Organizational Discourse and the Appraisal of Occupational Hazards: Interpretive Repertoires,Heedful Interrelating,and Identity at Work

Scholars and practitioners have often conceptualized hazards as external to discursive processes, focusing instead on the role of strategic communication in representing pre-organized vulnerabilities to stakeholders rather than on the capacity of mundane discourse practices to shape how hazards emerge. In this study of risk discourse in one high reliability organization, a municipal fire department, we demonstrate how hazard appraisals emerged as intersubjective products of organizational discourse. Specifically, we explore how the interpretive repertoires firefighters used to make sense of hazards were medium and outcome of discursive identity formations. Firefighters employed preferred identity terms to amplify identity-enhancing dangers and attenuate vulnerabilities that were threatening to a preferred sense of self.     

A Communicative Analysis of a Sexual Health Screening Intervention Conducted in a Low-Income Housing Complex

Providing free HIV screening within public housing sites offers the potential for increased participation of at-risk populations. Residential-based screening, however, raises concerns about privacy because of the stigma attached to HIV/AIDS and even to the testing for HIV. This study examined the effectiveness of offering HIV screening within a public housing high-rise in upstate New York. Through interviews with both women who obtained testing and those who did not, this study explored the tension between convenience and privacy concerns. The findings suggest that offering HIV screening where people live could encourage participation in the screenings, as well as lead to a destigmatization of HIV testing over time. Some women chose to eschew the convenience of on-site testing in favor of a more private venue for screening, whereas some women responded positively to the accessibility of on-site testing, using communicative strategies to manage privacy concerns.     

The forum

VALIDITY AND RHETORIC IN PHILOSOPHICAL ARGUMENT: AN OUTLOOK IN TRANSITION. By Henry W. Johnstone, Jr. University Park, Pennsylvania: The Dialogue Press of Man &; World, Publishers, 1978; pp. 155. $4.95.

POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY AND RHETORIC: A STUDY OF THE ORIGINS OF AMERICAN PARTY POLITICS. By John Zvesper. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1977; pp. vii+237. $19.50.

THE EDUCATION OF A PUBLIC MAN: MY LIFE AND POLITICS. By Hubert H. Humphrey. Ed. by Norman Sherman. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday &; Co., 1976; pp. xiii+495. $5.95 (paper).

GOD, CHURCH, AND FLAG: SENATOR JOSEPH R. MCCARTHY AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, 1950–57. By Donald F. Crosby. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1978; pp. xv+307. $16.95.

CHAMBER THEATRE. By Robert S. Breen. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice‐Hall, 1978; pp. 124. $5.95 (paper).

PERSPECTIVES ON CROSS‐CULTURAL COMMUNICATION. By Carley H. Dodd. Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Co., 1977; pp. 109. $4.95 (paper).

INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION. By L. E. Sarbaugh. Rochelle Park, N.J.: Hayden Book Co., 1979; pp. 148. $6.95 (paper).

INTERCULTURAL AND INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATION. Edited by Fred L. Casmir. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, Inc., 1978; pp. xx+814. $21.50.

FOUNDATIONS FOR CONVERSATION: ITS ART AND TECHNIQUES. By George P. Rice. North Quincy, Ma.: Christopher Publishing House, 1979; pp. 161. $6.95.     

Preliminary development of a measure of sibling relational maintenance behaviors: Scale development and initial findings

Two studies were conducted to examine the use of relational maintenance behaviors in the sibling relationship. In the first study, the specific relational maintenance behaviors used by siblings were identified. A principal components factor analysis of 70 previously generated behaviors used by 363 participants revealed six factors: confirmation, humor, social support, family visits, escape, and verbal aggression. In the second study, the link between the six relational maintenance behaviors used by siblings and the relational outcomes of liking, commitment, and trust was explored. Results indicate the confirmation, humor, social support, and family visits relational maintenance behaviors are correlated positively with liking, commitment, and trust, but the verbal aggression relational maintenance behavior failed to correlate with liking, commitment, or trust.     

The hypothetical: a new training resource for adult educators

The “hypothetical”, a panel game developed and popularised by Geoffrey Robertson on Granada Television in the U.K. and on Channel 9 (initially) and ABC Television (finally) in Australia, has proved to be readily adaptable into a technique for the training of adult educators.

In the television version, participants play themselves in an imaginary scenario invoked by a compere whose role is to provoke them into making decisions about key social dilemmas of contemporary public concern, such as drug trafficking, marriage breakdown, AIDS, police corruption.

In the training adaptation described here, the dilemmas are constructed around issues of concern in daily professional practice. The primary goal changes to the professional development of participants and (if present) of an audience who are also professionals, rather than the goal of mass entertainment or general audience edification as in the television version.

This paper describes the adaptation of this popular 1980's television production into a training tool of considerable power, and gives an account of how it has been developed and used in one institution. It argues that, whereas the hypothetical is clearly a close relative of a number of familiar experiential training techniques, it makes its own unique contribution to the catalogue of training strategies available.     

How do we know research and development projects in vocational education and training are cost‐effective?

This article reviews a recent U.K. study which sought to identify the steps that have to be taken to improve the efficacy of research and development (R&D) projects in Vocational Education and Training (VET). The review is facilitated by making reference to the approach and findings of a parallel study in Switzerland.

The review seeks to highlight the importance of more rigorously establishing what really happens to the results of R&D projects after they are completed. In particular, it seeks to identify what is necessary to ensure that each R&D project has a positive impact on practice. It does this in order to ensure that the now substantial investment in R&D for VET is cost effective. On the basis of the review the article proposes an agenda for an effective and coordinated approach to action and research in the area.     

An Approach for Evaluating the Technical Quality of Interim Assessments

Increasing numbers of schools and districts have expressed interest in interim assessment systems to prepare for summative assessments and to improve teaching and learning. However, with so many commercial interim assessments available, schools and districts are struggling to determine which interim assessment is most appropriate to their needs. Unfortunately, there is little research-based guidance to help schools and districts to make the right choice about how to spend their money. Because we realize the urgency of developing criteria that can describe or evaluate the quality of interim assessments, this article presents the results of an initial attempt to create an instrument that school and district educators could use to evaluate the quality and usefulness of the interim assessment. The instrument is designed for use by state and district leaders to help them select an appropriate interim assessment system for their needs, but it could also be used by test vendors looking to evaluate and improve their own systems and by researchers engaged in studies of interim assessment use.     

Determinants of organisational climate for academia

Being aware of the factors that develop a positive organisational climate is especially important in universities, where the academic members of staff are, in large measure, self-motivated. To identify the determinants of organisational climate for university academia, the validity and reliability of the first-order constructs of autonomy, cohesion and pressure were examined. These three constructs were found to have inadequate validity in this environment. The remaining five valid constructs indicated a second-order organisational climate construct organisational climate was influenced by support, followed by trust and fairness, and then by recognition and innovation. The findings of our study will assist university managers to identify areas to focus upon when developing their academic staff in the pursuit of improving the organisational climate.