This paper is a general and preliminary attempt to deal with the various meanings associated with work in modern society. It is claimed that such an approach requires that sociologists expand their theoretical and empirical concern to... more
This paper is a general and preliminary attempt to deal with the various meanings associated with work in modern society. It is claimed that such an approach requires that sociologists expand their theoretical and empirical concern to include the many nonoccupational forms of ...
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This article approaches brief solution-focused therapy as a rumor. Brief solution-focused therapy is a series of stories that members of various therapist communities tell one another. Our interpretation of this rumor stresses how brief... more
This article approaches brief solution-focused therapy as a rumor. Brief solution-focused therapy is a series of stories that members of various therapist communities tell one another. Our interpretation of this rumor stresses how brief solution-focused therapy is a job involving wordplay, political relations, and ethical issues. We use this starting point to argue the link between brief solution-focused therapy to Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language, and to aspects of postmodernist social thought. We also discuss how solution-focused therapy is organized as a politics of possibilities.
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Reconsidering Social Constructionism Gale Miller and James A. Holstein The social constructionist perspective has been the most controversial— if not the ...
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Die therapeutische Arbeit besteht fur die meisten Therapeuten in der Analyse, Interpretation und/oder der Unterbrechung der Beschwerden der Klienten. Fur Therapeuten sind Beschwerden wichtig, weil sie die Basis fur die... more
Die therapeutische Arbeit besteht fur die meisten Therapeuten in der Analyse, Interpretation und/oder der Unterbrechung der Beschwerden der Klienten. Fur Therapeuten sind Beschwerden wichtig, weil sie die Basis fur die Therapeut-Klient-Beziehung bilden und oft als Indikatoren fur die Probleme der Klienten gelten. Indem Therapeuten die Beschwerden der Klienten analysieren, interpretieren und/oder unterbrechen, definieren sie die Probleme der Klienten und versuchen sie zu beseitigen. Die Verringerung der Beschwerden oder die Veranderung ihrer Bedeutung bilden einen wichtigen Indikator zur Prufung der Interventionsstrategien. Therapeuten interpretieren die Reduktion oder das Verschwinden der Beschwerden der Klienten als Zeichen fur therapeutische Effektivitat und fur Veranderung. Die meisten Therapeuten wurden dem bisher Angefuhrten zustimmen. Es gilt als allgemein anerkannt und wird nicht weiter hinterfragt.
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Research Interests: Sociology and Psychology
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Studies of applied constructionism are opportunities for scholars to explore how social constructionism is a resource used by claims-makers in describing and justifying their orientations to professional practice. The present paper... more
Studies of applied constructionism are opportunities for scholars to explore how social constructionism is a resource used by claims-makers in describing and justifying their orientations to professional practice. The present paper expands sociological constructionism by analyzing applied constructionism in social problems work in Copenhagen, Denmark. Based on interviews with staff members in narrative drug treatment, we explore two themes: the relationship between dominant and liberating narratives and the position of expert knowledge in narrative therapy. Our guiding framework is Ian Hacking’s inquiry into the Social Construction of What? and Kenneth Burke’s dialogic approach of comparing statements to counterstatements. The purpose of the paper is to link academic studies of the social construction of realities to applied constructionists’ principles in addressing social problems. We do this by describing narrative therapists’ critical reflections on their own work, suggesting th...
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3 Social Constructionism and Social Problems Work JAMES A. HOLSTEIN AND GALE MILLER Since Spector and Kitsuse ([1977] 1987) offered their foundational state ...
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"Constructionist Controversies" reviews the substantial contributions to social problems theory that have been made by social constructionist theorists and examines debates about the future of this perspective. Intended for the... more
"Constructionist Controversies" reviews the substantial contributions to social problems theory that have been made by social constructionist theorists and examines debates about the future of this perspective. Intended for the student, the volume provides a succinct formulation of all the major issues of social constructionism by contributors who are well recognized within the field for the strength with which they articulate their own widely varied viewpoints.
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This paper examines three orientations to reading texts about solution-focused thought and practice: the rumor, paradigm, and instrumental orientations. I analyze these orientations as interpretive communities that shape readers’... more
This paper examines three orientations to reading texts about solution-focused thought and practice: the rumor, paradigm, and instrumental orientations. I analyze these orientations as interpretive communities that shape readers’ interpretations of texts. Readers participate in constructing the future of the solution-focused world by choosing to tell others about the texts they like and dislike and by using ideas found in some texts in their professional practices. I also address questions about whether there is a best reading orientation for solution-focused readers, why solution-focused thinkers and practitioners should pay attention to how they interpret texts, and how readers influence authors and editors. Finally, I discuss how readers (as workers) might enhance their professional skills by reflecting on how they read journal articles and other texts.
This paper is a reflection on Spector and Kitsuse’s claims-making approach to social problems construction, and to the subsequent studies that the approach inspired. Spector and Kitsuse argued that social problems are constructed as... more
This paper is a reflection on Spector and Kitsuse’s claims-making approach to social problems construction, and to the subsequent studies that the approach inspired. Spector and Kitsuse argued that social problems are constructed as putative conditions that justify societal responses designed to manage, if not eliminate, them. Early sections of the paper examine basic themes in the constructionist literature on social problems. Two major themes in this literature focus on how social problems claims-making activities orient to social policy development and institutional interventions. Later sections consider two ways in which the constructionist approach might be expanded to consider additional claims-making contexts and constructionist perspectives. Social problems claims-making in popular culture contexts and Burke’s dramatistic perspective are discussed as examples of how constructionist studies of social problems might be expanded upon.
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Research Interests: Sociology and Social Work
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Research Interests: Sociology, Rhetoric, Addiction, Government, Health, and 6 moreMedicine, Agency, Drug Addiction, Dependency, Substitution, and Need
Kenneth Burke's dramatistic perspective is applied to accounts told by staff members working in methadone maintenance treatment centres in Copenhagen, Denmark. As a harm reduction strategy, methadone maintenance is designed to reduce... more
Kenneth Burke's dramatistic perspective is applied to accounts told by staff members working in methadone maintenance treatment centres in Copenhagen, Denmark. As a harm reduction strategy, methadone maintenance is designed to reduce the costs and dangers of chronic long-term drug use by providing substitution (methadone) treatment to users. Burke's dramatistic perspective calls attention to the recurring relationships among rhetorical elements within accounts of social reality. The elements form a pentad: scene, purpose, agent, agency and acts. Our analysis examines how the ideal of governmentality is constructed by staff members to justify and criticize the operations of the Copenhagen methadone maintenance program. For Burke, social criticism involves rearranging pentadic elements to produce new meanings and justify alternative actions. We discuss how Burke's perspective might be developed by sociologists as a critical dramatism of social policies and programs.
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Prisoner reentry initiatives have proliferated in response to the enormous increase in the use of incarceration in the past few decades. Approximately six hundred thousand of these inmates will return to communities across the coun-try... more
Prisoner reentry initiatives have proliferated in response to the enormous increase in the use of incarceration in the past few decades. Approximately six hundred thousand of these inmates will return to communities across the coun-try each year.1 Releasing large numbers of ...
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Part 1 Culture and social problems work: safe home, dangerous street - remapping social reality in the early modern era, Leslie J. Miller rethinking victimization, James A. Holstein and Gale Miller the burden of facts - rhetoric in the... more
Part 1 Culture and social problems work: safe home, dangerous street - remapping social reality in the early modern era, Leslie J. Miller rethinking victimization, James A. Holstein and Gale Miller the burden of facts - rhetoric in the debate over Asian-American student admissions, Dana Y. Takagi. Part 2 Social problems work in the mass media: secondary claims making - claims about threats to children on the network news, Joel Best speak of the devil - talk shows and the social construction of Satanism, Kathleen S. Lowney. Part 3 Social problems work in human service organizations: creating clients - social problems work in a shelter for battered women, Donileen R. Loseke homeless in River City - client work in human service encounters, J. William Spencer. Part 4 Social problems work in social control settings: neutralizing resistance - probation work as rhetoric, William D. Darrough constructing serious violence and its victims, processing a domestic violence restraining order, Robert M. Emerson. Part 5 Social problems during public life: gender, social problems work and everyday philanthropy among strangers, Carol Brooks Gardner what Waco stood for - jokes as popular constructions of social problems, Kathleen S. Lowney and Joel Best.
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Decision making from an ethnomethodological standpoint analytical problems and an initial presentation of the data responsibility in decision making and the fallacy of realtivism decision making in a stroke unit.
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Part 1 Conceptualizing the state: children and the civic state - a covenant model of welfare, John O'Neill power and social action beyond the state, Roger Sibeon therapy, organization and the state - a Blackian perspective, James... more
Part 1 Conceptualizing the state: children and the civic state - a covenant model of welfare, John O'Neill power and social action beyond the state, Roger Sibeon therapy, organization and the state - a Blackian perspective, James Tucker the institutionalization and deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill - lessons from Goffman, Philip Manning. Part 2 Counselling and therapy in institutional settings: acquiescence or consensus? consenting to therapeutic pedagogy, James L. Nolan, Jr. the emergence of recovered memory as a social problem, Roger Neustadter the concept of a "healthy person" - a sociological contribution toward a truly revolutionary psychotherapy, John A. Kovach toward a critical social interactionism for counsellors, Sydney Carroll Thomas the family under siege, James J. Chriss.
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... Page 5. ENFORCING THE WORK ETHIC Rhetoric and Everyday Life in a Work Incentive Program Gale Miller State University of New York Press Page 6. ... Enforcing the work ethic : rhetoric and everyday life in a work incentive program /... more
... Page 5. ENFORCING THE WORK ETHIC Rhetoric and Everyday Life in a Work Incentive Program Gale Miller State University of New York Press Page 6. ... Enforcing the work ethic : rhetoric and everyday life in a work incentive program / Gale Miller. p. cm. ...
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... Odd jobs: The world of deviant work ... Post a Comment. CONTRIBUTORS: Author: Miller, Gale. PUBLISHER: Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ). SERIES TITLE: YEAR: 1978. PUB TYPE: Book (ISBN 0136305415 ). VOLUME/EDITION: PAGES... more
... Odd jobs: The world of deviant work ... Post a Comment. CONTRIBUTORS: Author: Miller, Gale. PUBLISHER: Prentice-Hall (Englewood Cliffs, NJ). SERIES TITLE: YEAR: 1978. PUB TYPE: Book (ISBN 0136305415 ). VOLUME/EDITION: PAGES (INTRO/BODY): xii, 260 p. ...
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... and Nutrition as Social Problems Gale Miller, Becoming Miracle Workers: Language and Meaning in Brief Therapy James L. Nolan, Jr.(ed ... in Transition Theodore Sasson, Crime Talk: How Citizens Construct a Social Problem Jeffrey Sobal... more
... and Nutrition as Social Problems Gale Miller, Becoming Miracle Workers: Language and Meaning in Brief Therapy James L. Nolan, Jr.(ed ... in Transition Theodore Sasson, Crime Talk: How Citizens Construct a Social Problem Jeffrey Sobal and Donna Maurer (eds.), Weighty ...
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Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Vol. 33 No. 6, December 2004 772-773 © 2004 Sage Publications ... The following scholars graciously reviewed manuscripts for volume 33 of the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. We are grateful for... more
Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Vol. 33 No. 6, December 2004 772-773 © 2004 Sage Publications ... The following scholars graciously reviewed manuscripts for volume 33 of the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography. We are grateful for their invaluable assistance. ... Cherry Russell Clinton Sanders Kent Sandstrom Thomas J. Schmid Michael Schwalbe Lacey Sloan Charles Soukup Jack Spencer Michael Stein Claire E. Sterk ... Mindy Stombler Jennifer Parker Talwar Diane E. Taub Steven Taylor William Thompson Steven R. Thomsen Lisa ...
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Introduction - Gale Miller Context and Method in Qualitative Research PART ONE: VALIDITY AND PLAUSIBILITY IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH The Logics of Qualitative Research - David Silverman Producing 'Plausible Stories' - Kath M Melia... more
Introduction - Gale Miller Context and Method in Qualitative Research PART ONE: VALIDITY AND PLAUSIBILITY IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH The Logics of Qualitative Research - David Silverman Producing 'Plausible Stories' - Kath M Melia Interviewing Student Nurses Techniques of Validation in Qualitative Research - Michael Bloor A Critical Commentary PART TWO: METHODOLOGICAL ISSUES IN QUALITATIVE RESEARCH Accounts, Interviews and Observations - Robert Dingwall Problems with Interviewing - Isobel Bowler Experiences with Service Providers and Clients Contextualizing Texts - Gale Miller Studying Organizational Texts Using Computers in Strategic Qualitative Research - Tom Durkin Dramaturgy and Methodology - Scott A Hunt and Robert D Benford Research Techniques from a Theatrical Perspective PART THREE: ANALYZING INSTITUTIONS AND ORGANIZATIONS Network Analysis and Qualitative Research - Emmanuel Lazega A Method of Contextualization The Interactional Study of Organizations - Robert Dingwall and P M Strong A Critique and Reformulation Toward Ethnographies of Institutional Discourse - Gale Miller Proposal and Suggestions PART FOUR: QUALITATIVE RESEARCH AS A MORAL DISCOURSE Ethnography and Justice - David L Altheide and John M Johnson One Branch of Moral Science - P M Strong An Early Modern Approach to Public Policy Conclusion - Robert Dingwall The Moral Discourse of Interactionism
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An institutional discourse perspective is developed and applied to discursive therapies. The perspective focuses on the interactional and interpretive practices that organize therapist-client encounters. Ethnomethodology, conversation... more
An institutional discourse perspective is developed and applied to discursive therapies. The perspective focuses on the interactional and interpretive practices that organize therapist-client encounters. Ethnomethodology, conversation analysis, and Foucauldian discourse analyses are discussed as different but related orientations to institutional discourse. Each perspective highlights different aspects of the institutional discourse perspective and discursive therapies. The perspective is applied by reconsidering the concept of collaboration in discursive therapies. Three issues are discussed. They are the value of thinking about collaboration as a shifting achievement in discursive therapy interactions, power relationships that include the potential for client resistance, and sites for the negotiation of multiple—sometimes competing—discourses.
In Becoming Miracle Workers, Gale Miller begins with a self-disclosure. He writes that, as a young boy growing up in Southern Iowa, he often got into trouble-making life difficult for himself and for those around him. This pattern of... more
In Becoming Miracle Workers, Gale Miller begins with a self-disclosure. He writes that, as a young boy growing up in Southern Iowa, he often got into trouble-making life difficult for himself and for those around him. This pattern of behavior was not seen as dysfunctional, nor was it ...
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Professor Gale Miller is a member of the Department of Social and Cultural Sciences at Marquette University, Milwaukee. He is interested in research around issues involving language and social problems, and was involved as a researcher... more
Professor Gale Miller is a member of the Department of
Social and Cultural Sciences at Marquette University,
Milwaukee. He is interested in research around issues involving language and social problems, and was involved as a researcher with Steve de Shazer, Insoo Kim Berg and their team at the Brief Family Therapy Centre during the evolution of what we now know as SF therapy. These observations led to his book Becoming Miracle Workers: Language and Meaning in Brief Therapy (1997). He continues to be involved with the SF community around the world.
Social and Cultural Sciences at Marquette University,
Milwaukee. He is interested in research around issues involving language and social problems, and was involved as a researcher with Steve de Shazer, Insoo Kim Berg and their team at the Brief Family Therapy Centre during the evolution of what we now know as SF therapy. These observations led to his book Becoming Miracle Workers: Language and Meaning in Brief Therapy (1997). He continues to be involved with the SF community around the world.
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penultimate draft of
Miller, G., & Strong, T. (2007). Constructing therapy and its outcomes. In J. Gubrium & J. Holstein (Eds.) Handbook of Constructionist Research (pp. 609-625). New York: Guilford Press.
Miller, G., & Strong, T. (2007). Constructing therapy and its outcomes. In J. Gubrium & J. Holstein (Eds.) Handbook of Constructionist Research (pp. 609-625). New York: Guilford Press.
