, in line with the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority’s (hereafter ACARA) advice on the ‘nature of learners’ (ACARA, 2013). With our focus on the early years of schooling comes our acknowledgement of the importance and complexity of play. At a time where accountability in education has moved many teachers to a sense of urgency to prove language and literacy achievement (Genishi and Dyson, 2009), we encourage space to revisit what we know about literature choices and learning experiences and bring these together to facilitate language learning. We can neither ignore, nor overemphasise, the importance of play for the development of language through: the opportunities presented for creative use and practice; social interactions for real purposes; and, identifying and solving problems in the lives of young children (Marsh and Hallet, 2008). We argue that by engaging young children in opportunities to play with language we are ultimately empowering them to be active in their language learning and in the process fostering a love of language and the intricacies it holds. Our goal in this publication is to provide a range of highly practical strategies for scaffolding young children through some of the Content Descriptions from the Australian Curriculum English Version 5.0, hereafter AC:E V5.0 (ACARA, 2013). This recently released curriculum offers a new theoretical approach to building children’s knowledge about language. The AC:E V5.0 uses selected traditional terms through an approach developed in systemic functional linguistics (see Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004) to highlight the dynamic forms and functions of multimodal language in texts. For example, the following statement, taken from the ‘Language: Knowing about the English language’ strand states: English uses standard grammatical terminology within a contextual framework, in which language choices are seen to vary according to the topics at hand, the nature and proximity of the relationships between the language users, and the modalities or channels of communication available (ACARA, 2013). Put simply, traditional grammar terms are used within a functional framework made up of field, tenor, and mode. An understanding of genre is noted with the reference to a ‘contextual framework’. The ‘topics at hand’ concern the field or subject matter of the text. The ‘relationships between the language users’ is a description of tenor. There is reference to ‘modalities’, such as spoken, written or visual text. We posit that this innovative approach is necessary for working with contemporary multimodal and cross-cultural texts (see Exley and Mills, 2012). We believe there is enormous power in using literature to expose children to the richness of language and in turn develop language and literacy skills. Taking time to look at language patterns within actual literature is a pathway to ‘…capture interest, stir the imagination and absorb the [child]’ into the world of language and literacy (Saxby, 1993, p. 55). In the following three sections, we have tried to remain faithful to our interpretation of the AC:E V5.0 Content Descriptions without giving an exhaustive explanation of the grammatical terms. Other excellent tomes, such as Derewianka (2011), Humphrey, Droga and Feez (2012), and Rossbridge and Rushton (2011) provide these more comprehensive explanations as does the AC:E V5.0 Glossary. We’ve reproduced some of the AC:E V5.0 glossary at the end of this publication. Our focus is on the structure and unfolding of the learning experiences. We outline strategies for working with children in Foundation, Year 1 and Year 2 by providing some demonstration learning experiences based on texts we’ve selected, but maintain that the affordances of these strategies will only be realised when teaching and learning is purposively tied to authentic projects in local contexts. We strongly encourage you not to use only the resource texts we’ve selected, but to capitalise upon your skill for identifying the language features in the texts you and the children are studying and adapt some of the strategies we have outlined. Each learning experience is connected to one of the Content Descriptions from the AC:E V5.0 and contains an experience specific purpose, a suggested resource text and a sequence for the experience that always commences with an orientation to text followed by an examination of a particular grammatical resource. We expect that each of these learning experiences will take a couple if not a few teaching episodes to work through, especially if children are meeting a concept for the first time. We hope you use as much, or as little, of each experience as is needed. Our plans allow for focused discussion, shared exploration and opportunities to revisit the same text for the purpose of enhancing meaning making. We do not want the teaching of grammar to slip into a crisis of irrelevance or to be seen as a series of worksheet drills with finite answers. Strategies for effective practice, however, have much portability. We are both very keen to hear from teachers who are adopting and adapting these learning experiences in their classrooms. Please email us on b.exley@qut.edu.au or lkervin@uow.edu.au. We’d love to continue the conversation with you over time.

Talk in activity during young children’s use of digital technologies at home

Internet-connected tablets and smart phones are being used increasingly by young children. Little is known, however, about their social interactions with family members when engaged with these technologies. This article examines video-recorded interactions between a father and his two young children, one aged 18 months using an iPhone and one aged three years accessing an iPad. Drawing on Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis, analysis establishes ways the family members engage and disengage in talk so as to manage their individual activity with mobile devices and accomplish interaction with each other. Findings are relevant for understanding children’s everyday practices with mobile technologies.

Humanities and social scientific research methods in porn studies

Porn studies researchers in the humanities have tended to use different research methods from those in social sciences. There has been surprisingly little conversation between the groups about methodology. This article presents a basic introduction to textual analysis and statistical analysis, aiming to provide for all porn studies researchers a familiarity with these two quite distinct traditions of data analysis. Comparing these two approaches, the article suggests that social science approaches are often strongly reliable – but can sacrifice validity to this end. Textual analysis is much less reliable, but has the capacity to be strongly valid. Statistical methods tend to produce a picture of human beings as groups, in terms of what they have in common, whereas humanities approaches often seek out uniqueness. Social science approaches have asked a more limited range of questions than have the humanities. The article ends with a call to mix up the kinds of research methods that are applied to various objects of study.

Living in a broken world : how young children's well-being is supported through playing out their earthquake experiences

The therapeutic value of play can be shown in spontaneous play situations following children’s experiences of traumatic events. Following the events of the Christchurch earthquakes in New Zealand in 2010 and 2011, an investigation was conducted of how children used the earthquake event as a catalyst in pretend play with peers and in discussions with teachers. Supporting children’s well-being is a focus area in New Zealand early childhood education as it is a strand of the national curriculum, Te Whāriki (Ministry of Education [MoE], 1996). In this article, children are observed engaging in pretend play episodes and with Learning Story books to explore personal reflections of the earthquake, prompting the children to make reference to things being ‘broken’ and needing 'fixing.' Analysis shows how the content of the pretend play experiences helped the children to come to terms with their experiences. Affording children time and interactional opportunities to play out and discuss traumatic experiences contributes to the psychological well-being of participants following a traumatic event.

Doing collaborative reflection in the professional experience

Despite the importance of the school-based practicum experience in teacher education programs, only limited research has investigated how supervising and pre-service teacher roles and relationships are interactively achieved in situ. Using conversation analysis, we interrogate extracts of practicum talk between supervising teachers (STs) and their pre-service teachers (PTs), revealing that asymmetrical relationships are talked into being within and through their conversations about classroom practice. We compare the different structural conversational arrangements that are employed when STs provide either positive feedback or raise issues of potential difficulty in relation to their PTs’ observed classroom activities. Analysis reveals that STs tend to make evaluative statements when providing positive feedback, in contrast to initiating a process of critical reflection when talking about the need for improvements in PTs’ pedagogic practices. We conclude by arguing the need for STs to instigate sustained critical and collaborative professional conversations with their PTs during the practicum experience, enabling them to engage in reflective practice and providing them with opportunities to extend their professional knowledge and skills, thereby potentially improving their future classroom practices.