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This paper provides an account of the everyday workplace learning of cycle technicians. Derived from an ethnography of working cultures and practices at a bike shop in the North of England, this paper rests on a critical reading of Communities of Practice theory in order to explore the complex and heterogeneous learning of cycle technicians. Drawing on a series of vignettes constructed from the ethnographic data, the paper demonstrates the variety of experiences of both formal and informal learning that characterise the trajectories of new cycle technicians as they enter the industry. In addition to providing an account of a qualified and specialist workforce that is under-represented in extant research literature, the paper also provides an exemplar for ethnographic research as a vehicle for exploring working practices through a Communities of Practice lens, using the paradigmatic theoretical elements of the theory. The paper concludes by arguing that for cycle technicians, and perhaps other occupations as well, Communities of Practice theory can generate rich and complex accounts that do justice to the richness and complexity of the craft and practice being observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Derived from an ethnography of working cultures and practices at a bike shop in the North of England, this paper rests on a critical application of social practice theories of literacy (Literacy Studies) in order to explore the complex and heterogeneous literacy practices of cycle technicians. Drawing on a series of vignettes constructed from the ethnographic data, the paper demonstrates the variety of experiences of both formal and informal learning that underpin the literacy practices of the cycle workshop. In addition to providing an account of a qualified and specialist workforce that is under-represented in extant research literature, the paper also provides an exemplar for ethnographic research as a vehicle for exploring literacy practices. The paper also suggests that ongoing debates concerning transferable workplace skills can be enriched through considering situated, contextualised literacy events. The paper concludes by arguing that for cycle technicians, and perhaps other occupations as well, Literacy Studies can generate rich and complex accounts that unpack the textual practices found alongside the occupational expertise and competence being observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has long demonstrated the exclusion and Othering experienced by young people with disabilities in education. This paper presents findings from an ethnographic study conducted in an 'elite' sixth-form college in England, set against the backdrop of a shifting social, political, and cultural landscape, where neo-liberal discourses of dis/ability and healthism—centring on mental health and wellbeing—are becoming further embedded in educational policy. Drawing on theoretical work by Bourdieu and Foucault, we demonstrate how the students in this study appeared able to re-make disability as a liberal intellectual identity marker and use it as a form of capital within the bounded college sub-field. However, we argue that these empowered disabled subjectivities were strongly middle-classed and precarious. The findings have implications through advancing current understandings of young people's complexifying relationships with disability in education, of enduring inequalities around disability, and how social class is implicated in this. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Centering the identity‐related impact of spatial structures and physical environments in shaping the sense of being and belonging of people in the diaspora is a key decolonial feminist project for and within psychology. This paper presents an ethnographic study that combines observations at three Black hair salons in England with a total of 25 qualitative interviews with Black women (n = 18) and experts such as hairdressers (n = 7). The question this study seeks to answer is: ''How are Black women's racial identities constructed, structed and shaped by and through their interactions with and navigation of the Black hair care and beauty landscape in England?" This paper shows that participants reflected on the navigation of space as an identity‐relevant experience. Moreover, racial identity construction happens in place through encounters and socio‐spatial interactions and Black women's ways of seeing, being, and inhabiting the world. Lastly, this paper argues the centrality or marginality of Black hair salons is relative, dependent upon the location and situatedness of the person searching or visiting it. This paper thus highlights avenues for future research into the space‐ race‐identity nexus and invites an examination of the identity‐related significance that spatial arrangements carry for people in the diaspora. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Secure children's homes are locked institutions that deprive children of their liberty. The government are investing significantly in these homes, yet there remains a lack of clarity about their nature and purpose. Drawing on data generated through a substantial ethnography in one secure children's home in England, this paper uses Goffman's (1961) theorising as a conceptual lens to view the institution. It concludes that ambiguity and confusion about what these institutions are, and what they seek to achieve, impacts negatively on the experience of everyday life within. Clarity is needed urgently to improve experiences and to enable the assessment of outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Speech and language therapists and nurses need to work together to keep patients with swallowing difficulties safe throughout their acute stroke admission. Speech and language therapists make recommendations for safe swallowing following assessment and nurses put recommendations into practice and monitor how patients cope. There has been little research into the everyday realities of ongoing swallow safety management by these two disciplines. Patient safety research in other fields of healthcare indicates that safety can be enhanced through understanding the cultural context in which risk decisions are made. Aims: To generate new understanding for how speech and language therapists (SLTs) and nurses share information for ongoing management of swallows safety on stroke units. Methods & Procedures: An ethnographic methodology involving 40 weeks of fieldwork on three stroke wards in England between 2015 and 2017. Fieldwork observation (357 h) and interviews with 43 members of SLT and nursing staff. Observational and interview data were analysed iteratively using techniques from the constant comparative method to create a thematically organized explanation. Outcomes & Results: An explanation for how disciplinary differences in time and space influenced how SLT and nursing staff shared information for ongoing management of swallow safety, based around three themes: (1) SLTs and nurses were aligned in concern for swallow safety across all information‐sharing routes; however, (2) ambiguity was introduced by the need for the information contained in swallowing recommendations to travel across time, creating dilemmas for nurses. Patients could improve or deteriorate after recommendations were made and nurses had competing demands on their time. Ambiguity had consequences for (3) critical incident reporting and relationships. SLTs experienced dilemmas over how to act when recommendations were not followed. Conclusions & Implications: This study provides new understanding for patient safety dilemmas associated with the enactment and oversight of swallowing recommendations in context, on stroke wards. Findings can support SLTs and nurses to explore together how information for ongoing dysphagia management can be safely implemented within ward realities and kept up to date. This could include considering nursing capacity to act when SLTs are not there, mealtime staffing and SLT 7‐day working. Together they can review their understanding of risk and preferred local and formal routes for learning from it. What this paper adds: What is already known on the subject: It is known that information to keep swallowing safe is shared through swallowing recommendations, which are understood to involve a balance of risks between optimizing the safety of the swallow mechanism and maintaining physiological and emotional health. There is increasing appreciation from patient safety research, of the importance of understanding the context in which hospital staff make decisions about risk and patient safety. What this paper adds to existing knowledge: The paper provides new empirical understanding for the complexities of risk management associated with SLT and nursing interactions and roles with respect to ongoing swallow safety. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work?: Findings can underpin SLT and nurse discussion about how swallow safety could be improved in their own settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents one aspect of a sociocultural micro-ethnographic study examining how 11- and 12-year-old children formulate meanings when working with an artist in a contemporary art gallery. My primary focus is an examination of methodological contributions emerging from an imaginative coding and analysis of children's art. Ninety-nine artworks were created in collaboration with the artist and were organised and interpreted using a constructionist interviewing coding scheme. This unorthodox approach to visual analysis unearthed information that oral accounts cannot provide alone revealing meanings which would otherwise remain dormant. By intuitively applying the coding framework I expose how participants' meanings are negotiated by appropriating and re-organising cultural concepts into personalised narratives. As such, artworks reveal participants' desires, interpretations and intentions, operating as agentic cultural producers as well as unconsciously reproducing visual epistemologies ubiquitous in Western cultures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the experience of researching food in schools. Food is personal. It is an ingested symbol of culture, family, tradition, ethnicity... What does this mean as a researcher? How do we navigate food relationships? How is this relationship shaped by the rules of the school? This paper examines how I went about doing food research in primary schools, and the various incidents that occurred that revealed food was something more than that consumed. It outlines the ethnographic approach adopted, paying attention to the sensory in research. I explore researcher identity, explaining how my own identity was multiple, and shifting, depending on where I was at a particular "food moment". I draw attention to several events that, on reflection, serve to reveal the importance of food in everyday life, and helped understand both the field site, and the wider context of the research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using examples from the National Health Service in England, this paper illustrates key features of contemporary healthcare governance: the way decisions are hidden in places that are 'in between' and 'out of reach'; the enrolment of doctors in governing; and the important role played by 'boring things', such as power point slides, flow charts, and forms. The essay shows how anthropological proximity and perspectives can extend and deepen understanding of contemporary political power. It does this firstly by showing the importance of agency in the operation of governmentality, and secondly by illuminating the limits of governmentality. The different elements of governing assemblages, such as global management experts, medical leaders, forms of knowledge and analytical technologies, are brought together through the strategic act of framing. Frames are contested and resisted, requiring more visible forms of control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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High quality primary care is a foundational element of effective health services. Internationally, primary care physicians (general practitioners (GPs), family doctors) are experiencing significant workload pressures. How non-patient-facing work contributes to these pressures and what constitutes this work is poorly understood and often unrecognised and undervalued by patients, policy makers, and even clinicians engaged in it. This paper examines non-patient-facing work ethnographically, informed by practice theory, the Listening Guide, and empirical ethics. Ethnographic observations (104 h), in-depth interviews (n = 16; 8 with GPs and 8 with other primary care staff) and reflexive workshops were conducted in two general practices in England. Our analysis shows that 'hidden work' was integral to direct patient care, involving diverse clinical practices such as: interpreting test results; crafting referrals; and accepting interruptions from clinical colleagues. We suggest the term 'hidden care work' more accurately reflects the care-ful nature of this work, which was laden with ambiguity and clinical uncertainty. Completing hidden care work outside of expected working hours was normalised, creating feelings of inefficiency, and exacerbating workload pressure. Pushing tasks forward into an imagined future (when conditions might allow its completion) commonly led to overspill into GPs' own time. GPs experienced tension between their desire to provide safe, continuous, 'caring' care and the desire to work a manageable day, in a context of increasing demand and burgeoning complexity. • The non-patient-facing work of general practitioners is often invisible or hidden. • Hidden work is associated with complexity and uncertainty. • Behind-the-scenes work is care work, just as direct work with patients is care work. • Doctors face tensions between completing tasks and working a manageable day. • Combining practice theory with the Listening Guide embraces multi-vocality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Healthcare staff are encouraged to use feedback from their patients to inform service and quality improvement. Receiving patient feedback via online channels is a relatively new phenomenon that has rarely been conceptualised. Further, the implications of a wide, varied and unknown(able) audience being able to view and interact with online patient feedback are yet to be understood. We applied a theoretical lens of dramaturgy to a large ethnographic dataset, collected across three NHS Trusts during 2019/2020. We found that organisations demonstrated varying levels of 'preparedness to perform' online, from invisibility through to engaging in public conversation with patients within a wider mission for transparency. Restrictive 'cast lists' of staff able to respond to patients was the hallmark of one organisation, whereas another devolved responding responsibility amongst a wide array of multidisciplinary staff. The visibility of patient‐staff interactions had the potential to be culturally disruptive, dichotomously invoking either apprehensions of reputational threat or providing windows of opportunity. We surmise that a transparent and conversational feedback response frontstage aligns with the ability to better prioritise backstage improvement. Legitimising the autonomous frontstage activity of diverse staff groups may help shift organisational culture, and gradually ripple outwards a shared responsibility for transparent improvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: To explore how speech-language pathologists and nurses share information about the communication support needs of stroke patients through structured information-sharing routes and to consider how the two disciplines view their roles and interdependencies in addressing these needs. Method: Speech-language pathologist and nurse information-sharing was explored in context using ethnography. Ethnography has been used by researchers from other disciplines to understand the context of inpatient care, but the methodology has rarely been adopted within speech-language pathology. Fieldwork (357 hours) was carried out on three stroke wards in England for 40 weeks from 2015 to 2017. Data included fieldnotes, interviews with 43 members of speech-language pathology and nursing staff, and the patient records of 19 patients. Result: The findings provide a thematically organised explanation for how information about communication travelled through structured routes on the wards (meetings, the patient record, bedside signs, education, and nursing handover). Limitations were identified that appear underpinned by disciplinary differences in (1) how speech-language pathologists and nurses engaged with the wards in time and space, and (2) perceptions of roles and interdependencies. Speech-language pathologists routinely used meetings and the patient record to share communication information, however these formal structures were not easily accessible during nurses' caregiving roles. In addition, both speech-language pathologists (SLPs) and nurses were ambivalent about the usefulness of signage SLPs sometimes left at the bedside for supporting communication. There was little interdependency between SLP and nursing roles in meeting the communication support needs of patients. Conclusion: In-depth exploration of the context within which SLPs and nurses share information has revealed limitations in the capacity of structured routes to enhance collective knowledge about patients' communication support needs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]