douglas maynard
University of Wisconsin-Madison, Sociology, Faculty Member
- I work in the sociological areas of ethnomethodology and conversation with side interests in social psychology and sc... moreI work in the sociological areas of ethnomethodology and conversation with side interests in social psychology and science, technology & society. Current work involves I-mean prefaced utterances related to complaining in conversation, requests for participation in the survey interview, and the diagnosis of autism. Many of my papers are available on my homepage at the University of Wisconsin website.edit
Conversation analysis is undoubtedly the most visible and conventionally successful of Garfinkel’s legacies. Yet the lineage is complex. This chapter traces it, first, by discussing Garfinkel’s initial interest, as revealed in an early... more
Conversation analysis is undoubtedly the most visible and conventionally successful of Garfinkel’s legacies. Yet the lineage is complex. This chapter traces it, first, by discussing Garfinkel’s initial interest, as revealed in an early (1948) dissertation proposal, in the domain of human interaction. He specifically addressed analytical problems related to the concision of speech (that it conveys much more than what is said), and the associated context-dependency of meaning, whereby linguistic expressions—later termed indexical expressions—gain their meaning by way of their context. Interaction and speech, in Garfinkel’s early work, were explicated using phenomenological resources, including the study of background expectancies, presuppositions accessed through breaching experiments and other demonstrations, and analysis of the documentary method of interpretation. Harvey Sacks’s approach was more direct, less theoretical, and habilitated the direct study of interaction through a selective engagement with key Garfinkelian stances and ideas. Sacks also drew from Erving Goffman concerning the interaction order, and from a variety of other scholars and works. The result was a focus on specimens of actual speech, coupled with methodological innovations related to membership categories as an aspect of common-sense knowledge, the sequential organization of talk, and increasingly sophisticated ways of working with collections of phenomena to delineate interactional activities and practices. This creative synthesis, and the conversation analytic discipline that emerged from it, was conditioned by Sacks’s own abiding interest in advancing a highly rigorous but thoroughly emic science of the “witnessable order” of human interaction.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This article considers the large range of empirical research that has emerged under the broad aegis of ethnomethodology, in the period between the publication of Studies in Ethnomethodology (1967) and the present day. Starting with a... more
This article considers the large range of empirical research that has emerged under the broad aegis of ethnomethodology, in the period between the publication of Studies in Ethnomethodology (1967) and the present day. Starting with a brief overview of Garfinkel's intellectual career, we discuss the relation of ethnomethodology to Schütz's phenomenology, Parsons's systems theory, and Weber's concern with meaning construction. A central concern was with the problem of contextuality, which Garfinkel initially addressed by drawing on, while fashioning in his own way, Mannheim's concern with the documentary method of interpretation. Ethnomethodologically-related studies have proliferated in a variety of domains, including conversation analysis, membership categorization analysis, and (related to Garfinkel's own early work) empirical initiatives in the study of everyday life involving racial, gender and other minoritized groups. Further ethnomethodological studies ...
Research Interests:
This article follows Blaxter’s foundational call for a sociology of diagnosis that addresses the dual aspects of diagnosis‐as‐category and diagnosis‐as‐process. Drawing on video recordings from an autism clinic, we show how the process of... more
This article follows Blaxter’s foundational call for a sociology of diagnosis that addresses the dual aspects of diagnosis‐as‐category and diagnosis‐as‐process. Drawing on video recordings from an autism clinic, we show how the process of attaching the diagnosis to a child involves interactions between clinicians, parents and children, and that in the course of such interactions, a diagnostic category officially defined in terms of deficits can instead be formulated in terms of valuable social and cognitive differences. More specifically, we show that the child’s age is crucial for how clinicians formulate the diagnosis: with younger children, clinicians treat autism exclusively as a deficit to be remedied, whereas with older children, clinicians may treat autism either as a deficit or as a social‐cognitive difference. Further, because older children are often co‐recipients of diagnostic news, we find that clinicians carefully manage the implications such news may have for their sel...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Despite its dependency on common-sense knowledge, sociology as a field has yet to confront the fact that there simply is no time out from its use at any level of practical endeavor, including the most sophisticated theoretical and... more
Despite its dependency on common-sense knowledge, sociology as a field has yet to confront the fact that there simply is no time out from its use at any level of practical endeavor, including the most sophisticated theoretical and methodological efforts of scientific activity itself. The theme of this chapter is to suggest why the wider discipline could benefit from increased ethnomethodological inquiry, and to demonstrate just how such inquiry and its offshoot, conversation analysis (CA), contribute to the profession and larger society. Such endeavors were well within the realm of Garfinkel’s own ambitions. To get at the devices of commonsense, Garfinkel’s (1967: 37) stated preference was to “start with familiar scenes and ask what can be done to make trouble”—for example, directing his students to question what their friends, acquaintances, or partners meant by the most commonplace remarks. However, that strategy leaves uninvestigated more naturalistic breaches and the forms of re...
Research Interests:
Harold Garfinkel's Studies in Ethnomethodology (1967) was published a little more than 50 years ago. Since then, there has been a substantial—although often subterranean—growth in ethnomethodological work and influence. Studies in and... more
Harold Garfinkel's Studies in Ethnomethodology (1967) was published a little more than 50 years ago. Since then, there has been a substantial—although often subterranean—growth in ethnomethodological work and influence. Studies in and appreciation of ethnomethodological work continue to grow, but the breadth and penetration of his insights and inspiration for ongoing research have yet to secure their full measure of recognition. The first part of this chapter reviews the development of Garfinkel’s ethnomethodology, whose origins include both the theorizing of Parsonian sociology and the phenomenology of Alfred Schütz. The authors discuss ethnomethodology’s orientation to the trust conditions making for a stable society, the “documentary method of interpretation,” rules and rule usage, and phenomena of language use and accountability. The second part of the chapter describes ethnomethodology’s legacies—its contributions to such areas or subdisciplines as conversation analysis (CA...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
In her book Thinking in Pictures, Temple Grandin (2006, pp. 154–155) describes the problems that “rigid thinking” can create in the social lives of autistic adults. She recounts how one young man “became romantically interested in a girl... more
In her book Thinking in Pictures, Temple Grandin (2006, pp. 154–155) describes the problems that “rigid thinking” can create in the social lives of autistic adults. She recounts how one young man “became romantically interested in a girl and went to her house wearing a football helmet to disguise himself. He thought it would be alright to look in her windows. In his literal, visual mind he thought that since he would not be recognized, it was okay to stand outside and watch for her.”
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Ethnomethodology (EM) is a theoretical paradigm created by American sociologist Harold Garfinkel. It is one of the twentieth century schools of sociology strongly influenced by Edmund Husserl’s philosophy of phenomenology. Although EM is... more
Ethnomethodology (EM) is a theoretical paradigm created by American sociologist Harold Garfinkel. It is one of the twentieth century schools of sociology strongly influenced by Edmund Husserl’s philosophy of phenomenology. Although EM is similar in certain respects to the various strands of social phenomenology created and influenced by Alfred Schutz and his students, its approach to the empirical study of social action differs in several important ways, with key tenets involving indexical expressions, accountability, and reflexivity. After presenting examples of classic EM research by Garfinkel and his colleagues, and discussing the relationship between EM and the related field of Conversation Analysis, we conclude the chapter with a review of recent and ongoing developments in EM, highlighting its contemporary relevance to studies of social praxis (e.g., culture, morality), embodied action, solitary social action, and the interaction order.
Research Interests:
Contributors to the 2016 Special Issue of Discourse Studies on the ‘Epistemics of Epistemics’ (EoE) claim that studies of epistemics in interaction (how participants display orientations to their own and others’ states of knowledge) have... more
Contributors to the 2016 Special Issue of Discourse Studies on the ‘Epistemics of Epistemics’ (EoE) claim that studies of epistemics in interaction (how participants display orientations to their own and others’ states of knowledge) have lost the ‘radical’ character of groundbreaking work in ethnomethodology (EM) and conversation analysis (CA). We suggest that the critiques and related writings are a kind of mandarin EM, lacking an adequate definition of ‘radical’, other than to invoke brief and by now familiar statements from Garfinkel and Sacks regarding the pursuit of ‘ordinary everyday activities’ and the avoidance of ‘formal analysis’. Drawing on Egon Bittner’s work, we further suggest that the EoE group shares properties and problems common to social movements claiming the mantle of radicalism. Because of their particular focus on CA and Harvey Sacks’ early work, we also demonstrate that Sacks was not, as asserted, preoccupied with the singularity of occasions. Rather, from hi...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Recent decades have witnessed a dramatic upsurge in the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). As researchers have investigated the responsible sociohistorical conditions, they have neglected how clinicians determine the diagnosis... more
Recent decades have witnessed a dramatic upsurge in the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). As researchers have investigated the responsible sociohistorical conditions, they have neglected how clinicians determine the diagnosis in local encounters in the first place. Articulating a position “between Foucault and Goffman,” we ask how the interaction order of the clinic articulates with larger-scale historical forces affecting the definition and distribution of ASD. First, we show how the diagnostic process has a narrative structure. Second, case data from three decades show how narrative practices accommodate to different periods in the history of the disorder, including changing diagnostic nomenclatures. Third, we show how two different forms of abstraction—Type A, which is categorical, and Type B, which is concrete and particular—inhabit the diagnostic process. Our analysis contributes to the sociology of autism, the sociology of diagnosis, the sociology of abstraction, a...
Research Interests:
We know a lot about why the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has risen so dramatically since the 1960s. However, social science and social psychology in particular fall short in the analysis of autistic behavior, the real-life... more
We know a lot about why the prevalence of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has risen so dramatically since the 1960s. However, social science and social psychology in particular fall short in the analysis of autistic behavior, the real-life manifestations of the disorder. In this address, I suggest that unless we tackle behavior in interaction, rather than as emanating from individuals, we cannot analytically comprehend behavior as a socially real and holistic entity. The particular phenomena under investigation is transpositioning, or how a neurotypical (NT) professional initiates a sequence of action (first position) involving a recipient who has ASD. Then, the person with ASD fashions a response (second position) that is resistive or noncooperative. However, the NT professional subsequently fashions an action that portrays the ASD person’s second position or responsive behavior as an initiation or feature independent of what may have prompted it. Moreover, in reporting on the event...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
We introduce conversation analysis (CA) as a methodological innovation that contributes to studies of the classic Milgram experiment, one allowing for substantive advances in the social psychological “obedience to authority” paradigm.... more
We introduce conversation analysis (CA) as a methodological innovation that contributes to studies of the classic Milgram experiment, one allowing for substantive advances in the social psychological “obedience to authority” paradigm. Data are 117 audio recordings of Milgram’s original experimental sessions. We discuss methodological features of CA and then show how CA allows for methodological advances in understanding the Milgramesque situation by treating it as a three-party interactional scene, explicating an interactional dilemma for the “Teacher” subjects, and decomposing categorical outcomes (obedience vs. defiance) into their concrete interactional routes. Substantively, we analyze two kinds of resistance to directives enacted by both obedient and defiant participants, who may orient to how continuation would be troublesome primarily for themselves (self-attentive resistance) or for the person receiving shocks (other-attentive resistance). Additionally, we find that defiant ...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This study, with an eye toward the social psychology of diagnosis more generally, is an investigation of how clinicians diagnose children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Responding to Hacking’s call for a Goffmanian mode of analysis... more
This study, with an eye toward the social psychology of diagnosis more generally, is an investigation of how clinicians diagnose children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Responding to Hacking’s call for a Goffmanian mode of analysis to complement and balance the emphasis on large-scale transformations and discourses, we examine the narrative way in which clinicians provide evidence to support a diagnostic position. Using recordings and transcripts of clinical visits across two eras, our findings about the interaction order of the clinic show distinct story types and components that contribute to diagnostic narratives for ASD. These include stories about concrete “instantiations,” stories that propose “tendencies,” and “typifications” or generalizations regarding a specific child. This work contributes to interaction order theory, methodology, and other domains of social psychological research.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This paper is a single case study involving a visit to a diagnostic clinic for autism spectrum disorder. A young boy finds a toy that he can hold with one hand and spin with another. In order to retrieve the toy and leave it in the... more
This paper is a single case study involving a visit to a diagnostic clinic for autism spectrum disorder. A young boy finds a toy that he can hold with one hand and spin with another. In order to retrieve the toy and leave it in the clinic, the parents engage in a team effort. We describe this achievement in terms of two styles of practice or interactional routines with differing participation frameworks. We examine not only how the parents work as a team using these styles, but also how they improvise to extract the spinning toy from their son's grasp with minimal protest on his part.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
In this chapter, we examine morality as a practical feature of everyday interactions. Drawing on scholarship in two closely related traditions, ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, we locate moral reasoning in the embodied... more
In this chapter, we examine morality as a practical feature of everyday interactions. Drawing on scholarship in two closely related traditions, ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, we locate moral reasoning in the embodied interactional practices of social actors, rather than the private” thought processes of independent individuals. Building on a distinction between surface morality, or the norms and expectations people enact
Research Interests:
Language is a primary medium of social behavior and, as such, deserves center stage in the panoply of social psychological topics. This chapter explores the social psychology of language by reviewing scholarship that highlights how people... more
Language is a primary medium of social behavior and, as such, deserves center stage in the panoply of social psychological topics. This chapter explores the social psychology of language by reviewing scholarship that highlights how people use language to perform social actions. This approach goes against a tradition that sees spoken language primarily in terms of the conduit metaphor or only as a vehicle for communication. The authors review speech act theory (in philosophy) and pose the “mapping problem” (Levinson, Pragmatics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1983) or how actions are linked to particular utterances. They then review different perspectives including sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, Goffmanian sociology, discursive psychology, and ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. Discussion includes, for each of these perspectives, methodological procedures, including approaches to the relation between talk and social structure. Ever more realms of language use related to social psychology are coming under the microscope and set an agenda for further study.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
ABSTRACT In the 1970s, two major studies established the systematic study of doctor–patient interaction as a viable research domain. The first, conducted by Korsch and Negrete (1972) at the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles was based on... more
ABSTRACT In the 1970s, two major studies established the systematic study of doctor–patient interaction as a viable research domain. The first, conducted by Korsch and Negrete (1972) at the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles was based on observations of 800 pediatric acute care visits and used a modifield version of Bales’ (1950) Interaction Process Analysis to code the data. The results were striking. Nearly a fifth of the parents left the clinic without a clear statement of what was wrong with their child, and nearly half were left wondering what had caused their child’s illness. A quarter of the parents reported that they had not mentioned their greatest concern because of lack of opportunity or encouragement. The study uncovered a strong relationship between these and other communication failures and nonadherence with medical recommendations, showing that 56% of parents who felt that the physicians had not met their expectations were “grossly noncompliant.”
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Psychology, Communication, Education, Research Design, Higher Education, and 12 moreConversation Analysis, Medical Education, Conversation, Medicine, Curriculum, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Medical, Psychology and Cognitive Sciences, Interviews as topic, Medical and Health Sciences, and Physician-Patient Relations
Working within the functionalist perspective that he did so much to develop, Parsons (1951) conceptualized the physician-patient relationship according to a normative framework defined by the pattern variable scheme. As Parsons clearly... more
Working within the functionalist perspective that he did so much to develop, Parsons (1951) conceptualized the physician-patient relationship according to a normative framework defined by the pattern variable scheme. As Parsons clearly recognized, this normative conceptualization was one that empirical reality at best only approximates. In the 1970s, two major studies established doctor-patient interaction as a viable research domain. In the present review, we consider approaches to the medical interview developing from these initiatives and that have a primary focus on observable features of doctor-patient interaction. Within this orientation, we consider literature dealing with social, moral, and technical dilemmas that physicians and patients face in primary care and the resources that they deploy in solving them. This literature embodies a steady evolution away from a doctor-centered emphasis toward a more balanced focus on the conduct of doctors and patients together.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
322 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY QUARTERLY (1967), who is oriented to hospital employ- ees' everyday practices, discusses their typi- cal reactions to situations and their "main strategies" for dealing with problems. Our approach is... more
322 SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY QUARTERLY (1967), who is oriented to hospital employ- ees' everyday practices, discusses their typi- cal reactions to situations and their "main strategies" for dealing with problems. Our approach is related most closely to Sudnow's (1967) Passing On, ...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Patients with incurable cancer have poor prognostic awareness. We present a detailed analysis of the dialogue between oncologists and patients in conversations with prognostic implications. A total of 128 audio-recorded encounters from a... more
Patients with incurable cancer have poor prognostic awareness. We present a detailed analysis of the dialogue between oncologists and patients in conversations with prognostic implications. A total of 128 audio-recorded encounters from a large multisite trial were obtained, and 64 involved scan results. We used conversation analysis, a qualitative method for studying human interaction, to analyze typical patterns and conversational devices. Four components consistently occurred in sequential order: symptom-talk, scan-talk, treatment-talk, and logistic-talk. Six of the encounters (19%) were identified as good news, 15 (45%) as stable news, and 12 (36%) as bad news. The visit duration varied by the type of news: good, 15 minutes (07:00-29:00); stable, 17 minutes (07:00-41:00); and bad, 20 minutes (07:00-28:00). Conversational devices were common, appearing in half of recordings. Treatment-talk occupied 50% of bad-news encounters, 31% of good-news encounters, and 19% of stable-news enc...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
... However, a concomitant ap-preciation of social scientists at work-a constructivist/ ethnomethodological sociol-ogy of social scientific knowledge (SSSK)-is not as well developed (Maynard and Schaeffer 2000). ... 1984, 1985;... more
... However, a concomitant ap-preciation of social scientists at work-a constructivist/ ethnomethodological sociol-ogy of social scientific knowledge (SSSK)-is not as well developed (Maynard and Schaeffer 2000). ... 1984, 1985; O'Donnell-Trujillo and Adams 1983; Poyatos 1993). ...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
... For example, Strenski supposes an intellectual connec-tion between Salomon Munk coming to France around 1840, Levi, Mauss, and Durkheim. ... For Strenski, “Munk may very well have indirectly shaped the Durkheimian approach to the... more
... For example, Strenski supposes an intellectual connec-tion between Salomon Munk coming to France around 1840, Levi, Mauss, and Durkheim. ... For Strenski, “Munk may very well have indirectly shaped the Durkheimian approach to the study of religion” (p. 95). ...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
... Page 8. 202 Douglas W. Maynard 15. half of San Ramon, concerning her background (0.4) wonder-16. ful lady no problems sixty-five years οΓ .hhh sh-but on this 17. particular occasion, she goes into Davidson's eghh goes 18. ...