Experiencing Conversations: Bridging the Gap between Discourse and Activity

The article introduces the Vygotskian tradition in the realist theoretical discussion of the structure-agency problem. Archer's concept of internal conversation is discussed in terms of internalization and externalization of conversational dynamics. The article addresses in particular the methodological issue of observing how external events trigger internal use of language, and how these internal dynamics are externalized. The experience of talk is proposed as a conceptual key to the understanding of internal conversations and of the relation between structured activity and agency. The experience of talk is defined with the help of the notions of emotional experience, personal sense and inner speech, as they are conceptualized in activity theory and in particular in the works of L.S. Vygotsky and A.N. Leont'ev. Students' experiences of critical conversational events with teachers are analyzed on the basis of written autobiographical accounts. The experience of talk emerges from the analysis as a form of emotional experience in which the horizon of the individual's subjective view relates to specific circumstances external to the individual. Autobiographical accounts of critical conversations are suggested as a type of data which allows access to the experience of talk.     

Obscenity Reactions: Toward a Symbolic Interactionist Explanation

It is suggested that there is a syndrome of reactions elicited by stimuli people define as obscene and that these reactions can be explained within a symbolic interactionist framework. More specifically, it is argued that they are reactions to the denial or destruction of a person's ability to achieve and/or maintain an identity that is socially acceptable to him within a particular situation.     

Reflection as Dialogue

Much attention has been given to the use of reflection in socialwork practice and education. The literature shows that reflectivedialogue can take place individually or in small groups. Inthis paper, the concept of dialogue is examined further at theinternal and external levels by referring to the works of Bakhtinand other related scholars. Two other concepts, phronesis byAristotle and kairos by Isocrates, are used to provide furtherinsights into understanding such processes. The relevance ofinternal and external dialogue to social work practice and educationis discussed. The integrated use of internal and external dialoguefacilitates a shift among different perspectives and bringsinto awareness the multiple voices of different parties. Sucha broadened view can limit the misuse of professional authorityand enable the social worker to give fuller expression to coresocial values such as respect, justice and equality.     

Family Talk about Internal States and Children's Relative Appraisals of Self and Sibling

This study investigated associations between preschoolers' conversations about internal states and their spontaneous appraisals of self and sibling. Thirty‐two preschoolers (M age = 3.9 years) were observed during naturalistic home interactions with mothers and younger siblings. Various features of mothers' and children's internal state language were coded. Children who talked about internal states to the baby and who talked more about the baby's perspective tended to appraise their sibling negatively relative to self. In contrast, mothers' references to internal states, as well as their promotion and encouragement of the child's own internal state talk, were negatively related to the differences between children's negative appraisals of self and sibling. These results support the social‐constructivist notion that the quality of children's interactions with family members is related to how they construe themselves in comparison to their siblings.     

美德伦理学和正确的行动

最近一些著名的美德伦理学家试图对正确的行动提出种种美德伦理学所独有的解释。文章打算证明这些解释并不成功。如果它们能够回答岛民诘难 (根据这一诘难 ,评价行动要求注意行动者之外的外部世界的效果 ,然而美德伦理学只关心评价行动者的内在状态 ) ,它们依赖的是某些普遍接受的美德伦理学的理由 ,而这些理由本身又取决于没有任何解释的关于正确性的判断。因此这样的解释导致了循环论证的诘难。简言之 ,美德伦理学的这些避免岛民诘难的解释只是以请进循环论证的诘难为代价的。它们直觉上的合理性大致上只达到这样的程度 :它们失去了有别于其他理论的美德伦理学的特征     

The experiences of carers in using shared activities to communicate with looked‐after young people about alcohol,tobacco, and drug use

Parental conversations with their teenage children about alcohol, tobacco, and drugs are associated with lower rates of use. Looked‐after young people are at greater risk of early initiation, higher rates of use, and more problematic use. However, there is no evidence regarding whether these conversations occur in settings where the parental role is assumed by someone other than the biological parent. The aim of the study was to examine how carers communicate with looked‐after young people about alcohol, tobacco, and drug use. In‐depth interviews were conducted with 16 residential care staff and foster carers in Scotland. Data were analysed using a thematic analysis approach. Participants talked about “shared doing” as a way of building relationships and communicating about substance use. Shared doing encompassed particular activities that carers and young people would do together, such as driving in the car, cooking, watching TV, and going for a walk. Shared doing provided an opportunity to spend time together and to create an environment in which communication could be facilitated. These environments were shaped by space, time, and context. Carers should be encouraged to take advantage of the time‐limited occasions they are with young people to have conversations about substance use.     

Realism and Contingency

This paper constitutes an extended response to Athanasia Chalari's paper The Causal Impact of Resistance, which suggests that one may derive from internal conversations a causal explanation of resistance. In the context of our engagements with critical realism and digital research into social movements, we review Chalari's main argument, before applying it to a concrete case: the student protests in London, 2010. Whilst our account is sympathetic to Chalari's focus on interiority, we critique the individualism that is implicit in her argument, arguing that it emerges because of an underlying neglect of the relational aspects of resistance. Instead, we offer a relational realist analysis that treats resistance as process within an ontologically stratified account of reality that is mindful of the contingency of political acts. Taking this route, we establish resistance as an emergent relation, generative of distinctive “relational goods” in the context of collective action, which we locate at different levels of reality, as we move from an analysis of individual to collective reflexivity. In doing so we offer a sympathetic critique of Chalari, building on the thought provoking arguments contained within it, whilst also making a contribution to the theorisation of social movements and the “relational turn” within realist social theory (Archer, 2010, 2012).     

Is it time to revise the definition of research misconduct?

U.S. federal policy defines research misconduct as fabrication of data, falsification of data, or plagiarism (FFP). In recent years, some have argued or suggested that the definition of research misconduct should also include sexual harassment, sabotage, deceptive use of statistics, and failure to disclose a significant conflict of interest (COI). While the arguments for revising the definition of misconduct used by federal agencies to include misbehaviors other than FFP are not convincing at this point in time, the arguments for revising definitions used by other organizations, such as professional societies, universities, or journals, may be. Since these other organizations play an important role in promoting integrity in science and deterring unethical behavior, they may consider adopting definitions of misconduct that extend beyond FFP. Debates about the definition of research misconduct are a normal and healthy part of broader discussions about integrity in science and how best to promote it. These debates should continue even if the federal definition of misconduct remains unchanged.     

Constraints on the Internal Conversation: Margaret Archer and the Structural Shaping of Thought

Margaret Archer has recently provided a persuasive account of the importance of the internal conversation to reflexivity. This raises questions about the shaping of such conversations by involuntary agential positioning. The work of Bourdieu and Bernstein is reviewed to suggest that structural influences can operate by condi-tioning the resources available for the conducting of the internal conversation. Particular emphasis is placed on the transfer of taken for granted ideas from one domain of practice to another.     

Manageable Discord: Fraud and Resistance in the Social Security System

This article presents findings from a study of the attitudes and beliefs of social security claimants engaged in benefit fraud. The basis for a taxonomy of such claimants is outlined, drawing upon concepts of reflexivity and anxiety. This is compared and contrasted with other theoretically-drawn taxonomies, one relating to workplace crime, the other to the consumption of social care services. Finally, the article considers whether benefit fraud is intelligible as resistance to social control. It is argued that benefit fraud represents a conservative form of resistance. Benefit fraud does not signify a "culture" of resistance, so much as a "manageable" form of rule-breaking.     

Performing Femininities: Listening to White Working-Class Girls in Rural Maine

In this article, I explore the ways in which sixth, seventh, and eighth grade White girls from poor and working-class families in rural Maine understand, express, and react to dominant cultural definitions of femininity. Using a qualitative method, The Listening Guide, to interpret data gathered over the course of a year from weekly videotaped focus group conversations and individual interviews, I identify and underscore the contradictory nature of what constitutes appropriately feminine discourse and behavior for these girls—discourse and behavior that is radically different from the dominant White middle-class cultural ideal and that offers these girls a wide range of physical and verbal expression not usually considered under the rubric of conventional femininity. I then examine the girls' ambivalent relationship with middle-class propriety, as well as their anger, their longing, and, in some cases, their resistance to dominant cultural ideologies of femininity. Although such resistance may serve them well in their local community, it puts them at odds with the expectations of their teachers and other adults invested in the conventional feminine ideal and thus underscores their displacement in school and society. The Listener's Guide, I contend, provides a way to elucidate the struggles these working-class girls experience as they negotiate and contest contradictory voices and visions of appropriately feminine behavior and constructions of self vying for their attention and allegiance.     

Animals,Agency and Resistance

In this paper we develop a relational approach to the question of animal agency. We distinguish between agency and action and, using three examples of non‐human animal behaviour, explore how human‐other animal interactions might be understood in terms of action, agency and resistance. In order to do this we draw on the distinction between primary and corporate agency found in the work of Margaret Archer, arguing that, while non‐human animals are able to act and to exercise primary agency, they are unable to exercise corporate agency. Animals are therefore agents; they act and their actions have consequences, they also resist conditions which they do not like and, in some circumstances, are able to change the conditions of their agency. We discuss the place of animals in the social world and the political implications of this way of viewing animal agency.     

The Fallacy of Misplaced Intentionality in Social Representation Research

This paper argues that social representations cannot be used as independent variables in causal explanations of social behaviour. It is shown that the structure of investigations often follows a causally explanatory design despite explicit statements to the contrary by the researchers. This fact is analyzed with three investigations. It is argued that verbal data used to assess the contents of a representation as independent variable are logically equivalent to data obtained from the "dependent" overt behaviour. Therefore these two kinds of data must be seen as two illustrations of the same representational contents. The researchers'preference for using verbal data to assess the independent variable and the tendency to introduce a causal relationship between representation and behaviour is shown to result from misplacing folk-beliefs. Folk-beliefs about intentional causality, it is shown, pertain to the same level as other beliefs about the world on the part of the subjects. Hence they are part of the folk-representation itself and must be treated as such; their use in scientific accounts of the belief-action relationship is not implied by data on rational belief systems. It is suggested to conceptualize social representations as integral units of beliefs and action which may be used to explain causally subsequent contingent social events. The function of folk-beliefs in intentional causality for the self-concept of rational people and for social accountability is discussed.     

Research Review: Risk and resilience in cases of emotional abuse

This paper examines risk and resilience in relation to emotional abuse. Research has identified numerous child and family factors that may increase the risk of emotional abuse occurring and has also identified numerous ways in which an experience of emotional abuse can enhance vulnerability to negative outcomes. However, relatively little is known about the factors that determine the extent to which an experience of emotional abuse predicts later psychosocial functioning. Factors that may determine risk and resilience in children who experience emotional abuse are discussed. These include predisposing factors such as early caregiving experiences; precipitating factors such as the frequency, intensity and duration of the abuse; factors intrinsic to the child such as working models of the self and others, internal or external attributions, behavioural and coping strategies, self‐esteem, and disposition; and external factors such as school and availability of supportive relationships. The need to pay attention to the particular vulnerabilities and protective factors pertaining to each emotionally abused child in order to most effectively enhance resilience is highlighted.     

State formation from below: the Turkish case

This essay focuses on the state-formation theory through the lens of the Turkish state-formation experience. The movements of resistance against state-formation in Turkey such as the internal struggles based on ideological and cultural factors, social banditry, military desertion, ethnic and religiously inspired uprisings, and non-Muslim and non-Turkish opposition are analyzed in the context of a model which has been developed in this study. According to this model state-formation is linked to a wide range of practices of social resistance. To provide the means of exploring the mechanisms of the processes of state-formation that are unintended and unplanned responses provoked by various types of resistance, their impact, not directly on institutional state-formation, but rather on the cultural and ideological dimensions of the same processes has to be carved out.     

Children's and adolescents’ conversations with mothers about offenders’ and victims’ responsibility for harm in their experiences of being hurt by a peer

This study investigated mothers’ and children's constructions of meaning about responsibility for harm in conversations about two experiences when children were hurt by a peer and felt they had either contributed or not contributed to the situation. The sample included 105 Canadian mothers (75% White) and their children (53 girls, 52 boys) across three age groups (M ages = 6.92, 11.14, 15.89 years). Overall, mothers and children emphasized different aspects of responsibility; mothers made more evaluations of acts and discussed the avoidability of harm whereas children referred more to hurtful acts, consequences, reasons, and subsequent responses. Discussions of the child's and peer's responsibility were responsive to the child's perspective on events. The child's responsibility for self-protection was particularly emphasized by mothers and when the child felt they had not contributed to the situation. Children more often mitigated their responsibility as compared to their mothers, and older children referred more to their own and their peer's responsibility for harm. Findings illuminate how conversations with mothers may inform children's judgments of their own and others’ roles in peer conflict.     

Achieving permanency for youth in foster care: assessing and strengthening emotional security

For some youth in foster care, the closest family or family‐like relationships are with the foster parents with whom they have lived for extended periods of time. Nonetheless, child welfare agencies often do not explore these relationships and the potential they may hold for youth for legal permanence through adoption or guardianship. Recognizing that social workers often lack resources to help them initiate permanency conversations, Casey Family Services, a direct service child welfare agency in the USA, developed a tool that social workers can use to explore youth's sense of emotional security with their foster parents and foster parents' sense of claiming and attachment with youth in their care. The research literature that suggests that emotional security is a critical component of successful permanence provided the foundation for the development of the Belonging and Emotional Security Tool (BEST). When used with youth and foster parents, the BEST was found to advance meaningful permanency conversations. The authors provide case examples of its use and discuss future directions for using the BEST and broadening its application.     

A game-theoretic interpretation of Marcel Mauss' ‘The gift’

This article proposes that a game theoretic interpretation can be made of Marcel Mauss' The Gift. The results provide support for the claim that the institution of reciprocity is a socially stabilizing exchange mechanism. Suppose that the first interactions among different prehistoric tribes or bands were characterized, in the words of Hobbes, as being “short, nasty, and brutish.” In the absence of voluntary exchange institutions, such as reciprocity, through which these groups could interact in more cooperative ways, their initial external interactions may have been characterized by plunder, pillage and war. It is from these conflictive relations that more cooperative institutions may have been chosen or have evolved. This paper shows how the gift, and reciprocity in general, could have allowed for the evolution of more cooperative relations through credible threats of returning to conflict if the gift was not returned. It is argued that the original motivation for the return of the gift may have been to elicit cooperation. Only after this cooperation had been attained could the gift then evolve into the social norm that Mauss had observed. It further suggests that reciprocity may have an origin of conflict.