title: Considering 'The Professional' in communication studies: Implications for theory and research within and beyond the boundaries of organizational communication

authors: Cheney, George

subjects: professionalism

abstract: This essay positions contemporary "professionalism" as a contested term and a nexus of important theoretical and practical concerns for communication scholars, including, for example, those engaged in the empirical, interpretive, and critical examinations of culture and the self. We advance communication-based understandings of the meanings and practices of professionalism as a complement to the predominantly sociological conceptions of the rise and place of the professional in modern industrialized societies. We are deliberately playful with the term professionalism in demonstrating the power of its ambiguity for reflecting, shaping, and indexing particular kinds of social relations and expectations for them. Part of our argument concerns the complex interplay of symbolism and materiality in the domains of interaction and artifacts surrounding "the professional," and especially its embodiment in work and other settings. This brings us directly to an examination of the "intersectionality" of aspects of difference in the world of the professional (and by implication, the nonprofessional), including race, gender, and class, and to observe a broad-based cultural dialectic of the civilized and the primitive. Finally, we briefly consider extensions as relevant to domains of communication studies beyond the accustomed domain of organizational communication.

text: Considering 'The Professional' in communication studies: Implications for theory and research within and beyond the boundaries of organizational communication This essay positions contemporary "professionalism" as a contested term and a nexus of important theoretical and practical concerns for communication scholars, including, for example, those engaged in the empirical, interpretive, and critical examinations of culture and the self. We advance communication-based understandings of the meanings and practices of professionalism as a complement to the predominantly sociological conceptions of the rise and place of the professional in modern industrialized societies. We are deliberately playful with the term professionalism in demonstrating the power of its ambiguity for reflecting, shaping, and indexing particular kinds of social relations and expectations for them. Part of our argument concerns the complex interplay of symbolism and materiality in the domains of interaction and artifacts surrounding "the professional," and especially its embodiment in work and other settings. This brings us directly to an examination of the "intersectionality" of aspects of difference in the world of the professional (and by implication, the nonprofessional), including race, gender, and class, and to observe a broad-based cultural dialectic of the civilized and the primitive. Finally, we briefly consider extensions as relevant to domains of communication studies beyond the accustomed domain of organizational communication.

year: 2007

title: Bayesian tools for tephrochronology

authors: Buck, Caitlin E.

subjects: radiocarbon dating

abstract: It is suggested that Bayesian statistical methods for radiocarbon data interpretation, already widely used in archaeology, also have potential to improve the dating of tephra layers and hence enhance their use for tephrochronology. By re-analysing data from a recently published paper in which the authors sought to identify the calendar date of the eruption of fourteenth-century AD Kaharoa Tephra, a key marker in New Zealand prehistory, it is shown that Bayesian methods can be used to draw together a coherent collection of radiocarbon data, undertake formal outlier detection, and include prior information. Regardless of the calibration curve adopted, the distribution of likely dates for the Kaharoa eruption is multimodal. By including prior information from wiggle-matched dendrochronology, the uncertainty on the estimate of the calendar date is reduced from a range of about 100 years to about 25 years (i.e., 648-623 cal. BP, with modes at 638 and 632 cal. BP). Using sensitivity analysis, however, it is shown that such estimates are affected by the quality and nature of the prior information available. As a result, we urge tephrochronologists to seek fastidiously both high-quality radiocarbon data and reliable stratigraphic sequences that might inform future geochronological model building.

text: Bayesian tools for tephrochronology It is suggested that Bayesian statistical methods for radiocarbon data interpretation, already widely used in archaeology, also have potential to improve the dating of tephra layers and hence enhance their use for tephrochronology. By re-analysing data from a recently published paper in which the authors sought to identify the calendar date of the eruption of fourteenth-century AD Kaharoa Tephra, a key marker in New Zealand prehistory, it is shown that Bayesian methods can be used to draw together a coherent collection of radiocarbon data, undertake formal outlier detection, and include prior information. Regardless of the calibration curve adopted, the distribution of likely dates for the Kaharoa eruption is multimodal. By including prior information from wiggle-matched dendrochronology, the uncertainty on the estimate of the calendar date is reduced from a range of about 100 years to about 25 years (i.e., 648-623 cal. BP, with modes at 638 and 632 cal. BP). Using sensitivity analysis, however, it is shown that such estimates are affected by the quality and nature of the prior information available. As a result, we urge tephrochronologists to seek fastidiously both high-quality radiocarbon data and reliable stratigraphic sequences that might inform future geochronological model building.

year: 2003

title: Restorying the individual: The cultural dimension of special education in three Te Arawa sites

authors: Macfarlane, Angus H

subjects: Māori special education

abstract: On the basis of observation of three Te Arawa educational sites, it is argued here that a central characteristic of successful programmes that attend to Māori students with special needs is cultural-centredness. Significant aspects of that culture-centredness are outlined here, aspects that, it is argued, are fundamental to the process of restorying that is, it is argued, critical to the success of many Māori students, particularly those with special needs.

text: Restorying the individual: The cultural dimension of special education in three Te Arawa sites On the basis of observation of three Te Arawa educational sites, it is argued here that a central characteristic of successful programmes that attend to Māori students with special needs is cultural-centredness. Significant aspects of that culture-centredness are outlined here, aspects that, it is argued, are fundamental to the process of restorying that is, it is argued, critical to the success of many Māori students, particularly those with special needs.

year: 2002-09