Search

Occupations are increasingly embedded with and affected by digital technologies. These technologies both enable and threaten occupational identity and create two important tensions: they make the persistence of an occupation possible while also potentially rendering it obsolete, and they magnify both the similarity and distinctiveness of occupations with regard to other occupations. Based on the critical case study of an online community dedicated to data science, we investigate longitudinally how data scientists address the two tensions of occupational identity associated with digital technologies and reach transient syntheses in terms of "optimal distinctiveness" and "persistent extinction." We propose that identity work associated with digital technologies follows a composite life-cycle and dialectical process. We explain that people constantly need to adjust and redefine their occupational identity, i.e., how they define who they are and what they do. We contribute to scholarship on digital technologies and identity work by illuminating how people deal in an ongoing manner with digital technologies that simultaneously enable and threaten their occupational identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the introduction of AI in the field of radiology through a multi-level analysis (individuals, organization, and profession). Drawing on in-depth interviews with 54 participants (radiologists, radiological technologists, managers, hospital directors, and engineers), we examined how radiologists perceive AI and respond through job crafting behaviors and identity work. The findings reveal three categories of job crafting: approach, avoidance, and an emerging category of identity crafting, in which actors develop strategies to redefine their identity after the introduction of AI. This study contributes to a better understanding of AI and its implications for individuals at work and, in particular, employees' use of proactive approaches to job design, along with how such approaches are shaped by organizations and professional bodies. • Examining the transformative effects of AI on radiologists' job and identity • Investigating how radiologists perceive AI as a threat and opportunity, with a particular focus on work identity • Investigating how radiologists job craft in response to AI interventions • Providing insights into how radiologists shape their roles amidst technological advancements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the late 1990s, the majority of D/deaf students enter schooling in a mainstream setting. Little has been written about their experiences and how a change in school settings impacts their learning and social identity. In this study, semi-structured interviews have been conducted with nine students, and the results show that their time in a mainstream school setting has led them to construct a marginal or negative social identity, but after transitioning to a Deaf school, the social identity has shifted towards a positive one. According to students, this is due to feelings of belonging as equal members of the social group where they are given the opportunity to develop language skills that allow them to communicate without restrictions. The students also report improvement in academic achievements as a result of the sign bilingual school setting. Parents and D/deaf students need to experience the different language settings to make an informed decision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An extensive body of knowledge exists concerning the experiences and personal characteristics of successful PhD students. However, the unconscious role behaviour of the PhD student in an Open Distance and e-Learning (ODeL) academic environment is less well explored. The aim of this article was to study and describe the unconscious role behaviour of a PhD student at a South African ODeL university. Data collection entailed the author reflecting on and writing an essay on his phenomenological PhD experiences and choosing the most appropriate vignettes for thematic analysis. The findings indicated high levels of free-floating and performance anxieties in the researcher's unconscious existential and phenomenal roles, primarily emanating from conflicting projections and introjections about his competence and perceived incompetence as a PhD student. The feedback process manifested as a potential space as it became a precious social and psychological environment to hold and contain his transformational anxieties as a student. Practical implications are presented and recommendations suggested to students, supervisors and academic institutions, aimed at enhancing the supervisory relationship in the interest of increased higher degree research outputs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In U.S. society, Native Americans face invisibility, stereotypes, discrimination, and structural barriers. In this article, we employ a symbolic interactionist approach, embedded in critical analysis, to explore how this social context impacts the conveyance and interpretation of Native American identity among people who are not Native American. Participants, 213 White American and 104 Native American people, replied to open-ended questions about Native American identity conveyance and interpretation. We employed an inductive thematic approach to analyze their written replies. The majority of Native American participants discussed their identity in the context of limited public knowledge of, and/or oppression faced by, Native Americans. For most Native American participants, this context generated strain and struggle associated with conveyance and interpretation of their identities. Despite this, some Native American participants engaged in identity work to educate others and reduce oppression. Without prompting, some White participants expressed positive attitudes toward Native Americans and their identity revelation. These positive attitudes evidence both hope for social change and problematic fetishization based on romantic stereotypes of Native Americans. We argue that society-wide change is necessary to reduce strain in, and enhance the effectiveness of, identity work by Native American people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate how economic immigrants in Canada negotiate their identity in the process of "becoming Canadian" through an analysis of public texts. Drawing on the master narrative framework, we examine the interplay between individual and societal narratives as immigrants grapple with the tension between notions of "desirable" immigrants as those that are well integrated professionally and the reality of facing career related barriers. Among those whose success stories align with the master narrative of professional attainment there was little questioning of this expectation, thereby allowing it to remain invisible. Among those who had not (yet) achieved work related success in the receiving country, they tended to engage alternative narratives elaborating on the antecedents, outcomes, and barriers to labor market participation. Despite the countering nature of these alternative narratives, they strengthen the societal expectation of professional success as a key pathway to inclusion, thereby reinforcing the rigidity of this narrative. We contribute to literature on the social construction of national identity by examining the process of becoming national and the role of labor market participation in immigrants' perceptions of inclusion in their new society. Our study highlights the importance of including immigrants' voices in the construction of a more inclusive society, which may aid in breaking down exclusionary narratives of national identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Colección is the property of Pontificia Universidad Catolica Argentina and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this article, I explore the researcher identity of senior women academics in a South African institution of higher education. The aim was to uncover the identity tensions they experience in relation to being a researcher and to understand how they respond to and resolve these tensions. Three focus groups, based on the socioanalytic method of social dream drawing, provided the data. Data were analyzed through hermeneutic phenomenological reflection. Identity theory was applied as a conceptual framework to guide my interpretation of the data. Through their collective reflection on being researchers, the women became cognizant of identity tensions and their engagement with these reflected intrapersonal processing akin to identity work. In the findings, I highlight purposeful, collective identity work as a resource that enabled these women to reconstruct self-defeating gendered conflicts in their researcherhood. By uncovering their identity tensions and related emotions, a sense of researcher self-efficacy emerged. They consequently reframed research success as meaningful self-expression and knowledge dissemination. I propose that collective identity work is a valuable endeavor for women researchers because it facilitates role identity development and a collective voice in responding to the demanding and constantly changing academic work context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the role of fairy tales in relation to literacy, affective learning, self-authoring and narrative quest. The study examines fairy tales in the context of the New Literacy Studies with regard to improving cognitive, linguistic and creative writing skills for adult literacy learners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on fieldwork at and transcripts of Donald Trump's campaign rallies and formal and informal interviews, we examine how Trump constructed an anti-establishment persona and how it resonated with supporters. Taking a dramaturgical approach, we analyze the four key symbolic processes through which Trump--regardless of intentions--engaged in such identity work: disafiliating from politicians, asserting political incorrectness, antagonizing the media, and attacking the political establishment. We also examine how Trump supporters' reactions at campaign rallies and their interview-based accounts resonated with Trump's rally rhetoric. We focus on how our interviewees and Trump used and reproduced intersectional discourses in various ways. We conclude by discussing our study's limitations and implications for understanding anti-establishment politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Accounting Auditing Control / Comptabilité Contrôle Audit (English Edition) is the property of Association Francophone de Comptabilite c/o Solle and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

An investigation on the identity work of a prospective teacher is conducted to better understand how the participant argued for recognition of her projective mathematics teacher identity. Characteristics of the claims, evidence, and anticipatory statements used are explored. Using an argumentation framework, the participant's discourse demonstrated differing strengths for the claims she was making. These were referred to as levels of ownership depending on the number of criteria met (I-statements, hedging, and intensifiers). This helped find the ideas central to how she wanted to be perceived as a mathematics teacher. Evidence for the participant's claims came in two different ways, anecdotal and belief oriented. The anticipatory statements were used in three ways, (a) to provide details; (b) to recognise constraints or limitations; or (c) to enact defensive/protective practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing from extensive fieldwork among graffiti writers in Sweden this article investigates gendered identity work and its consequences. It points to how potentially inclusive aspects of disembodied subcultural performances--that identities are negotiated through the material representation of the writer rather than on basis of the physical body--nevertheless work excludingly, especially so in terms of gender. This is so because identity work in graffiti revolves around a re-embodiment of identities through normative notions of the able, male and invisible body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many young AmeriCorps members enter a post-college lifestyle of food stamps, social services, and living below the poverty line. Using Simmel's (1965) concept of poverty as a social category one is put into, and West and Fenstermaker's (1995) concept of class as something one "does," this paper looks at the AmeriCorps program, to examine how members "do poor." In 22 in-depth interviews with a diverse sample of AmeriCorps members, I detail a member's "typical" experience with poverty: first, encountering themselves in poverty, then working to disassociate themselves from having a "poor" identity, and, finally, still maintaining the positive experiences associated with their service. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study of Iraqi refugees in Helsinki and Rome, we explore the verbal construction of identity as evidence of the process of integration into a new society. We make use of Snow and Anderson's idea of “identity work” and link it to McCall's idea of “not-me.” The data for this paper derive from a larger comparative study conducted by the second author. They are based on the findings from forty-eight open-ended, semi-structured interviews, half conducted in each city. We argue that despite differences between the two locales regarding such things as the respective welfare regimes and relations with natives, the identity work required for refugees to reinscribe and reconstruct their sense of self was remarkably similar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In teacher research, teacher strategies for maintaining teacher identity against occupational difficulties that affect fluctuation in identity have become an important theme. In this paper, from a review of previous research, I have focused on teacher strategies for maintaining teacher identity in the colleague group. Previous studies have discussed the teacher strategies for maintaining teacher identity in the colleague group focusing on the homogeneity of colleague groups and conformity. In contrast to such studies, this paper is intended to clarify the subjective aspects of strategies that attempt to maintain teacher identity that is different from conformity. In the analysis from the point of view of identity work, using interview data from junior high school teachers, role conflict in the colleague group and strategies for maintaining teaching identity by narratives has been examined. In this case, two teacher roles, ''bonding teacher'' and ''disciplining teacher,'' have been observed and the role conflict of teachers has occurred with requests for a different teacher role under the guidance of the school system. In contrast to this role conflict, teachers attempted to maintain their teacher identity by three forms of identity work, "distancing", "adjustment" and "re-definition." These findings suggest the need to focus on the aspects of teachers as active agencies, such as negotiating their own teacher identity by referring to an ideal teacher role rather than the passive aspects of simple socialization to the teacher role. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: to explore the strategies Chinese midwives employed to work on their professional identity in hospital setting and the consequence of such identity work. Design and methods: this paper draws upon findings from a Constructivist Grounded Theory study that explored the professional identity construction of 15 Chinese midwives with a mixture of midwifery experiences, practising in three different types of hospital settings in a capital city in Southeast China. The accounts from participants in the form of in-depth individual interviews were collected. Work journals voluntarily provided by three participants were also included. Findings: in everyday practice, hospital midwives in China were working on their professional identity in relation to two definitions of the midwife: the external definition (‘obstetric nurse’), bound up in the idea of risk management under the medical model of their work organisations; and the internal definition (‘professional midwife’), associated with the philosophy of normal birth advocacy in the professional discourse. Six strategies for identity work were identified and grouped into two principle categories: ‘compromise’ and ‘engagement’. The adoption of each strategy involved a constant negotiation between the external and internal definitions of the midwife, being influenced by midwifery experiences, relationships with women, opportunities for professional development and the definition of the situation. A ‘hybrid identity’, which demonstrated the dynamic nature of midwifery professional identity, was constructed as a result. Key conclusions and implications: this paper explored the dynamic nature of midwifery professional identity. This exploration contributes to the body of knowledge regarding understanding the professional identity of hospital midwives in China, while also extending the current theoretical knowledge of identity work by elaborating on the various strategies individuals use to work on their professional identity in the workplace. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers how personal name changes are situated within their sociological context in the United States. Reviewing both popular and scholarly texts on names and name changes, I draw on recent work on identity and narrative by Oriana Bernasconi (2011) to argue that voluntary personal name changes are made in relation to a sense of narrative elasticity or identity elasticity, and act symbolically to make a shifting identity or self-narrative manifest in the social context. Drawing out these themes through an exploration of name changes for ethnic self-definition or religious purposes, I conclude with a reflection on the unstable social balance between an individual's interest in self-expression and society's priority on the stable identification of persons within a given social sphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Przegląd Socjologii Jakościowej is the property of Redakcja Przegladu Socjologii Jakosciowej and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Abstract: This study uses metaphor analysis to examine the meanings of retirement for a group of 35 retired Canadian executives and managers. Our analysis identified eight metaphors relating to the meanings of retirement. The findings provide us with a range of insights into the experience of retirement, from loss of purpose and identity to liberation from the constraints of work to retirement being constructed as a new beginning or renaissance. Based on the accounts given by each manager, metaphors were collated and compared across retirees to reveal four distinct configurations that conceptualize retirement as exploring new horizons, searching for meaning, contributing on your own terms and putting your feet up. We discuss the implications of these metaphor configurations for understanding the consumer and producer-oriented meanings of retirement and challenge dominant career constructions of retirement as disengagement and decline. Our findings reveal that retirement appears to be better understood by incorporating future-focused and agentic forms that contribute to different types of identity work in retirement. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Social comparisons, seeing oneself in relation to others, are universal, common, and perhaps even necessary. In a study of parents of deaf children, intense, open, and mutual examinations were voiced in parental groups, meetings between parents and professionals, and interviews. These comparisons were generated in a specific situation created by successful claims for separate milieus advocated by the Deaf movement. The local culture, "the deaf world," was characterized by close proximity and a highly charged ideological moral climate. With the central argument that strong integration breeds comparisons and examinations, we conclude that the integration of parents creates a situation perfect for drawing comparisons, creating not only cohesion, but also renewed separatist distinctions, expressed in terms of moral examinations, competition and envy. Studying the content and details of comparisons in any given field makes the particular morality that is bred, fed, and elaborated obvious. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on interviews, song lyrics, websites, and observation of concerts, we examine how southern rock musicians construct themselves as poor, rural, white men. While popular culture often uses negative stereotypes to degrade poor whites, we show how southern rock musicians reclaim what they view as positive attributes of "white trash." They do this by embracing symbols of southern white trash (including the confederate flag), glorifying rural poverty, and celebrating drunken violence. We bring a focus on capitalism into our analysis by uncovering how class is central to southern rockers' racialized and gendered identity work, situating them as marginalized workers in a culture industry, and drawing out implications for class reproduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By conceptualizing identity as a type of illocutionary resource, this study seeks to address the unheeded identity work that Chinese charities perform in their online donation-oriented crowdfunding appeals (hereafter ODC appeals). The analysis of 60 appeals drawn from an ODC platform based in China shows that via the employment of identity-oriented strategies (viz. foregrounding, creating and identification seeking), Chinese charities exploit the diverse dimensions of identity, not only of the charities themselves but of their beneficiaries and prospective donors as well. It is argued that such diverse identity work is influenced by both the institutional context surrounding ODC practices and the wider sociocultural context of China. By providing a finer picture of Chinese charities' identity work pertaining to the different dimensions of identity, this study may shed light on t he emerging research into ODC appeals and will add non-Western insights to previous discussions on humanitarian communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Qualitative Research Synthesis (QRS) explored how K-16 students of color make meaning of their disability labels and negotiate the prevailing dominant ideologies surrounding dis/ability labels, race, gender, and other forms of identity. Scholars in Disability Studies in Education (DSE) have explored critical connections between Disability Studies (DS) and Critical Race Theory (CRT) (Annamma, Connor & Ferri, 2013; Erevelles, Kanga & Middleton, 2006). This study identified such critical connections by synthesizing 13 qualitative studies from 2006-2018 and explored the lived experiences of students of color labeled with disabilities. Our goal for this QRS was to advance the theoretical work in DSE through a synthesis of qualitative literature within the field. QRS is a methodologically rigorous approach that "uses qualitative methods to analyze, synthesize, and (re)interpret the results from [existing] qualitative studies" (Major & Savin-Baden, 2010, p. 10). We employed a resistance theory of disability at the intersections (Gabel & Peters, 2004; Giroux, 1983a, 1983b), that foregrounded the psycho-emotional disablism model of disability (Thomas, 1999), to recognize that students' acts of resistance directly relate to systematic oppression within the education system. Findings from our second order thematic analysis suggest that students identified disability labels as an assigned identity, which limited their educational opportunities and left a psychological and emotional impact on their well-being. However, students also used multiple strategies and acts of resistance to negotiate the stereotypical master narratives surrounding their intersectional identities. Through a timely methodological and conceptual counter-narrative of its own within educational equity research, our QRS contributes to theory, research, and praxis, with implications for a more humane and just education system for all students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]