In recent years sociologists have labored to understand how economists have gained influence over... more In recent years sociologists have labored to understand how economists have gained influence over policymaking. We extend this research by shifting focus from the matter of influence to the matter of policy training. Granted that economists already have influence; how do future policy professionals learn economic rationales? How is this mindset transmitted to hesitant students? By asking these questions we bring socialization back into institutional research on "new" professionals. Utilizing data from an ethnography of a Masters of Public Affairs program, we find that students learn economics through a process of "ambivalent reproduction": They learn to "think like an economist without becoming one." They remain skeptical and reject the notion that they are economists, and when they use economics in their future policy work they do so in limited ways. Nonetheless, ambivalent reproduction sustains the policy status-quo and allows economics to remain influential without true belief. Ambivalent reproduction provides a new means for understanding the loosely coupled influence of economics on policy, and contributes to the sociology of economics, inhabited institutionalism, and professional socialization.
This paper makes the case for an inhabited institutionalism by pondering questions that continue ... more This paper makes the case for an inhabited institutionalism by pondering questions that continue to vex institutional theory: How can we account for local activity, agency, and change without reverting to a focus on individual actors-the very kinds of actors that institutional theory was designed to critique? How is change possible in an institutional context that constructs interests and sets the very conditions for such action? Efforts to deal with these questions by inserting various forms of individual, purposive actors into institutional frameworks have created inconsistencies that threaten the overall coherence of institutional theory and move it farther from its sociological roots. To provide alternative answers, we turn to the growing line of work on "inhabited" institutions. Our exegesis of this literature has two goals. The first goal is to shift focus away from individuals and nested imagery and towards social interaction and coupling configurations. This move opens new avenues for research and helps to identify the spaces-both conceptual and empirical-and the supra-individual processes that facilitate change. This shift has important theoretical implications: incorporating social interaction alters institutional theory, and our second goal is to specify an analytic framework for this new research, an inhabited institutionalism. Inhabited institutionalism is a meso-approach for examining the recursive relationships among institutions, interactions, and organizations. It provides novel and sociologically consistent means for dealing with issues of agency and change, and a new agenda for research that can reinvigorate and reunite organizational sociology and institutional theory. The 2014 American Sociological Association meetings included a panel titled with the provocative question, "Does Organizational Sociology have a Future?" Although opinions varied, the mood was somber, and the general consensus was that the golden era of organizational sociology was over. After the meetings the exchange continued online, and in 2015 the Organizations, Occupations, and Work section published a compendium of the discussion in its newsletter. A recent essay in Contemporary Sociology summarized the concerns
Institutions and Organizations: A Process View, 2019
On 26 th December 2016, some 400 people left a disused Berlin airport to walk some 2,100 miles to... more On 26 th December 2016, some 400 people left a disused Berlin airport to walk some 2,100 miles to Aleppo as an expression of solidarity with civilians suffering in Syria while calling for an end to the war. Some would stay the course for the nearly eight months it ultimately took, whereas others joined the Civil March for Aleppo (CMFA) for short periods. In this chapter, we explore what the CMFA can tell us about the relation between processes and institutions by focusing on a contentious episode. When the marchers realised they might not be able to continue walking upon reaching Turkey, they had to confront a question that had never collectively been settled: Was this ultimately a march for or to Aleppo? Drawing from old, new, and inhabited institutionalism, we explore the causes and consequences of this episode and reexamine assumptions of loose and tight coupling in organizations.
Institutions and Organizations: A Process View, 2019
Can we do institutional analysis without institutional theory? Should we? These provocative quest... more Can we do institutional analysis without institutional theory? Should we? These provocative questions prompt a reflection on institutional thought, but they also serve as an invitation for scholars in adjacent fields-process scholars among them-to reconsider the boundaries between fields and the benefits of crossing them. Such benefits are evident in the work of the founders of institutional theory, none of who were self-consciously "institutional" as they embarked on their careers. Reviewing their work reveals four keys for doing institutional analysis without institutional theory, and the importance of doing so. It also reveals some of the limits of contemporary institutional theory: the dominance of institutional theory in organizational studies is problematic in the sense that many of the most important insights and developments in institutional theory emerged through cross-fertilization across multiple fields, rather than the narrow cultivation of one.
The "micro" turn in institutional research is a welcome development in a field that has commonly ... more The "micro" turn in institutional research is a welcome development in a field that has commonly adopted a macro approach to the study of institutions. Nevertheless, research in the emergent "microinstitutional" tradition often ignores a fundamental social form: social interaction. Our goal is to bring this form of society back into institutional analysis, as a key meso component of an "inhabited institutional" approach. We argue that social interactions are vital to our understandings of institutions, how they operate, and their impact on society. We advance inhabited institutionalism as a mesosociological approach that is consistent with key premises of institutional theory.
In light of ongoing concerns about the relevance of scholarly activities, we ask, what are public... more In light of ongoing concerns about the relevance of scholarly activities, we ask, what are public ideas and how do they come to be? More specifically, how do journalists and other mediators between the academy and the public use social science ideas? How do the various uses of these ideas develop over time and shape the public careers of these ideas? How do these processes help us to understand public ideas and to identify their various types? In addressing these questions, we make the case for a sociology of public social science. Using data from newspaper articles that engage with seven of the most publicly prominent social science ideas over the last 30 years, we make three contributions. First, we advance a pragmatic, cultural approach to understanding public ideas, one that emphasizes fit-making processes and applicative flexibility. Second, we define public ideas: social science ideas become public ideas when they are used as objects of interest (being the news), are used as interpretants (making sense of the news), and ebb and flow between these uses as part of an unfolding career. Third, we construct a typology of public ideas that provides an architecture for future research on public social science. * This article has a long and winding history-in the language of this paper, it is a "coaster"-and each author made essential contributions to the project. Acknowledgments: This project was made possible through the generosity of the Indiana University Institute for Advanced Study. We thank the anonymous reviewers and editors of the American Sociological Review for their comments and support. We also thank
Interrogating Ethnography by Steven Lubet is a book that ethnographers will have to read, but is ... more Interrogating Ethnography by Steven Lubet is a book that ethnographers will have to read, but is it for the right reasons? The dramatic charges and contentious exchanges between Steve Lubet and Alice Goffman that preceded the book have fueled interest and surely aided in the acquisition of a book contract. Controversy sells, even for academic presses. The book is compelling at first glance, and the cover includes a bloody fingerprint, suggesting that something sinister is afoot. Positivist critics of ethnography and those who are disinclined towards the methodology will find it especially appealing, and the book is set up to be read towards a damning verdict-that evidence does not matter in ethnography, that it should, and ethnographers should take lessons from lawyers in the vetting and understanding of evidence. This argument is evident throughout the book, first as the reader is confronted with the subtitle, Why Evidence Matters, and lastly as the reader is confronted with the concluding chapter: "Toward Evidence-Based Ethnography."
Institutional theory (IT) is a very influential set of approaches in organization studies. There ... more Institutional theory (IT) is a very influential set of approaches in organization studies. There is increasing critique that the set is becoming uninhibited: too broad, dispersed, and confusing. Efforts to rejuvenate the field(s) have led to all-embracing definitions and efforts to account for too much, which makes it difficult to identify what is distinct about the assembly of research. This article discusses critically the state of IT and suggests some reconceptualizations of institution and institutional theory and points at some alternative lines of development.
In this chapter we think broadly about the graduate degree programs that are coming to represent ... more In this chapter we think broadly about the graduate degree programs that are coming to represent the " managerial " professions as a way to reexamine the literature on professions and higher education, and to reconsider the sociological approaches that have been used to examine the connections between them. Pushing against both the functionalist and power/jurisdictional approaches to understanding the professions, we discuss the conceptual and empirical merits of new institutionalism and symbolic interactionism. In doing so, we develop an " inhabited " institutional approach to understanding professional socialization, and we call for a fresh wave of research on professional education as a way to revitalize long-standing work that has focused on traditional professions, particularly doctors, lawyers, and the clergy. 2
Organizational fields are a central construct in institutional theory and the notion of shared me... more Organizational fields are a central construct in institutional theory and the notion of shared meaning is integral to the definition of “field.” In this review, we discuss how institutional scholars have examined discourse, rhetoric, and framing as mechanisms through which meanings form, change, and coalesce in institutional fields. We assess the important contributions of this literature, but we also argue that what scholars identify as discourse, rhetoric, and frames are the residues or echoes of prior social interactions. When scholars miss the opportunity to examine interactions as a key mechanism and source of these meanings, a fundamental dynamic of fields becomes obscured and the accounts become, ironically, static. A focus on interactions enables researchers to observe how institutional fields are understood and tethered to local activity, as actors layer their multiple meanings in ways that may result in unexpected outcomes. As a way to incorporate discourse, rhetoric, and frames into a dynamic approach that features social interaction as an important source of meaning, we examine possibilities evident in the growing line of research on “inhabited institutions,” and we chart productive avenues for future research on the dynamics of fields.
Over the last few decades high-stakes accountability has become commonplace in education policy, ... more Over the last few decades high-stakes accountability has become commonplace in education policy, both in the U.S. and internationally. In this paper, we consider the role of school leaders and ‘accountability talk’ in implementing this shift through a case study of one urban school principal’s talk during a period of reform. Consistent with broader policy discourses, the 650 instances of principal rhetoric in 14 elementary school meetings reflected issues of standardization and assessment through rational appeals to logic (logos). However, the principal’s ‘accountability talk’ also relied on rhetorical sequences that wove these rational appeals together with moral (ethos) and emotional (pathos) claims, thereby connecting the accountability paradigm to more established discourse associated with the educational profession. We argue that school principal talk is a primary means through which broader institutional changes and local work practices become coupled together, often in ways that blend apparently competing models of organization. As such, accountability talk should be of both empirical and theoretical interest for scholars studying school leadership and education reform.
Over the last 8 years a number of scholars have begun to argue that institutions and the cultural... more Over the last 8 years a number of scholars have begun to argue that institutions and the cultural rationales or " logics " that govern organizations are " inhabited " by people doing things together, at times in conflict, and at times in concert. Building on this approach, our chapter reconsiders a claim that lies at the heart of new institutional theory: that the characteristics and behaviors of organizations and the individuals within them are shaped by higher-order cultural systems. While new institutionalism commonly translates this theoretical insight into empirical research with quantitative and historical methods that track the macro diffusion of organizational arrangements within fields of activity, inhabited institutionalism (II) uses qualitative methods that can also assess how organizational structure and behavior result from negotiations among organizational members. With eyes towards both the broader environment and local activity, II uses a range of methods to examine the recursive relationship between institutions and social interaction, looking two ways at once.
This paper examines the failed attempt to reauthorize the American educational law known as No Ch... more This paper examines the failed attempt to reauthorize the American educational law known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in 2007. Drawing on existing research on cultural processes of policymaking and insights from inhabited institutionalism, we analyze data from 20 congressional hearings, viewing them as social interactions. We find that hearing participants identified problems with strict accountability policies and, in interpreting those problems, introduced alternative meanings, including " NCLB means children left behind. " Our approach stresses the symbolic politics of reform at the meso level of interaction and makes the case for a cultural analysis of policymaking that synthesizes both interactionism and institutionalism. Bridwell-Mitchell for their comments. We also thank the editorial team and reviewers of Symbolic Interaction.
Following the perspective of “sociological miniaturism,” proposed by Stoke, Fine,
and Cook (2001)... more Following the perspective of “sociological miniaturism,” proposed by Stoke, Fine, and Cook (2001), we examine the significance of dust in social life in ordcr to examine the reverberations of the micro-features of everyday life on social structure. ‘Through the examination of thc routine, the unexamincd, and the commonplace, we hope to gain some insight on how the taken-for-granted aspects of lived experience fit into the larger social order. Dust, by virtue of its “smallness,” provides a window through which we can explore social structural issues using microsociological analysis. Specifically we examine how dust and techniques for its control are linked to issues of gender, work, political economy, and nation.
Classical ethnographic research recognizes that the observer starts as a stranger to the observed... more Classical ethnographic research recognizes that the observer starts as a stranger to the observed group, a recognition as evident in studies of formal organizations as of gangs or tribes. Although scholars have discussed the many challenges associated with this position, we argue that being a stranger facilitates insights that stand apart from the taken-for-granted. In their strangeness ethnographers are both aliens (outsiders to the organization) and eccentrics (actors who do not fully embrace the culture). We define these two components as constituting the “stranger paradigm,” a unique Otherness that permits understanding of forces that are under-recognized by participants. This position facilitates the creation of theoretical inferences that can be profitably scrutinized by disciplinary colleagues, and viewing the ethnographic stranger in this way compels us to revisit the contentious issue of ethnographic authority. Although ethnographic authority has been challenged, these challenges, while rightly cautioning against the dismissal of informant’s perspectives and exploitative power relations, ignore the special skills of the ethnographic stranger. To support our claims about distance, authority, and theoretical inference, we revisit organizational ethnographies of the socialization of doctors, morticians, and ministers.
Drawing on sociological conceptions of interaction, small groups, and group cultures, we argue th... more Drawing on sociological conceptions of interaction, small groups, and group cultures, we argue that organizational studies benefits from a meso-analysis of everyday life. Small group cultures are a means through which colleagues and co-workers share embedded and powerful self-referential meanings that shape ongoing organizational activity. Through this perspective we argue for a group-level approach to organizations that emphasizes the local production of knowledge and structure. Drawing upon ethnographic research on field offices of the National Weather Service, we emphasize the importance of shared awareness and memory, performance, and differentiation, building on a vibrant group culture in which workers collaborate and challenge each other. In conclusion we examine connections and differences among the group culture approach, and related approaches that emphasize inhabited institutions, institutional logics, institutional work, and organizational culture.
The study of institutional myths has been central to organizational sociology, cultural sociology... more The study of institutional myths has been central to organizational sociology, cultural sociology, and the sociology of education for thirty years. This article examines how the myth concept has been used and develops neglected possibilities by asking: What happens when myths become incarnate, and how does this happen? In other words, what happens when conformity to a rationalized cultural ideal such as “accountability” is no longer symbolic, but rather, given flesh as the myth of a tight coupling between the institutional environment and local activities is made real? Data from a two-year ethnography of an urban elementary school provide answers and reveal “recoupling” processes through which institutional myths and organizational practices that were loosely connected become tightly linked. In this case, the recoupling to accountability created a phenomenon that teachers, in their own nomenclature, labeled “turmoil.” These findings advance our understanding of the micro-sociological foundations of institutional theory by “inhabiting” institutionalism with people, their work activities, social interactions, and meaning-making processes.
In recent years sociologists have labored to understand how economists have gained influence over... more In recent years sociologists have labored to understand how economists have gained influence over policymaking. We extend this research by shifting focus from the matter of influence to the matter of policy training. Granted that economists already have influence; how do future policy professionals learn economic rationales? How is this mindset transmitted to hesitant students? By asking these questions we bring socialization back into institutional research on "new" professionals. Utilizing data from an ethnography of a Masters of Public Affairs program, we find that students learn economics through a process of "ambivalent reproduction": They learn to "think like an economist without becoming one." They remain skeptical and reject the notion that they are economists, and when they use economics in their future policy work they do so in limited ways. Nonetheless, ambivalent reproduction sustains the policy status-quo and allows economics to remain influential without true belief. Ambivalent reproduction provides a new means for understanding the loosely coupled influence of economics on policy, and contributes to the sociology of economics, inhabited institutionalism, and professional socialization.
This paper makes the case for an inhabited institutionalism by pondering questions that continue ... more This paper makes the case for an inhabited institutionalism by pondering questions that continue to vex institutional theory: How can we account for local activity, agency, and change without reverting to a focus on individual actors-the very kinds of actors that institutional theory was designed to critique? How is change possible in an institutional context that constructs interests and sets the very conditions for such action? Efforts to deal with these questions by inserting various forms of individual, purposive actors into institutional frameworks have created inconsistencies that threaten the overall coherence of institutional theory and move it farther from its sociological roots. To provide alternative answers, we turn to the growing line of work on "inhabited" institutions. Our exegesis of this literature has two goals. The first goal is to shift focus away from individuals and nested imagery and towards social interaction and coupling configurations. This move opens new avenues for research and helps to identify the spaces-both conceptual and empirical-and the supra-individual processes that facilitate change. This shift has important theoretical implications: incorporating social interaction alters institutional theory, and our second goal is to specify an analytic framework for this new research, an inhabited institutionalism. Inhabited institutionalism is a meso-approach for examining the recursive relationships among institutions, interactions, and organizations. It provides novel and sociologically consistent means for dealing with issues of agency and change, and a new agenda for research that can reinvigorate and reunite organizational sociology and institutional theory. The 2014 American Sociological Association meetings included a panel titled with the provocative question, "Does Organizational Sociology have a Future?" Although opinions varied, the mood was somber, and the general consensus was that the golden era of organizational sociology was over. After the meetings the exchange continued online, and in 2015 the Organizations, Occupations, and Work section published a compendium of the discussion in its newsletter. A recent essay in Contemporary Sociology summarized the concerns
Institutions and Organizations: A Process View, 2019
On 26 th December 2016, some 400 people left a disused Berlin airport to walk some 2,100 miles to... more On 26 th December 2016, some 400 people left a disused Berlin airport to walk some 2,100 miles to Aleppo as an expression of solidarity with civilians suffering in Syria while calling for an end to the war. Some would stay the course for the nearly eight months it ultimately took, whereas others joined the Civil March for Aleppo (CMFA) for short periods. In this chapter, we explore what the CMFA can tell us about the relation between processes and institutions by focusing on a contentious episode. When the marchers realised they might not be able to continue walking upon reaching Turkey, they had to confront a question that had never collectively been settled: Was this ultimately a march for or to Aleppo? Drawing from old, new, and inhabited institutionalism, we explore the causes and consequences of this episode and reexamine assumptions of loose and tight coupling in organizations.
Institutions and Organizations: A Process View, 2019
Can we do institutional analysis without institutional theory? Should we? These provocative quest... more Can we do institutional analysis without institutional theory? Should we? These provocative questions prompt a reflection on institutional thought, but they also serve as an invitation for scholars in adjacent fields-process scholars among them-to reconsider the boundaries between fields and the benefits of crossing them. Such benefits are evident in the work of the founders of institutional theory, none of who were self-consciously "institutional" as they embarked on their careers. Reviewing their work reveals four keys for doing institutional analysis without institutional theory, and the importance of doing so. It also reveals some of the limits of contemporary institutional theory: the dominance of institutional theory in organizational studies is problematic in the sense that many of the most important insights and developments in institutional theory emerged through cross-fertilization across multiple fields, rather than the narrow cultivation of one.
The "micro" turn in institutional research is a welcome development in a field that has commonly ... more The "micro" turn in institutional research is a welcome development in a field that has commonly adopted a macro approach to the study of institutions. Nevertheless, research in the emergent "microinstitutional" tradition often ignores a fundamental social form: social interaction. Our goal is to bring this form of society back into institutional analysis, as a key meso component of an "inhabited institutional" approach. We argue that social interactions are vital to our understandings of institutions, how they operate, and their impact on society. We advance inhabited institutionalism as a mesosociological approach that is consistent with key premises of institutional theory.
In light of ongoing concerns about the relevance of scholarly activities, we ask, what are public... more In light of ongoing concerns about the relevance of scholarly activities, we ask, what are public ideas and how do they come to be? More specifically, how do journalists and other mediators between the academy and the public use social science ideas? How do the various uses of these ideas develop over time and shape the public careers of these ideas? How do these processes help us to understand public ideas and to identify their various types? In addressing these questions, we make the case for a sociology of public social science. Using data from newspaper articles that engage with seven of the most publicly prominent social science ideas over the last 30 years, we make three contributions. First, we advance a pragmatic, cultural approach to understanding public ideas, one that emphasizes fit-making processes and applicative flexibility. Second, we define public ideas: social science ideas become public ideas when they are used as objects of interest (being the news), are used as interpretants (making sense of the news), and ebb and flow between these uses as part of an unfolding career. Third, we construct a typology of public ideas that provides an architecture for future research on public social science. * This article has a long and winding history-in the language of this paper, it is a "coaster"-and each author made essential contributions to the project. Acknowledgments: This project was made possible through the generosity of the Indiana University Institute for Advanced Study. We thank the anonymous reviewers and editors of the American Sociological Review for their comments and support. We also thank
Interrogating Ethnography by Steven Lubet is a book that ethnographers will have to read, but is ... more Interrogating Ethnography by Steven Lubet is a book that ethnographers will have to read, but is it for the right reasons? The dramatic charges and contentious exchanges between Steve Lubet and Alice Goffman that preceded the book have fueled interest and surely aided in the acquisition of a book contract. Controversy sells, even for academic presses. The book is compelling at first glance, and the cover includes a bloody fingerprint, suggesting that something sinister is afoot. Positivist critics of ethnography and those who are disinclined towards the methodology will find it especially appealing, and the book is set up to be read towards a damning verdict-that evidence does not matter in ethnography, that it should, and ethnographers should take lessons from lawyers in the vetting and understanding of evidence. This argument is evident throughout the book, first as the reader is confronted with the subtitle, Why Evidence Matters, and lastly as the reader is confronted with the concluding chapter: "Toward Evidence-Based Ethnography."
Institutional theory (IT) is a very influential set of approaches in organization studies. There ... more Institutional theory (IT) is a very influential set of approaches in organization studies. There is increasing critique that the set is becoming uninhibited: too broad, dispersed, and confusing. Efforts to rejuvenate the field(s) have led to all-embracing definitions and efforts to account for too much, which makes it difficult to identify what is distinct about the assembly of research. This article discusses critically the state of IT and suggests some reconceptualizations of institution and institutional theory and points at some alternative lines of development.
In this chapter we think broadly about the graduate degree programs that are coming to represent ... more In this chapter we think broadly about the graduate degree programs that are coming to represent the " managerial " professions as a way to reexamine the literature on professions and higher education, and to reconsider the sociological approaches that have been used to examine the connections between them. Pushing against both the functionalist and power/jurisdictional approaches to understanding the professions, we discuss the conceptual and empirical merits of new institutionalism and symbolic interactionism. In doing so, we develop an " inhabited " institutional approach to understanding professional socialization, and we call for a fresh wave of research on professional education as a way to revitalize long-standing work that has focused on traditional professions, particularly doctors, lawyers, and the clergy. 2
Organizational fields are a central construct in institutional theory and the notion of shared me... more Organizational fields are a central construct in institutional theory and the notion of shared meaning is integral to the definition of “field.” In this review, we discuss how institutional scholars have examined discourse, rhetoric, and framing as mechanisms through which meanings form, change, and coalesce in institutional fields. We assess the important contributions of this literature, but we also argue that what scholars identify as discourse, rhetoric, and frames are the residues or echoes of prior social interactions. When scholars miss the opportunity to examine interactions as a key mechanism and source of these meanings, a fundamental dynamic of fields becomes obscured and the accounts become, ironically, static. A focus on interactions enables researchers to observe how institutional fields are understood and tethered to local activity, as actors layer their multiple meanings in ways that may result in unexpected outcomes. As a way to incorporate discourse, rhetoric, and frames into a dynamic approach that features social interaction as an important source of meaning, we examine possibilities evident in the growing line of research on “inhabited institutions,” and we chart productive avenues for future research on the dynamics of fields.
Over the last few decades high-stakes accountability has become commonplace in education policy, ... more Over the last few decades high-stakes accountability has become commonplace in education policy, both in the U.S. and internationally. In this paper, we consider the role of school leaders and ‘accountability talk’ in implementing this shift through a case study of one urban school principal’s talk during a period of reform. Consistent with broader policy discourses, the 650 instances of principal rhetoric in 14 elementary school meetings reflected issues of standardization and assessment through rational appeals to logic (logos). However, the principal’s ‘accountability talk’ also relied on rhetorical sequences that wove these rational appeals together with moral (ethos) and emotional (pathos) claims, thereby connecting the accountability paradigm to more established discourse associated with the educational profession. We argue that school principal talk is a primary means through which broader institutional changes and local work practices become coupled together, often in ways that blend apparently competing models of organization. As such, accountability talk should be of both empirical and theoretical interest for scholars studying school leadership and education reform.
Over the last 8 years a number of scholars have begun to argue that institutions and the cultural... more Over the last 8 years a number of scholars have begun to argue that institutions and the cultural rationales or " logics " that govern organizations are " inhabited " by people doing things together, at times in conflict, and at times in concert. Building on this approach, our chapter reconsiders a claim that lies at the heart of new institutional theory: that the characteristics and behaviors of organizations and the individuals within them are shaped by higher-order cultural systems. While new institutionalism commonly translates this theoretical insight into empirical research with quantitative and historical methods that track the macro diffusion of organizational arrangements within fields of activity, inhabited institutionalism (II) uses qualitative methods that can also assess how organizational structure and behavior result from negotiations among organizational members. With eyes towards both the broader environment and local activity, II uses a range of methods to examine the recursive relationship between institutions and social interaction, looking two ways at once.
This paper examines the failed attempt to reauthorize the American educational law known as No Ch... more This paper examines the failed attempt to reauthorize the American educational law known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in 2007. Drawing on existing research on cultural processes of policymaking and insights from inhabited institutionalism, we analyze data from 20 congressional hearings, viewing them as social interactions. We find that hearing participants identified problems with strict accountability policies and, in interpreting those problems, introduced alternative meanings, including " NCLB means children left behind. " Our approach stresses the symbolic politics of reform at the meso level of interaction and makes the case for a cultural analysis of policymaking that synthesizes both interactionism and institutionalism. Bridwell-Mitchell for their comments. We also thank the editorial team and reviewers of Symbolic Interaction.
Following the perspective of “sociological miniaturism,” proposed by Stoke, Fine,
and Cook (2001)... more Following the perspective of “sociological miniaturism,” proposed by Stoke, Fine, and Cook (2001), we examine the significance of dust in social life in ordcr to examine the reverberations of the micro-features of everyday life on social structure. ‘Through the examination of thc routine, the unexamincd, and the commonplace, we hope to gain some insight on how the taken-for-granted aspects of lived experience fit into the larger social order. Dust, by virtue of its “smallness,” provides a window through which we can explore social structural issues using microsociological analysis. Specifically we examine how dust and techniques for its control are linked to issues of gender, work, political economy, and nation.
Classical ethnographic research recognizes that the observer starts as a stranger to the observed... more Classical ethnographic research recognizes that the observer starts as a stranger to the observed group, a recognition as evident in studies of formal organizations as of gangs or tribes. Although scholars have discussed the many challenges associated with this position, we argue that being a stranger facilitates insights that stand apart from the taken-for-granted. In their strangeness ethnographers are both aliens (outsiders to the organization) and eccentrics (actors who do not fully embrace the culture). We define these two components as constituting the “stranger paradigm,” a unique Otherness that permits understanding of forces that are under-recognized by participants. This position facilitates the creation of theoretical inferences that can be profitably scrutinized by disciplinary colleagues, and viewing the ethnographic stranger in this way compels us to revisit the contentious issue of ethnographic authority. Although ethnographic authority has been challenged, these challenges, while rightly cautioning against the dismissal of informant’s perspectives and exploitative power relations, ignore the special skills of the ethnographic stranger. To support our claims about distance, authority, and theoretical inference, we revisit organizational ethnographies of the socialization of doctors, morticians, and ministers.
Drawing on sociological conceptions of interaction, small groups, and group cultures, we argue th... more Drawing on sociological conceptions of interaction, small groups, and group cultures, we argue that organizational studies benefits from a meso-analysis of everyday life. Small group cultures are a means through which colleagues and co-workers share embedded and powerful self-referential meanings that shape ongoing organizational activity. Through this perspective we argue for a group-level approach to organizations that emphasizes the local production of knowledge and structure. Drawing upon ethnographic research on field offices of the National Weather Service, we emphasize the importance of shared awareness and memory, performance, and differentiation, building on a vibrant group culture in which workers collaborate and challenge each other. In conclusion we examine connections and differences among the group culture approach, and related approaches that emphasize inhabited institutions, institutional logics, institutional work, and organizational culture.
The study of institutional myths has been central to organizational sociology, cultural sociology... more The study of institutional myths has been central to organizational sociology, cultural sociology, and the sociology of education for thirty years. This article examines how the myth concept has been used and develops neglected possibilities by asking: What happens when myths become incarnate, and how does this happen? In other words, what happens when conformity to a rationalized cultural ideal such as “accountability” is no longer symbolic, but rather, given flesh as the myth of a tight coupling between the institutional environment and local activities is made real? Data from a two-year ethnography of an urban elementary school provide answers and reveal “recoupling” processes through which institutional myths and organizational practices that were loosely connected become tightly linked. In this case, the recoupling to accountability created a phenomenon that teachers, in their own nomenclature, labeled “turmoil.” These findings advance our understanding of the micro-sociological foundations of institutional theory by “inhabiting” institutionalism with people, their work activities, social interactions, and meaning-making processes.
If you've ever wondered what it's like to be a faculty member at Harvard Business School (HBS) Ma... more If you've ever wondered what it's like to be a faculty member at Harvard Business School (HBS) Manufacturing Morals is the place to start. The book provides a view into the elite world of HBS faculty through the eyes of Michel Anteby, himself a member of that world, as he journeyed from assistant professor to untenured associate professor. It is notoriously difficult to study elites, but Anteby intrepidly pulls the veil. What he reveals is neither glamorous nor monstrous, but is instead mundane and routine, albeit in an exceptionally privileged way. And that's the point. In documenting his own experiences navigating the everyday life of HBS, Anteby's argument is that these routines, although scripted to a degree, nevertheless leave room for faculty discretion and hence responsibility—the mundane as moral.
Uploads
Papers by Tim Hallett
and Cook (2001), we examine the significance of dust in social life in ordcr to examine
the reverberations of the micro-features of everyday life on social structure.
‘Through the examination of thc routine, the unexamincd, and the commonplace, we
hope to gain some insight on how the taken-for-granted aspects of lived experience
fit into the larger social order. Dust, by virtue of its “smallness,” provides a window
through which we can explore social structural issues using microsociological analysis.
Specifically we examine how dust and techniques for its control are linked to
issues of gender, work, political economy, and nation.
and Cook (2001), we examine the significance of dust in social life in ordcr to examine
the reverberations of the micro-features of everyday life on social structure.
‘Through the examination of thc routine, the unexamincd, and the commonplace, we
hope to gain some insight on how the taken-for-granted aspects of lived experience
fit into the larger social order. Dust, by virtue of its “smallness,” provides a window
through which we can explore social structural issues using microsociological analysis.
Specifically we examine how dust and techniques for its control are linked to
issues of gender, work, political economy, and nation.