Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction: Studying work as mindful practice
- 2 Distributed cognition in an airline cockpit
- 3 Constituting shared workspaces
- 4 Seeing as situated activity: Formulating planes
- 5 Convergent activities: Line control and passenger information on the London Underground
- 6 Users and designers in mutual activity: An analysis of cooperative activities in systems design
- 7 System disturbances as springboard for development of operators' expertise
- 8 Expert and novice differences in cognition and activity: A practical work activity
- 9 The tensions of judging: Handling cases of driving under the influence of alcohol in Finland and California
- 10 Talking work: Argument, common knowledge, and improvisation in teamwork
- 11 The collective construction of scientific genius
- 12 Experience and the collective nature of skill
- 13 Working together: Symbolic interactionism, activity theory, and information systems
- 14 On the ethnography of cooperative work
- Index
10 - Talking work: Argument, common knowledge, and improvisation in teamwork
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction: Studying work as mindful practice
- 2 Distributed cognition in an airline cockpit
- 3 Constituting shared workspaces
- 4 Seeing as situated activity: Formulating planes
- 5 Convergent activities: Line control and passenger information on the London Underground
- 6 Users and designers in mutual activity: An analysis of cooperative activities in systems design
- 7 System disturbances as springboard for development of operators' expertise
- 8 Expert and novice differences in cognition and activity: A practical work activity
- 9 The tensions of judging: Handling cases of driving under the influence of alcohol in Finland and California
- 10 Talking work: Argument, common knowledge, and improvisation in teamwork
- 11 The collective construction of scientific genius
- 12 Experience and the collective nature of skill
- 13 Working together: Symbolic interactionism, activity theory, and information systems
- 14 On the ethnography of cooperative work
- Index
Summary
Introduction
This chapter examines collectivity in teamwork. The analytic concern is with how collective action is accomplished in team members' conversations. The example sequences were recorded in a multidisciplinary Child Development Centre (CDC) located within a large National Health Service (NHS) hospital in the United Kingdom. Multiprofessional teamwork is central to the provision of diagnostic and coordinated therapeutic services for children with developmental difficulties. At the time of the study, the physical surroundings of the Centre and its associated daily routines afforded many opportunities for informal discussion between team members concerning their work and case loads.
Multidisciplinary professional services for children
Multidisciplinary professional practice has been widely advocated in the British Isles for organizing the provision of services for children with complex developmental problems (Court Report, 1976; Warnock Report, 1978). It provides a “single gateway” to assessment and therapeutic services. Although widely taken up as a model of professional practice, there has been little evaluation of how such teams actually develop the ways of realizing their daily work activity in a multiprofessional manner. What research there is has either focused on the consultation process between professionals and their clients (e.g., Silverman, 1987; Sharrock & Anderson, 1987) or has examined the flaws in professional practice that surface as a result of professional jealousies and rivalries (Tomlinson, 1981). Such inter professional tensions are interpreted as detracting from good professional practice (Tomlinson, 1981). Research can also be found articulating an ideal that aspires to eliminate professional barriers and to equalize status relationships between professional expert and layperson (Gleidmann & Roth, 1980; Cochran, 1986; Wolfendale, 1986).
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- Cognition and Communication at Work , pp. 233 - 256Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1996
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