The discursive structure of the social-technical divide: the example of information systems development1

The social and technical are commonly defined in opposition to each other. Yet technology practitioners are often quite comfortable with the idea that the technical is constitutively social. Drawing on an ethnographic study of a computerised information systems development project, this paper examines various usages of notions of ‘technical’. Attempts to situate the study at the ‘technical core’ of the project were met with a series of rebuffs. ‘Technical’ talk is to be understood as a categorising device which does boundary work. Technical talk invokes and performs a disjunction between networks of social relationships and stipulates a moral order with associated norms for acceptance and transition. The difficulty of penetrating the intelligibility of technical talk is understandable as a struggle in familiarising oneself with the routine social actions of a separate community. In addition, the private sphere of the technical is often distanced in time. The costs involved in journeying into the future are analogous to those of penetrating alien cultures. Ideas of progress and advance are often associated with the invocation of ‘the technical’. These connote a notion of timing which reinforces the distance and difference of—and hence depicts the costs involved in penetrating—removed sets of social relationships.     

General Economy and Productive Dualisms

Through an investigation of the organizing potential of productive dualisms and ontological hierarchies that move toward epistemic and ontological closures, this essay theorizes the bounded potential of fluidity, and points to the possibility of waste, excess and sacrifice within a general economy of gender. We emphasize the apparently paradoxical role that dualisms — especially dualisms understood semiotically — have played in the foundational work to which many theorists look for clues about how to proceed in confounding limits and boundaries. Moreover, closures around the interrelated subordination of femininity and blackness emerge as a crucial reminder of the interlocking projects of gender and race theory. Drawing upon gender and critical race theory, philosophical phenomenology, and the work of Georges Bataille, we suggest that a general economy of gender can be explored by perceiving the closures, and other limits, enacted by dualism in organizational settings.     

Empathy and Emotional Responsiveness in Delinquent and Non-delinquent Adolescents

Two groups of male adolescents, incarcerated young offenders (N = 64, mean age = 16.3 years) and a comparison group of community youth (N = 60; mean age = 16.6 years), were administered the Empathy Continuum (measuring cognitive‐affective responses to persons in emotionally evocative videotaped vignettes) and questionnaire measures of empathy, emotional responsiveness, guilt, shame, and antisocial attitudes and behaviors. Although both groups endorsed general statements of empathy, young offenders responded with empathy less often to particular persons in particular situations, and reasoned regarding their empathic responses in more self‐referencing ways. They also described their emotional responses to stimulus persons as less intense. In addition to the expected group differences, responsive empathy was a stronger predictor of delinquency than self‐reported antisocial behavior, and correctly classified 69 percent of young offenders and comparison youths. Although guilt was consistently related to lower self‐reported antisocial attitudes and behaviors, guilt (and shame) only weakly differentiated the two groups, limiting the usefulness of the TOSCA‐A as a predictor of delinquency.     

The use of psychoeducational evaluations in the clinical process-therapists as sympathetic advocates

Psychoeducational evaluations are described and examined as invaluable tools for families and professionals to use in determining how best to help a child adapt successfully to the world in which he/she must function. The process of evaluation gains power when families are supported by a therapist who is actively involved in the process as a knowledgeable, sympathetic observer. The role requires a grasp of the fundamentals of the evaluation process, including referral, contacts with the diagnostician, test sessions, kinds of tests available, analysis of results and feedback to all parties involved.Dr. Jackson is a psychologist with 29 years experience in testing children. She is in private practice.     

An interference analysis of crowding

The behavioral consequences of crowding are analyzed in terms of mediation by the amount of interference experienced in a setting. It is argued that the amount of interference is the major determinant of crowding stress and one of several determinants of the subjective feeling of being crowded. Research implications of this analysis are discussed.     

Getting by in the community: lessons from frail elders

This study explores how functionally impaired, elderly persons are able to remain in the community without home- and community- based care (HCBC) under the Medicaid program. Using HCBC administrative data, Medicare data, and survey data, we find the nonparticipants in the community appear to get by through a combination of reliance on informal care, use of Medicare home care, and going without needed services. Despite their efforts to manage their care in the community, non-participants were significantly more likely than the participants to enter a nursing home during the six months following assessment. While our analysis does not allow us to attribute the higher nursing home entry to the absence of HCBC services with certainty, the finding does raise questions about whether the elements of the HCBC program that discourage participation may save Medicaid dollars in the short-run at the expense of future Medicaid costs from more rapid nursing home entry.