What to do with “I Don't Know:” Elicitation in Ethnographic & Survey Interviews

When a researcher enters an interview, she has already construed it as being a standard type of communicative event. This article considers how a researcher's construal of a communicative event as either an ethnographic or survey interview shapes the production of information. Interview standards entail epistemological assumptions that directly inform the type of information sought and produced. I consider this process through a comparison of the elicitation techniques I employed in survey and ethnographic interviews conducted during research in Mexico. I draw on theory in linguistic anthropology on the nature of meaning in language, examining how dialogicality and interaction are essential to understanding the construal of communicative events.     

Homework and domestic work

This study assesses two competing theories about the extent to which homework—paid work in the home—helps integrate work and domestic roles for men and women. Contrasting male and female homeworkers with their counterparts working outside the home, it supports some aspects of both the resource and role overload theories, but predominantly the role overload perspective. Homeworkers, especially in the working class, experience less interference between job and family life, but perform more housework and child care. They have no more leisure time nor greater marital satisfaction than those working outside the home, but receive more family assistance with their paid jobs, suggesting that they combine tasks from their first and second shifts. Working at home does not break down gender roles in domestic life. Despite time saved from commuting, male homeworkers perform no more housework than comparable men working outside the home. Thus, the gender division of unpaid household labor is not simply a matter of resources or spatial logistics.An earlier version was presented at the meetings of the Eastern Sociological Society, Providence, Rhode Island, April 1991.     

Grillin’ with My Grandchild©: multigenerational programming for grandfathers and grandchildren

This article describes the Grillin’ with My Grandchild^© multigenerational relationship education program which is designed to encourage the enhancement and maintenance of a meaningful grandfather-grandchild relationship. During this multi-session program, grandfather and grandchild participants engage in several activities which include creating an electronic memory book as well as grilling and eating food together. They learn through facilitated discussion and by sharing personal experiences what it means to be a grandfather and a grandchild. Facilitated discussion about nutritional grilling practices and safe food grilling are implemented at each session. Grandfather-grandchild dyads interact with other familial dyads in their group and experience a sense of community and familiarity. Future research into the relational and psychological benefits of the program are suggested.     

Validation of the Learning Transfer System Inventory (LTSI) in the Korean corporate context

Lack of a valid instrument to measure learning transfer predictors has been the major obstacle hindering Human Resource Development (HRD) professionals from moving forward. This problem is one of the lingering HRD issues in South Korea, in which human resources have been strategically emphasized as a critical asset due to the scarcity of natural resources. To address this issue, this study aims at testing the validity and reliability of the data collected with the Korean Learning Transfer System Inventory (LTSI) Version 4. A sample of 753 managers from 16 Korean industries was divided into two subsamples for exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses. Reliability and the effect of common method variance on the factor structure were examined, with the results suggesting that the LTSI is valid for use in the Korean industry.     

“Which One Is Yours?”: Children and Ethnography

This paper explores roles that children play in ethnographic research. Based on the limited literature on children in the field, and drawing on examples from ethnographies across disciplines, I identify four roles for children: 1) as “wedges,” or as instrumentally important in helping adult ethnographers gain access in various ways; 2) as collaborators; 3) as objects of study; and 4) as subjects of study. I also discuss the ways in which these roles illuminate key methodological issues in ethnography, like reflexivity, ethics, and agency. The paper synthesizes and integrates previously disconnected research on the presence of children in the field with ethnographies in which children and childhood are the topics of research. I draw on my own fieldwork experiences for further illustration.

Comparing the Experiences of Highly Skilled Labor Migrants in Sweden and Japan: Barriers and Doors to Long-term Settlement

As labor markets become increasingly global, competition among industrialized nations to attract highly skilled workers from abroad has intensified. Spurred by concerns over future economic needs caused by the demographic challenges of an aging population, both Japan and Sweden have joined this global competition. This article examines Japanese and Swedish immigration policies for highly skilled migrants and compares the highly skilled migrants’ experiences in the two countries through interviews with these migrants. Despite Japan and Sweden's completely different approaches to immigration itself, both countries’ policies, as well as the experiences of the skilled migrants, are strikingly similar. Highly skilled migrants experience language barriers and prejudice in both countries, making it difficult to build social networks with natives. Career development seems to be perceived as a common problem, although less so in Sweden, where labor markets are more flexible. Overall, these issues reduce both Japan's and Sweden's ability to retain skilled migrants. While they share similarities, Sweden's famed work–life balance and gender equality give it an edge in the competition for skilled migrants, which Japan does not share. This comparison identifies which social conditions facilitate or impede skilled migrant settlement.     

Precarious lives and resistant possibilities: the labour of people with learning disabilities in times of austerity

This paper draws on feminist and queer philosophers? discussions of precarity and employment, too often absent from disability studies, to explore the working lives of people with learning disabilities in England in a time of austerity. Recent policy shifts from welfare to work welcome more disabled people into the job market. The reality is that disabled people remain under-represented in labour statistics and are conspicuously absent in cultures of work. We live in neoliberal-able times where we all find ourselves precarious. But, people with learning disabilities experience high levels of uncertainty in every aspect of their lives, including work, relationships and community living. Our research reveals an important analytical finding: that when people with learning disabilities are supported in imaginative and novel ways they are able to work effectively and cohesively participate in their local communities (even in a time of cuts to welfare). We conclude by acknowledging that we are witnessing a global politics of precarity and austerity. Our urgent task is to redress the unequal spread of precaritization across our society that risks leaving people with learning disabilities experiencing disproportionately perilous lives. One of our key recommendations is that it makes no economic sense (never mind moral sense) to pull funding from organisations that support people with intellectual disabilities to work.     

Fugitive slaves and Christian evangelism in French West Africa: a protestant mission in late nineteenth-century Senegal

This article examines a Protestant mission in late nineteenth-century Senegal that served as a refuge for runaway slaves in French West Africa. While slavery in Africa has been understood as benign and the end of slavery as a process of ‘renegotiation’ rather than a struggle for freedom, evidence from the mission shows the complicated and personal nature of emancipation for escaped slaves who joined religious communities. By analyzing the mission’s annual report, this essay sheds light on the lives of individual men and women who fled to the colonial capital and adopted strategies to secure their status as freepersons.