Between Craft and Science : Technical Work in the United States / Julian E. Orr, Stephen R. Barley.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Barley, Stephen R., editor.

Orr, Julian E., editor.

Series:

Collection on Technology and Work Series

Collection on Technology and Work

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Industrial technicians--United States.

Industrial technicians.

Sociology & Social Science.

Local Subjects:

Sociology & Social Science.

Genre:

Electronic books.

Physical Description:

1 online resource : 9 drawings; 12 tables

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, [2018]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Between Craft and Science brings together leading scholars from sociology, anthropology, industrial relations, management, and engineering to consider issues surrounding technical work, the most rapidly expanding sector of the labor force. Part craft and part science, part blue-collar and part white-collar, technical work demands skill and knowledge but is rarely rewarded with commensurate status or salary.The book first considers the anomalous nature of technical work and the difficulty of locating it in any conventional theoretical framework. Only an ethnographic approach, studying the actual doing of the work, will make sense of the subject, the authors conclude. The studies that follow report daily practice filled with disjunctures and ironies that mirror the ambiguities of technical work's place in the larger culture. On the basis of those studies, the authors probe questions of policy, management, and education.Between Craft and Science considers the cultural difficulties in understanding technical work and advances coherent, practice-oriented insights into this anomalous phenomenon.

Contents:

Frontmatter

CONTENTS

PREFACE

CONTRIBUTORS

INTRODUCTION: THE NEGLECTED WORKFORCE / Barley, Stephen R. / Orr, Julian E.

PART I. Technical Work's Challenge to the Established Order

1. Technical Work in the Division of Labor: Stalking the Wily Anomaly / Whalley, Peter / Barley, Stephen R.

2. Technical Dissonance: Conflicting Portraits of Technicians / Keefe, Jeffrey / Potosky, Denise

3. Whose Side Are They On? Technical Workers and Management Ideology / Creighton, Sean / Hodson, Randy

Part II. Studies ofTechnical Practice, Knowledge, and Culture

4. Cutting Up Skills: Estimating Difficulty as an Element of Surgical and Other Abilities / Pinch, Trevor / Collins, H. M. / Carbone, Larry

5. Bleeding Edge Epistemology: Practical Problem Solving in Software Support Hot Lines / Pentland, Brian.T

6. Computers, Clients, and Expertise: Negotiating Technical Identities in a Nontechnical World / Zabusky, Stacia E.

7. Work as a Moral Act: How Emergency Medical Technicians Understand Their Work / Nelsen, Bonalyn J.

Part III. Implications ofTechnical Practice for Training, Credential ling, and Careers

8. The Infamous "Lab Error": Education, Skill, and Quality in Medical Technicians' Work / Scarselletta, Mario

9. Engineering Education and Engineering Practice: Improving the Fit / Bucciarelli, Louis L. / Kuhn, Sarah

10. The Senseless Submergence of Difference: Engineers, Their Work, and Their Careers / Perlow, Leslie / Bailyn, Lotte

REFERENCES

INDEX

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. [245]-256) and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 20. Sep 2019)

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9780801432965

0801432960

9781501720888

1501720880

OCLC:

1083627228