Keith Tuffin

New racism, meritocracy and individualism: constraining affirmative action in education

This article presents a discursive analysis of student talk on disadvantage and affirmative action from two focus group discussions on ‘race’ relations in Australia. Our analysis builds upon previous research in the discursive tradition on affirmative action and demonstrates how participants draw on resources, which construct affirmative action as largely problematic. Liberal principles such as individualism, merit, and egalitarianism were recurrently drawn upon to justify, argue and legitimate opposition to affirmative action. Speakers managed their opposition to affirmative action while presenting as fair, principled and lacking in prejudice. One argument, which was commonly deployed, constructed affirmative action as undermining meritocratic principles and ideals. This meritocratic discourse has a self-sufficient, taken-for-granted quality which participants assumed to be a moral and normative standard that needed to be protected and upheld. This argument was also associated with a closely related one that ‘everyone should be treated equally or the same’, regardless of social background. Although our analysis emphasizes the deployment of discursive resources that function primarily to uphold the ideals of meritocracy, individualism and equality, participants did produce talk that on occasion challenged the ideology of individual achievement and acknowledged the existence of Aboriginal disadvantage. We discuss how these contradictions are reflective of the competing values of egalitarianism and individualism in western liberal democracies like Australia and how the language of the ‘new racism’ is framed by such ideological dilemmas and ambivalence.

Using the online medium for discursive research about people with disabilities

Online interviews are deemed an effective and appropriate approach for accessing discourse about the online experiences of people with disabilities. Some of the central arguments in support of conducting discursive research online, a type of qualitative approach, are delineated. Various practical benefits are considered for researchers, as well as participants—especially those with disabilities. Ethical issues surrounding access to, and the analysis of, readily available data in online communities are brought to the fore. In light of ethical dilemmas surrounding naturalistic data collection online, an alternative approach is offered, which utilizes online interviews with people with disabilities about their online experiences. A description of the data-collection process is given, including participants and recruitment, materials and procedures, rapport building, and security and ethics. Reflections on the process highlight how methodological pitfalls were managed and, in some cases, resolved.

A test of Gottfredson's theory of circumscription

Abstract This study examined Gottfredsons (1981, Journal of Counseling Psychology , 28 , 545–579) theory of circumscription, which predicts that gender will influence occupational preferences from the age of 6 years and social background, the prestige level of preferences after 9 years. From 396 New Zealand children, aged 5–14 years, free choice occupational preferences were obtained, together with parental socioeconomic status (SES) and an ability measure. An occupational card sort was used to obtain forced choice occupational preferences. Results indicated strong sex-typed preferences from an earlier age than suggested by Gottfredson, with males demonstrating more rigid sex typing than females. Consistent with Gottfredsons theory, social background only influenced preferences among respondents older than 9 years. However, the influence of ability on the socioeconomic status level of preferences was stronger than that of social background among the older respondents. Results are discussed in terms of their implications for Gottfredsons theory of circumscription.

Unspeakable Emotion A Discursive Analysis of Police Talk about Reactions to Trauma

In contrast to traditional psychological theories that conceptualize emotions as discrete intrapsychic phenomena, the present study considers emotions as social constructions. A discursive analysis of interviews with 12 police officers was undertaken to develop a situated understanding of the construction and function of emotion in the culture of the New Zealand police. Two conflicting discourses of emotion were identified: a discourse of emotional disclosure in which discussion of emotions was constructed as a normal and healthy human activity and a discourse of unspeakability in which emotions were framed as dangerous and threatening to performance, demanding management and control. Both of these discourses were drawn on by the majority of respondents and were contextually contingent. We argue that strategic deployment of these discourses enables officers to present themselves as both culturally and professionally competent.

Constructing adolescent fatherhood: responsibilities and intergenerational repair

The parenthood literature has, until recently, paid scant attention to adolescent fathers. Negative stereotypes portray these young men as delinquents, unwilling to participate in the lives of their children. Recent research has challenged negative views by examining the impact of fatherhood on these young men and concluding that they are far from uninvolved and disinterested in their children. The current study extends this line of research by charting the ways young fathers talk about their responsibilities and hopes for their childrens futures. Young fathers were interviewed and the data analysed discursively in order to further explore the meaning of fatherhood. The analysis focuses on the ways paternal responsibilities were constructed and the notion of intergenerational repair is introduced as one of the features of this talk. The implications for practitioners are discussed in the context of a more critical approach whereby taken-for-granted assumptions are questioned in this highly politicised area.

Police Status, Conformity and Internal Pressure: A Discursive Analysis of Police Culture:

This paper provides a discursive analysis of interviews with eight police officers about a range of contemporary issues concerning the police force. Officers drew on three common linguistic resources (police status, conformity, and internal pressure) which are identified, illustrated and discussed in terms of their social consequences and rhetorical effectiveness. We suggest that these discourses operate collectively to maintain the reputation of the police. This is achieved through the imperative of rigidly conforming to standards. Diversity is discriminated against at the point of recruitment and also via a series of internal pressures for existing officers who fail to conform. We have tried to demonstrate the discursive resources producing such social practices. We argue that a climate of conformity pervades the wider police culture and discuss the implications of this.

Retirement villages: companionship, privacy and security

Objective:  This study investigated the experience of 12 persons living independently in a retirement village.

Re-arranging Fear: Police Officers’ Discursive Constructions of Emotion

This article concentrates on relationships between police officers, critical incident events and psychological support services. It challenges the traditional psychological theory of emotion, looking instead at the construction of emotion discourses in social interactions, in particular the rhetoric that police officers use to preserve their political and social environment. It examines the emotion talk of this particular cultural context through a reading of interviews with 11 police officers in New Zealand. A social constructionist perspective illustrates that officers use both emotion and non-emotion rhetoric for interpreting somatic and affective experiences of critical incident events, and they avoid interpreting their experience as “fear”. It is argued that the rhetoric employed is appropriate and functional in a police work context. Findings are discussed in relation to the construction of emotion and the provision of support services such as trauma policy debriefing for personnel following traumatic experiences.

Does cardiovascular reactivity during speech reflect self-construction processes?

Abstract Substantial empirical research has been undertaken on cardiovascular reactivity (CVR). however interpretation of this research is hampered by a lack of theoretical frameworks. This paper develops a framework initially stimulated by evidence demonstrating that the cardiovascular system increases in activity during communication, and that the extent of this activation depends upon numerous and diverse psychosocial factors. We attempt to account for this phenomenon using merit post-structuralist ideas concerning the constructive nature of language and its centrality to an individuals sense of self. Our theoretical framework proposes that the CVR exhibited during language use is explicable in terms of self-construction - From this analysis we hypothesised that CVR would differ across conversations about private self. public self and non-self topics, and that these differences would depend upon peoples speaking histories. We found that the blood pressure and heart rate of 102 women was most reactive when they talked in a laboratory with a stranger about aspects of their private self, and least reactive during non-self talk, whilst their heart rate was most reactive during talk about their public self. Overall the results highlight the inextricable link between our inherent socialness and our cardiovascular systems. SUMMARY The explanatory scheme outlined here is an attempt to provide a social reconceptualisation of a phenomenon that is typically interpreted in individualistic psychophysiological terms, and which is consistent with the notion that repeated exposure to situations which provoke large haemodynamic changes may lead to CHD disease progression. The explanation draws heavily on post-structuralist ideas regarding language, and the social constructionist notion that engaging in language use is central to constructing and maintaining a sense of self. This sense of self is a central theoretical entity in our everyday lives, produced and maintained in our interactions with others. We argue that it is this centrality of self-construction that helps to explain the extraordinary consistency of elevated CVR in conversation. Further, we have noted the striking parallels between those features of conversations that make the self salient, and those that have been associated with elevated CVR. To examine it more explicitly, it needs to be tested empirically with new data, using explicitly derived operationalisations and hypotheses.

Intergenerational inequity arguments and the implications for state-funded financial support of older people

ABSTRACT As population demographics shift towards an older population structure in the Western world, concerns about the future costs of pensions are apparent in politics, media and everyday conversations. In New Zealand, the universal state-funded pension paid to all citizens over the age of 65 years is often considered to be unsustainable in the context of population ageing. To examine the arguments surrounding universal superannuation, rhetorical analysis was undertaken on two New Zealand newspaper articles that discussed the future cost of pensions, and the 233 public responses these articles generated. The cost of superannuation was used to emphasise the different characteristics of each generational cohort and the ways that this produced inequity across generations. Claims of intergenerational inequity generated antagonism and widened divisions between generational groups. Foregrounding generational inequity in the discussion of superannuation has profound implications for state-funded income support for older people which relies upon widespread public support. Intergenerational inequity ignores the significant inequity in health and social circumstances in retirement among older New Zealanders and overlooks the significant impact of universal superannuation on protecting older New Zealanders from poverty in later life.