NEW DIRECTIONS IN MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE EDUCATION
NEW DIRECTIONS IN MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE EDUCATION
Wolff-Michael Roth
University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
and
Pei-Ling Hsu (Eds.)
University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
Non scholae sed vitae discimus, we learn for life rather than for school. In this Roman
saying, the ultimate reason for school is recognized as being a preparation for life. High
school science, too, is a preparation for life, the possible careers students identify, and
for defining possible future Selves. In this book, the contributors take one dataset as
their object of scholarship informed by discursive psychology, Bakhtin, and poststructural
positions to investigate the particulars of the language used in interviews about possible
careers conducted both before and after an internship in a university science laboratory.
Across this collection, some contributors focus on data driven analyses in which the
authors present more macro-perspectives on the use of language in science career talk,
whereas others see the data using particular lenses that provide intelligible and fruitful
perspectives on what and how students and interviewer talk careers in science. Other
contributors propose to transform the database into different representations that allows
researchers to single out and demonstrate particular dimensions of discourse. Thus, these
contributions roughly fall into three categories that are treated under the sections entitled
“Discourse Analyses of Career Talk,” “Discursive Lenses and Foci,” and “Innovations in
Theory, Method, and Representation of Career Talk Research.”
Talk about Careers in Science
Talk about Careers in Science
Talk about Careers
in Science
Wolff-Michael Roth
and Pei-Ling Hsu (Eds.)
Wolff-Michael Roth
and Pei-Ling Hsu (Eds.)
SensePublishers
SensePublishers
NDMS 20
TALK ABOUT CAREERS IN SCIENCE
NEW DIRECTIONS IN MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE EDUCATION
Volume 20
Series Editors
Wolff-Michael Roth
University of Victoria, Canada
Lieven Verschaffel
University of Leuven, Belgium
Editorial Board
Angie Calabrese-Barton, Teachers College, New York, USA
Pauline Chinn, University of Hawaii, USA
Brian Greer, Portland State University, USA
Lyn English, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
Terezinha Nunes, University of Oxford, UK
Peter Taylor, Curtin University, Perth, Australia
Dina Tirosh, Tel Aviv University, Israel
Manuela Welzel, University of Education, Heidelberg, Germany
Scope
Mathematics and science education are in a state of change. Received models of
teaching, curriculum, and researching in the two fields are adopting and developing
new ways of thinking about how people of all ages know, learn, and develop. The
recent literature in both fields includes contributions focusing on issues and using
theoretical frames that were unthinkable a decade ago. For example, we see an
increase in the use of conceptual and methodological tools from anthropology and
semiotics to understand how different forms of knowledge are interconnected, how
students learn, how textbooks are written, etcetera. Science and mathematics
educators also have turned to issues such as identity and emotion as salient to
the way in which people of all ages display and develop knowledge and skills.
And they use dialectical or phenomenological approaches to answer ever arising
questions about learning and development in science and mathematics.
The purpose of this series is to encourage the publication of books that are close
to the cutting edge of both fields. The series aims at becoming a leader in providing
refreshing and bold new work—rather than out-of-date reproductions of past states
of the art—shaping both fields more than reproducing them, thereby closing the
traditional gap that exists between journal articles and books in terms of their
salience about what is new. The series is intended not only to foster books
concerned with knowing, learning, and teaching in school but also with doing and
learning mathematics and science across the whole lifespan (e.g., science in
kindergarten; mathematics at work); and it is to be a vehicle for publishing books
that fall between the two domains—such as when scientists learn about graphs and
graphing as part of their work.
Talk about Careers in Science
Edited by
Wolff-Michael Roth
University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
and
Pei-Ling Hsu
University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
SENSE PUBLISHERS
ROTTERDAM / BOSTON / TAIPEI
A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-94-6091-324-2 (paperback)
ISBN 978-94-6091-325-9 (hardback)
ISBN 978-94-6091-326-6 (e-book)
Published by: Sense Publishers,
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All rights reserved © 2010 Sense Publishers
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CONTENTS
Preface
vii
Talking Science Careers: An Introduction
Wolff-Michael Roth, Pei-Ling Hsu
PART A: DISCOURSE ANALYSES OF CAREER TALK
Introduction
1
11
13
1 Interpretative Repertoires for Talking (About) Science-Related Careers
Pei-Ling Hsu, Wolff-Michael Roth
19
2 “I Want to Be a Doctor”: Discourses of Medicine as a Possible Career
Norah McRae
43
3 “I Don’t Know”: Uncertainty in High School Students’ Talk About
Science-Related Careers
Alfredo Bautista
4 Talking Learning in Career Talk
Cathryn Connelly
59
73
5 Childhood Memories in Career Plans: How Past Memories Shape
Our Identities
Alena Kottová
6 The Psychological Rewards of Career Path Choices
Kathleen Hall
PART B: DISCURSIVE LENSES AND FOCI
Introduction
83
97
113
115
7 “I Went to Bamfield Last Summer”: A Chronotope Analysis of
Science Career Discourse
Pei-Ling Hsu
8 What Is Alice Trying to Tell Us?: A Post-structuralist and Bakhtinian
Analysis to Examine Subjectivity and Conflicting Voices in
Career Discourse
Scott Marsden
9 Career Metaphors We Live By
Ching-Yi Wu
121
135
147
v
CONTENTS
10 Calculating the Odds: Possible Selves in Career Talk
Natalia Delgado
165
11 Career Talk as Folktale: Culture Underpins Our Talk About Self
Vivian M. Collyer
179
PART C: INNOVATIONS IN THEORY, METHOD, &
REPRESENTATION OF CAREER TALK RESEARCH
Introduction
193
195
12 Talking Careers, Career Talk
Wolff-Michael Roth
201
13 Talking Careers: Talking Poetry
Sheila Simpkins
221
14 Daughter Not Like Mother: The Power of Poetic Self-Portraits as
Ethnographic Representation
David Raju
15 “I Wouldn’t Want to Be a Pilot or Surgeon Because It Seems Too
Risky to Me”: Auto/Biographical Narratives and Life-History Accounts
of Career Choice
Wolff-Michael Roth
233
245
Metalogue on Career Talk and Its Study
Wolff-Michael Roth, Pei-Ling Hsu, Alfredo Bautista, Vivian M. Collyer,
Cathryn Connelly, Natalia Delgado, Gholam Reza Emad, Kathleen Hall,
Alena Kottová, Jean-François Maheux, Scott Marsden, Norah McRae,
David Raju, Sheila Simpkins, Ching-Yi Wu
261
References
283
Index
287
vi
PREFACE
The field of science education tends to be concerned with transmitting – which
may involve some forms of individual and social construction – scientific knowledge to students as if the latter was self-sufficient and self-motivating. Much research then focuses on creating science materials and curriculum for teachers and
students. However, research in science education seldom asks why students may be
in science courses even though some of them may not even like science per se. For
example, it might be that someone intends to be a medical doctor without falling in
love with physics or chemistry. But the student may enroll in high school science
and chemistry nevertheless, because these courses are part of the prerequisite for
becoming a doctor. Studying students’ rationales for being in the field of science is
therefore important because it allows (science) educators to better understand students’ science-related lifeworlds. Moreover, science educators seldom, if ever, ask
themselves about the nature of the cultural historical resources that high school
students have for making sense not only within science but also of their lives as a
whole, in which science may make up only a small part. As we know, when students learn science, they do not learn or live in the vacuum of a pure, immaculate
world of science. Rather, they come to science courses with different historical
backgrounds and cultural competences – most importantly, language – that mediate
their engagement with science and, therefore, their learning. Thus, brining out
these normally ignored dimensions of cultural and daily competence is an urgent
task to facilitate a more holistic investigation on science-related discourse. This
book therefore focuses on relevant important questions: What forms of discourse
do students have available and mobilize in career talk? What are the structures of
these discourses? What are cultural resources and devices that students draw on to
communicate their career choices? What are the characteristics of science-related
careers discourse? This book is designed to provide answers to these and related
questions.
In this book, the authors use one and the same database, a total of 24 interviews
with 13 eleventh-grade high school biology students talking about their possible
future careers, especially those related to science. The science-oriented high school
students’ discourse provides a rich and unique source for studying diverse rationales of talking about science-related careers. This book partially is the result of a
seminar that we conducted in the early part of 2010, which had advanced methods,
the analysis of communication, and an existing database as its topic. The participants (authors) are at different points in their careers and have very different backgrounds. This provides us with an opportunity to look at the database through different lenses, lenses that reflect the multiplicity of perspectives we get on any
given issue in a society at a particular point of its cultural-historical evolution. Talk
vii
PREFACE
About Careers in Science takes the language, contents, structures, genres, and
themes of these interviews as its topic, contributing new understandings about the
aspirations of adolescents and theoretical issues concerning interviews as method.
Our title may be read with different emphases that are covered by the diverse
analyses incorporated in this book. On one hand, we may have talk about science,
that is, the talk about science is the topic. We may, on the other hand, also hear the
title as a modulation of talking about science, in the sense of “talking about science, have you ever thought about the science-related career options high school
students consider as they near graduation?” That is, the function is one of introducing a new topic given the fact that we are talking about science, but in a different
way and on a different topic.
Instead of using conventional ways of analyzing the interview database, the
authors take a discursive approach to analyze career talk. When analyzing interviews, conventional research often excludes the contributions of interviewers and
takes interviews as transparent windows to detect interviewees’ cognitive entities
from their talk. Take interviews concerning high school students’ possible future
careers for example. It is not uncommon to see that traditional analysts identified
several “factors” or “causes” (e.g., self-efficacy, interests, beliefs) that can “predict” or “explain” interviewees’ decision making for future careers. Authors in this
book take different approaches to investigate the interview talk. They focus on the
language during interviews as a whole that is constituted by the interviewer, interviewee, their interaction, their cultural and historical backgrounds, and the interview setting rather than solely take interviews as sites to extract interviewees’ mental structures that are forever inaccessible to others. Various discursive forms of
communicative acts, such as oral language, gestures, body movements, are all important resources for interview talk. That is, authors in this book pay extra attentions to credible forms of evidence that are accessible not only to insiders (e.g.,
interviewees, interviewers) but also to outsiders (e.g., analysts, readers). Their rigorous analyses therefore not only demonstrate alternative perspectives for looking
at the interview discourse but also provide evidence-based discussions of the discourse in career talk.
The analyses and findings for each chapter were derived from the context of the
seminar except chapter 1 (i.e., chapter 1 is based on an article first published in the
Journal of Research in Science Teaching). This project was made possible, in part,
by two research grants – to Wolff-Michael Roth – from the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada (standard research programs) and the
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (through its
CRYSTAL program). Our thanks go to all the high school student participants,
who had agreed to participate in various aspects of our overall research program
generally and to the interviews at the heart of this book particularly.
Victoria, BC
June 2010
viii
WOLFF-MICHAEL ROTH & PEI-LING HSU
TALKING SCIENCE CAREERS
An Introduction
Talking is an integral part of being human. It is not just talk, animals and even
plants communicate with their environments and others by different forms of
communication (e.g., dancing, networks), as shown in such domains as zoosemiotics and biosemiotics. However, only language allows a reflexive turn: on the ongoing activity or the use of language. Language permits a mediated access to the present, thereby constituting our relationship not only to the present but to past and
future as well. It is therefore not surprising that talking about possible futures, possible future selves, and possible careers is but one of the ways in which we learn to
organize our lives, both backwards in the processes of finding out who we are, and
forward, in the processes of planning who we want to become. This is evident in
the following quote excerpted from an interview about careers in science conducted with an eleventh-grade high school student who would subsequently participated in an internship experience in a university science laboratory.
My dad is like, “You should become a nurse or doctor field,” and I am like
“No!” He is an engineer and so he doesn’t really know law but he supports
me wanting to go. Like I have had this dream for a while now, so he supports
me fully in to like pursuing it. I want to go into law because I came, when I
was in Kosovo I had to leave because of a war and stuff. Like at the time
controlled by Slobodan Milosevic, women didn’t have that many rights. I felt
– ’cause like my mom, my mom was a math teacher for eleven years so and
then she was in politics too for Kosovo. So like as I became older she explained all these things to me and I just thought, “Now it is becoming,” you
know, “they are able to vote and everything.” But I still feel like I could represent people and I could help people. Like I have seen people go through
poverty and they don’t, they can’t afford if like someone is wrong. I don’t
know, I think it would be really cool if like, personally, if I can make a difference to at least one person. I think it is good so that is one of the major
reasons. I feel like I am doing something. I am not just standing there waiting
for things to happen in a way. Because like I just had to go through so much
as my life was growing up, you know, I can do it in a way. Like I understand
it, so it describes who I am. So who is going to argue? In a way it is sort of a
passion. (Alice)
In this interview fragment, Alice talks about her past, the country that she and
her parents have lived in and emigrated from before heading toward their new life
in Canada. Alice talks about her parents, what they do and have done. And what
W.-M. Roth & P.-L. Hsu (Eds.), Talk About Careers in Science, 1–10.
© 2010 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
ROTH AND HSU
they do mediates the sorts of choices Alice considers when planning her own future. She is interested in helping others, but unlike her father, who suggests to her
the career of a doctor, Alice articulates thinking about becoming a lawyer. There
are experiences and accounts of life in the former Kosovo that mediate the career
choices most salient in her account.
Alice also talks about the conversations she has had with her mother, especially
those conversations that occurred as she became older. These conversations in the
family constitute a form of activity, where talking about the former life and its
conditions is a recurring event. As a subject in, of, and to this activity, Alice actively participates by listening and contributing to the conversation, and, as a consequence of her participation, she changes and develops. She becomes a subject of
the relevant activity that constitutes family life. But in the course of her life, she
participates in other forms of activities. She goes to school, she participates in the
science internship, she is planning to partake in a forum organized by a marine
research center, and so on. In each of these activities, she is becoming in, while,
and through participating. That is, who Alice is and becomes is mediated by the
different activities in which she participates and among which she prefers some
more than others, and therefore, arranges in some hierarchical orders for herself. In
fact, what we recognize as her personality is constituted by processes of becoming
a subject in the various individual activities, subjectification, and the way in which
she organizes these activities and their motives into some hierarchy. In research
writing, her subjectivity comes to be depicted and represented in various ways.
These ways of representations are both explored and questioned in this volume.
Alice does not only participate in these activities and thereby is subject to multiple forms of development within and across activities, but she also talks about
events in the past, present, and future. This talk, or rather, the interview in which
this talk is produced, is itself a form of activity. The talk and language appropriate
in and for such an interview are mediated by the nature of the interview as activity.
To analyze such talk, we require particular theories and methods that allow us to
understand what talk does, how activities are constituted in and through talk, and
what the relation of the interview talk and language is with respect to the talk that
characterizes various activities that are the topics of the interview talk. Discursive
psychology is one discipline that takes up the challenges that come with an appropriate positioning of interview talk with respect to other forms of talk characterizing different activities and the relation of these different forms of talk to language
as a whole.
In the following, we introduce the conceptual scheme that guides our presentation of the different parts of this book concerned with the talk and processes of
talking science careers. In particular, we articulate (a) the relation between activity
and the processes of subjectification and personality and (b) discursive psychology
as a theory and method to understand language and language use. We conclude this
introductory chapter with a description of the database analyzed in this book and a
sketch of the parts that constitute this book.
2
TALKING SCIENCE CAREERS: AN INTRODUCTION
ACTIVITY, SUBJECTIFICATION, PERSONALITY
In the past, (science) educators have thought science knowing and learning from
the perspective of the curriculum, often organized by considering the cognitive and
social structure of the discipline. Going to school and learning a subject such as
mathematics or science, therefore, not only makes us familiar with a discipline but
constitutes a process of disciplining our bodies and minds. For example, thinking
about having to sit all day on hard chairs, being disrupted every 60 or so minutes to
begin another type of activity, having to change rooms, having to wait for the
break to go to the toilets. But even becoming part of activities that do not have the
same disciplinary regimes as schooling still requires us to become part of systems,
of ways of participating and perceiving, which acquires a physically disciplined
body and mind that go hand in hand with a particular discipline (mathematics, science). That is, we are subject to as much as the agential subjects of activity.
Here we theorize human development in terms of the concepts of subjectification and personality. These concepts decenter the current discussion concerning the
subject: from identity and positionality, which overemphasize the agential aspects
of being, to the processes of becoming within activities and society as a whole.
Activity
Emerging from very early forms of division of labor, such as in collective hunting
of primates and early hominids, society is organized into activities that together are
designed to assure the collective provision of basic needs – including food, shelter,
emotion, and safety. By participating in one or the other activity, individual members simultaneously contribute to the collective provision and, through various
means, assure the satisfaction of their own needs. Activities therefore are oriented
to and initiated by collective motives. Each form of activity is concretely realized
by goal-directed actions on the part of the subjects of the activity. The relationship
between action and activity is dialectical, that is, mutually constitutive. Activities
only exist because of the actions that realize them, but actions are generated only
because of the activity that gives them their sense. The same action may contribute
to realizing very different activities but will have a very different sense and function. For example, a high school student who curses the teacher or shows her the
middle finger will be subject to punitive actions in the school activity; but he may
increase his social capital in the peer culture giving him raised status in the activities conducted outside school. Actions themselves are realized by operations that
are determined by the conditions and therefore are not present to consciousness.
Actions and operations, too, stand in a mutually constitutive relationship, as the
operations realize the actions but are produced only in view of an existing action.
When we contribute to a conversation, we may want to say something, but we do
not select the individual words, which tend to come out of our mouths as a function
of the current state of the utterance (action).
An activity can be thought as a system, which includes other pertinent structures
that mediate what the subjects of activity do. These structures include the means of
3
ROTH AND HSU
production (tools), the existing division of labor, the object/motive of the activity,
the community of practice and the community of future users, and the practices
(rules, laws). But, because the activity is the smallest intelligible unit, it cannot be
understood as a composition of the pertinent structures. None of these structural
aspects makes sense independent of the whole, which is the activity. Therefore, the
nature of the subject is determined by the activity as a whole. An individual at
work is different from who he or she is in the family, in the supermarket, in the
exercise club, or in neighborhood organization. In fact, upon entering a new activity, there will be a process by means of which we become subjects of the activity as
we are changed in and through participation in this activity. We denote this process
of becoming by the term subjectification. But in the course of a day, and even more
so in the course of our lives, we come to participate in multiple forms of activity.
But we do not consider them as equally important and do not take up the object/motive of these activities in the same way. That is, we tend to form hierarchies
of the activities and motives that drive them, such as when for a period of time we
may emphasize work and career over family life, or at other parts of our life, we
may emphasize family over work, or family over church over teaching. This continuous development and formation of hierarchies of motives/activities, we denote
by the term personality.
Subjectification
In entering any form of societally motivated activity, we take a part of an integrated system that also includes other parts – the means of production, division of
labor, objects, community, and practices that shape what we do and what we produce. But we are not just part, we become part, because we have to learn a lot initially to take up roles that others are already competent in playing. Moreover, the
systems change – schooling today is different from schooling yesterday, when, for
example, it was possible for teachers to use a stick to further discipline the bodies
and minds of the children they taught, whereas it rarely happens nowadays. Thus,
there is a continuous change even for those who have been part of an activity system for and over a long time. That is, we continuously become subjects of activity
systems. This process of becoming part of an activity system is denoted by the
term subjectification, whereby we “mean the production through a series of actions
of a body and a capacity for enunciation not previously identifiable within a given
field of experience, whose identification is thus part of the reconfiguration of the
field of experience” (Rancière, 1999, p. 35). That is, subjectification produces bodies and a capacity for enunciations, forms of talk; this production occurs through
series of actions. As a result of this process, we observe new bodies and forms of
talk not previously observable in a given field, for example, in the classroom. This
production, of new bodies and capacities for enunciation, is therefore part of the
way in which a field comes to be reconfigured.
The body and mind are fashioned in constitutive societal interactions, because it
is – by means of its senses – open and exposed to the world (Bourdieu, 1997). This
exposure fashions the body lastingly, leaves traces, as the material and cultural
4
TALKING SCIENCE CAREERS: AN INTRODUCTION
conditions of existence to which the body responds. Participation leaves traces so
that the process of socialization – an active process as the individual subject is
fashioned as much from the outside as it is by the actions itself – leads to an individuation. As a result, the singularity of the “I” is shaped in societal relations, that
is, it is a product of these relations. Contrasting the approach of both radical and
social constructivism, therefore, the approach taken here does not solely hinge on
the agency of the subject, who could not ever have intended its own agency, but
places the load for the existence of the subject on the community.
On any given day, we are not just participating in one activity – we are not just
in school generally or in science specifically. Rather, we move through different
kinds of activity systems, in each of which we, as part of an irreducible whole, we
come to be configured differently so that we are different persons in different space
and time. One of the most striking example of the different subjectivities that a
person obtains when changing activities is the stark difference in observable behaviors of Nazi concentration camp officials, who, after inflicting a lot of horror
upon their victims, could go home and be the most loving husbands and fathers.
Closer to home, accomplished teachers or principals for much of the day may
come to the university and take a graduate class, where they experience insecurities, emotional instabilities, and so on that would be atypical for what and how
they feel at work. As a result of subjectification processes, the individual develops
as the subject of the particular activity. However, there is more to the life of an
individual than being a subject in one activity. In fact, to understand the decisions
individuals make, we have to take a perspective from their life as a whole. Here,
the category of personality is more comprehensive than that of subjectification. But
any individual, a Nazi concentration camp guard, a teacher, or a principal is not
what s/he is in this one activity; nor can we identify him/her with the subjectivity
in a second, a third, and so on activity system that they are part of. Rather, it is
precisely the enchainment of all of these activities that constitute our personalities.
Here, rather than understand this term in the way classical psychology uses and
understands the term, we follow an activity theoretic account.
Personality
Activity theory rejects the egocentric interpretation of the nature of the individual.
Instead, it offers a view of the human “I (me)” that is but a moment of the whole
system of mutually constitutive relations of humans in the society. In activity theory, personality is understood in terms of a transformed individual, a transformation that is the result of its relations to society, that is, of relations in which the
individual obtains new systemic characteristics. “But precisely in its ‘extrasensual’
characteristics does [the individual] constitute the object of psychological science”
(Leontjew, 1982, p. 218). The category of activity retains the unity of the concrete
subject, as we encounter it at work, in the family, and everywhere else in life; the
category of activity provides a holistic perspective on the person, who is an integral moment of the totality of human life, which reproduces itself in and through
society.
5
ROTH AND HSU
The multiple activities of the subject intersect and are connected into knots by
means of the object/motives of different activities in which the individual takes
part and in the societal relations that the subject engages in and entertains in each
activity. These knots and their hierarchies form the mysterious center of personality that we call “I.” In other words, this center does not lie within the individual,
not beneath its skin, but in its being in the world. The knots that connect the different activities are not formed by the biological or mental capacities of the subject,
capacities that somehow reside within the subject, but these knots emerge from the
system of relations that the movement of the subject across its different activities
brings about. This movement itself is a function of the ways in which the various
activities are connected to form society.
The inner driving forces of the developmental process lies in the double character of the relationship of subject to the world, in its double mediation, concrete
practical activity and social communication. “This double mediation leads to the
twofold nature of the object/motive and their coordination, which depends on the
objective relations that the subject entertains” (p. 200-201). This development is
possible only when the subject is part of society, which, because of the progressive
division of labor, is sectioned into the different activities through which the individual moves and the object/motives of which come to be connected. The development of personality presupposes the development of goal formation and the
relevant expansion of action possibilities; but these two processes have the development of personality as their outcome. The development of personality, on one
hand, and the development of goal formation and expansion of action possibilities,
on the other, therefore are mutually constitutive sets of processes.
Talking (About) Careers
Research – and the interviews that are employed as part of research method – constitutes but one of the activities that make society. When the high school students
in our interviews talk with the interviewers about their possible future careers, they
are subjects of this activity. Their talk is oriented and appropriate to the interview
setting. But their topics of talk are all the other activities that they have participated
in the past and the possible activities that they might participate in the future – that
is, their personality. These are two very different dimensions. The degree to which
interview talk is pertinent to or reflects all the other activities is an empirical manner. Thus, what we hear in the interview is subject to interviews, where talk is always directed to the respective other rather than to a participant in one of the activities that the interview talk is about. For example, Alice talks about the
conversation she has and has had with her mother. However, what she says to the
interviewer during the interview is subject to the constraints and purposes of the
interview. How this talk is related to the events in which she has participated with
her mother is a very different and unverifiable matter.
We may understand the interview purpose as being that of producing some form
of text in which an image of the student comes to figure as a protagonist. What the
interview participants say is subject to this object/motive of the interview activity.
6
TALKING SCIENCE CAREERS: AN INTRODUCTION
The anticipated text is subject to compositional constraints that are shared in the
course of the interview. The genre tends to be that of a classical auto/biography,
featuring the student as the main protagonist in a constitutive relation with the plot.
This genre is used to constitute a particular personality, the result of the various
experiences and connections between them that the narrator and her interlocutor
establish together. The genre and the auto/biography have their own laws that those
producing it have to observe. The relationship between Alice, for example, and the
talk about Alice that is produced during the interview are very different matters
(Bakhtin, 1986). Alice the protagonist and Alice the co-author of the narrative are
two very different subjects. The relationship between the two is an empirical matter rather than one of self-evidence or truth/lie.
Another important aspect that tends to be overlooked in the analyses of interviews is the fact that interviews unfold in time, whereas published texts are present
in time as a whole and at once. That is, all the pieces of a written text are copresent and may be analyzed for their synchronic structural relations. The interview, however, was conducted in real time and therefore, the relation of its different parts is a historical, diachronic one. The different parts of an interview may
therefore contradict each other because the context or topic of talk has changed.
DISCURSIVE PSYCHOLOGY
The analyses in this book are mainly based on the theoretical framework of discursive psychology. Discursive psychology is a relatively new perspective in the area
of language and social psychology with great potential for science education research (Edwards & Potter, 1992). It was influenced by, and constitutes a further
elaboration of, Ludwig Wittgenstein’s later philosophy on language, ethnomethodology, rhetoric, sociology of science, conversation analysis, and discourse analysis.
Discursive psychology is a radical alternative to other psychological and sociological approaches that take language as a window through which one can see what is
in peoples’ minds. Rather than attempting to produce a psychology of people trying their best, in a disinterested manner, to remember events or adduce causal responsibility, discursive psychologists treat people as interested agents who have a
stake in the situations in which they participate. For instance, instead of taking
language as a tool to express recalled memory of past events, remembering itself is
understood as the situated, collective production of versions of past event, while
attributions are the inferences that these versions make available. As for attitude,
traditional research often ignores and suppresses variability by means of restriction
during experiments (e.g., forced choice responses), gross coding, and selective
reading. In discursive psychology, on the other hand, variability is expected as
people perform different actions with their talk in different settings. Thus, rather
than treating attitudes and beliefs as inner entities that drive behavior, discursive
psychologists deem attitudes and beliefs as families of discursive practices for
achieving certain effects in the particular situation at hand. That is, discursive psychology is consistent with a Bakhtinian approach in that it anticipates compositional constraints of the interview situation on the texts that participants produce.
7
ROTH AND HSU
Discursive psychology focuses on how people in interaction do attitude and
belief talk; in talk, language constitutes the resource for making sense that they
make available to and for one another. In fact, language never belongs to a speaker
alone but rather is something that is marked by the characteristics of speaker, listener, and situation. What is said always is said for listeners and with respect to the
anticipated responses from them – which is the same position as the one taken by
Bakhtin. Discursive psychology also focuses on the common interpretative repertoires speakers and their audiences draw on to constitute a topic such as future careers. Discursive psychology is not interested in proving or disproving the nature
or existence of mental structure or what people really think, privately and inaccessibly. Rather, discursive psychology examines the verbal conceptualizations as
flexible components of situated talk for situated purposes. For instance, when a
student says “I think I can do a good job like animals dissections, so I want to be a
biologist in the future,” traditional approaches might attribute some individual psychological feature such as self-efficacy to her. From a discursive perspective, instead, it is of interest that she mobilized a particular interpretative repertoire to
support her claim.
The concept of interpretative repertoire first appeared in a sociological study of
biochemistry laboratories (Gilbert & Mulkay, 1984). This study showed that when
scientists employ certain stable discursive forms that share underlying assumptions
and therefore stem from the same repertoires. For example, scientists tended to
talk about science as revealing the truth. In such cases, they were drawing on the
empiricist repertoire. In other instances, scientists talked about individual and social influences that led to claims subsequently revealed as falsehoods. In such instances, scientists were drawing on the contingent repertoire. The empiricist repertoire usually occurs in formal discourse (e.g., papers delivered at a conference)
where scientists use impartial and objective words to support their articulation like
“the experiment confirmed . . .” or “the results show . . ..” The contingent repertoire often appears in informal settings (e.g., interviews) or when things go wrong,
where scientists make reference to people to buttress their contention such as “Dr.
Smith believes that . . . ” or “the data must result from human errors . . ..”
These two repertoires not only say something about the nature of science but
also they co-articulate forms of identity. By drawing on the empiricist repertoire,
scientists represent science and themselves as objective and as following particular
experimental procedures that lead to factual results. By drawing on the contingent
repertoire, scientists represent others (and less frequently themselves) as socialpsychological beings whose work can be affected by desire, beliefs, and prejudice.
Interpretative repertoires therefore can be thought of as building blocks that we use
to produce particular versions of the worlds, the actions and even cognitive processes relevant to the current situation. This production never is completely random
or, conversely, completely constrained by some mental antecedents, but creatively
constituted from a limited range of words, grammatical features, and personal
styles. Because discourse is designed for recipients – presupposing the intelligibility of the talk also on the part of the intended audience – interpretative repertoires
(see more discussion in chapter 1, this volume, by Hsu and Roth) fundamentally
8
TALKING SCIENCE CAREERS: AN INTRODUCTION
constitute culturally shared features of discursive characteristic of speakers and
their audiences alike. The immediate upshot of this is that researchers participating
in interviews, ethnographic observations, or analysis of discourse themselves have
to be competent users of these repertoires, because they would not be able to identify, describe, and theorize these if they were not.
Discourse analyses of career talk in this book are based on discursive psychology – the relatively new framework in the field of social psychology – that focuses
on interaction rather than cognition, on concrete settings rather than abstract scenarios, and on processes rather than outcomes. This alternative framework helps
researchers broaden new horizons for analyzing discourse in general and gain new
insights for better understanding career talk in particular.
RESEARCH CONTEXT
The participants involved in our database that was analyzed in this book include 13
(11 female, 2 male) eleventh-grade high school students enrolled in an honors biology class that simultaneously functioned as a career preparation course. The students attended a Canadian public school where the principal and teacher expressed
interest in participating in our project. As a requirement of the career preparation
course, students participated in extra-curricular science activities to complete the
career preparation course, which includes 100 hours of internship over two years
(grades 11 and 12). These activities included, for example, going on field trips to
museums, visiting laboratories in research centers, doing experiments with scientists, practicing fieldwork with naturalists, or job shadowing with doctors. The 13
students with an interest in our project were in the career preparation course and
they accumulated hours by participating in an internship experience offered
through our project. These students also participated in different forms of career
discourse, for example, in lessons where the teacher talked about possible careers
or while conducting mock career interviews with their biology teacher. Their experience of participating in various science activities and different career discourse
provided a rich source for understanding the discourse that students of this age and
researchers mobilized for supporting talk about science-related career choices. In
other words, this project focuses not on the individual human participant per se but
on the use of language to talk (about) careers. Generalization therefore is not from
a sample of people to some population of students but from a sample of discourse
(i.e., forms of talking about possible careers) assumed by speakers and listeners.
The database analyzed in this book includes 24 interviews concerning these
high school students’ career aspirations (13 and 11 interviews were conducted respectively before and after the participation in an internship offered through our
project). Students were interviewed after school in their biology classroom. The
classroom contained many learning resources, including science magazines, microscopes, science posters, and scientific models. In the 13 pre-interviews, to facilitate
the students’ exploration of career choices, we adapted a mapping activity as a
technique to encourage students to explore all possibilities during the interviews.
The Possible Selves Mapping Interview was designed to explore with students their
9
ROTH AND HSU
future possible selves (e.g., Shepard & Marshall, 1999). The semi-structured 40–
60-minute interviews used the Possible Selves Mapping Interview procedure as a
guide to ensure coverage of major themes but also to allow enough room for students to brainstorm and articulate freely. First, students brainstormed about possible careers and wrote each down on differently colored Post-its to differentiate
their liked (green) and disliked careers (yellow). Students then ranked these cards
in terms of the degree to which they liked or disliked a career, grouped the cards if
at all possible, and explained their reasons for the ranking and grouping. During
the interviews, students also talked to the researcher about the degree to which
their career choices are science-related. During the course of the interviews, the
interviewer asked general questions at the beginning (e.g., “what kinds of careers
do you like and dislike?”) and then moved to more specific questions for elaborating students’ responses (e.g., why do you want to be a doctor?). At the end of the
pre-interviews, students were asked to pick and discuss four choices that better
represent their four different natures of Selves: (a) the most capable of achieving
Self, (b) the expected hoped-for Self, (c) the most capable of preventing Self, and
(d) the expected feared Self. In the 11 post-interviews (two out of the 13 students
did not participate in post-interviews), students were interviewed again concerning
their career aspirations, changes therein, and the paths for pursuing their possible
careers with the presence of their maps produced in their pre-interviews. We videotaped these 24 interviews, including the interviewer, interviewee, and the possible
selves maps that emerged on the table in front of the participants. We understand
this configuration as a mediating element in the production of the talk. The students provided explanations for the researcher, who thereby is assumed to be a
knowledgeable recipient; and in so doing the researcher also contributes as an active participant to making this an interview.
STRUCTURE OF THIS BOOK
Authors in this book provide diverse perspectives on and analyses of the same database. Some focus on data driven analyses in which the authors present more
macro-perspectives on the use of language in science career talk others see the data
using particular lenses that provide intelligible and fruitful perspectives on what
and how students and interviewer talk careers in science. Moreover, some propose
to transform the database into different representations that allows researchers to
single out and demonstrate particular dimensions of discourse. Thus, these contributions roughly fall into three categories that we treat under the sections entitled
“Discourse Analyses of Career Talk,” “Discursive Lenses and Foci,” and “Innovations in Theory, Method, and Representation of Career Talk Research.” We begin
each of these three parts of the book by providing a brief description of the theme
and provide an overview of the chapters. The book concludes with a metalogue
where contributors engage each other in a conversation concerning the similarities
and differences across the different forms of analyses that they have conducted and
the underlying cultural competencies that make all analyses intersubjective and
therefore interobjective.
10
PART A
DISCOURSE ANALYSES OF CAREER TALK
Interviews about future careers and possible selves, as all interviews, constitute a
special form of situations that are part of research activities. The objects/motives of
interviews are the production of texts that are initially produced in real time, and
then are transcribed for the purpose of analysis. Both interviewers and interviewees
collude in the production of these texts because each participant intends to be intelligible to the Other – at least this is how interviews work generally, and exceptions
tend to be spoofs, or interviews used for some kind of entertainment purposes, such
as the ones sometimes featured on late night television. But by intending to be intelligible, the discourse is inherently presupposed as shared, that is, common to
both speaker and listener (on this see Roth, chapter 12, this volume). That is, rather
than providing us with a window on the individual mind language is a resource and
means to constitute our realities. Because in speaking language is designed for and
returns to the other, interviews do not access the interviewee’s mind, beliefs,
thoughts, attitudes, and so on. Rather, the language provides an inherently shared
means to make claims, defend claims, account for events, and recall memories to
talk. The proper unit of analysis, therefore, is language and the resources that it
provides for making sense, defending/supporting choices, articulating auto/biographies, and so on. Take the following fragment from an interview that PeiLing did with Mandy.
01 M: Um I would have to say I know marine biology quite well because I worked, I worked with researchers during the summer
at Bamfield. We did research and projects there.
02 P: Um but now you don’t like it? Because the experience there?
03 M: Well I had a really good time there. I would go back and I
would do the whole forum again. But just as a long-term kind
of job, marine biology, I like the research I liked that
side and kind of the individual projects that you got to decide on. But just marine biology itself wasn’t my thing.
Mandy not only talks about knowing marine biology well but also provides a
description of experiences that justify this self-description (turn 01). She did research and projects at Bamfield, a well-known marine research center in the west
part of Canada. What she says is inherently intelligible and comprehensible. Thus,
there is nothing singular about having gone to a camp generally or to a science
camp in Bamfield specifically (see also chapter 7 on Bamfield-related discourse,
by Hsu, this volume). Even if she had been the first student ever to be at the research center, her account would presuppose the possibility of having such an experience; and because it is possible and available in the discourse, others, such as
Pei-Ling in the present situation, can understand it. Relevant to chapter 5 concern13
PART A: DISCOURSE ANALYSES OF CAREER TALK
ing the role of childhood memories in career talk, Mandy mobilizes memories of
previous experiences to talk about her possible future careers. Here, in contrast to
other students who want to become marine biologists based on their experiences at
Bamfield, Mandy tells us that marine biology is not her “thing.” That is, we can
see how the same discursive resource – here the account of a science camp experience – can be mobilized in mutually exclusive ways: to support the choice of becoming a marine biologist and to support the rejection of marine biology as a career.
In saying “Now you don’t like it,” Pei-Ling allows us to understand what she
has heard Mandy say: That she does not like marine biology as a career. In the
preceding sentence, we articulate a move typical for discourse analysts. Rather
than focusing on personal interpretations, discursive psychologists tend listen to
what participants themselves are hearing. Here, Pei-Ling articulates for us what she
hears Mandy say; and, in turn, Mandy allows us to understand what she has heard
Pei-Ling say. Thus, Mandy says “I had a really good time there,” which follows
Pei-Ling’s interrogative statement “Because of the experience there?” That is,
Mandy anticipates the idea and talk about the Bamfield experience as having been
a negative one. Rather, she states it to have been a very positive one. Only then she
also states that marine biology is not her thing.
The upshot of this brief analysis is that anything a listener can hear and understand is already possible and therefore shared. As something shared, it is not singular to the speaker. As soon as we choose discourse as the unit of analysis, therefore, our research focus changes. We come to realize that what we can say about
ourselves is constrained by our language and the resources it provides for expressing ourselves. Anything we can say is already possible and therefore shared within
the community of speakers. If there were something to exist that is not expressible
in some communicative form, then it could not be shared with others, it could not
be the object of talk and therefore would not exist objectively for two or more
speakers. Discourse analysis, therefore, is not concerned with individual students
and what they may say about themselves. Rather, discourse analysis is concerned
with identifying the kinds of resources language (and other communicative forms)
make available to speakers and listeners and the ways in which they mobilize these
resource for the purposes at hand – here the constitution of an account of career
choices and possible future Selves.
All chapters in this Part A of our book are concerned with the discursive features of career talk. These features, and what they make possible while talking, are
available to all speakers. Because speakers address one or more listeners, this discourse is characteristic not only of the speaker but of the listener as well. If any
speaker, interviewer or interviewee, were to say something that the other did not
understand, this lack of understanding would itself become a topic of talk (see
chapter 12). That is, these identified features constitute cultural possibilities and
any one may use them. Moreover, language is such an important resource that it
structures, for example, what we can recall – recall of childhood memory therefore
is not a pure cognitive act, as some of chapter 5 might suggest, but auto/biography
as narrative form, even childhood memories, shape what can be said when talking
14
INTRODUCTION
about the past, and the typical relations between protagonist and plot that are possible in such stories. Thus, memories never are the results of getting something
from a storage device, but rather, our medium of communication shapes what and
how we can tell it. That is, language and the genres we have available are resources
for constituting childhood memories that are much more important than the wirings
in the brain. That is, discourse is characteristic of a particular (sub-) culture. In the
following, we briefly introduce each of these six chapters of this Part A.
Many science educators are concerned with enrolling students into science majors and careers, that is, to move students into what scientists tend to call “the science pipeline.” In the past, science education research investigated students’ views
of science in terms of factors and influences that guide students to choose science
as a career. Pei-Ling Hsu, a postdoctoral fellow and Wolff-Michael Roth, a learning scientist, focus instead, in their chapter “Interpretative Repertoires for Talking
(About) Science-Related Careers,” on the forms of language culture makes available for students and their interviewers to articulate possible careers generally or
the ways of grounding (justifying) these possibilities particularly. In chapter 1, the
authors are less interested in the career choices of high school students or what
their views are but they investigate the ways in which language is used to justify
career choices in interview situations. They explicitly draw on discursive psychological framework articulated in the introduction of this book as their theory and
method. The authors identify four interpretative repertoires that are deployed during the interviews: the formative, performative, consequent, and potential repertoires. These interpretative repertoires do not merely characterize the discourse
about different science-related professions but in fact co-articulate different science-related identities.
The author Norah McRae of chapter 2 – entitled “‘I Want to Be a Doctor’: Discourses of Medicine as a Possible Career” – is the executive director of the CoOperative Education Program and Career Services at the University of Victoria. In
that function, she comes to meet many students enrolled in the program. She not
only hears them talk about their possible careers, but also sees many students fail
to attain the career goals that they have set for themselves. Working with students
in the sciences, she was quick to realize that many students identify becoming a
doctor as a career aspiration. She knows that most of these students will not – and
perhaps should not – succeed in reaching this career goal. She realizes that the
problems that arise from this situation are many. Students often identify a career
goal of doctoring based on an idealized view of what being a doctor means. It is
not uncommon to hear that although students articulate visions for themselves on
the career path of doctor, from the perspective of the career counselor, it may not
be realistic given their capabilities. Moreover, if students successfully become doctors, they might find themselves in a career that they are not well suited for. This
adherence can blind them to other equally valid career possibilities. McRae demonstrates how analyzing the talk of science students about becoming a doctor can
provide career educators with strategies and tools to help students develop a better
understanding of what being a doctor means. She suggests a different way of talking to students about alternate career choices that still meet with their personal
15
PART A: DISCOURSE ANALYSES OF CAREER TALK
goals. Her goal is to provide good advice to students and, as a result, perhaps reduce the number of students who become doctors when they should not and the
numbers of those who want to become doctors when they cannot. From her perspective, this approach might provide a regulative mechanism of the access to
medical schools.
Career choice involves a considerable degree of uncertainty because high school
students are asked to make selections – university courses, degree program, vocations – without having sufficient information or without having had the time to
form more concrete goals for their future lives and their possible future selves. It
would therefore not be surprising if signs of uncertainty were to mark their discourse. This is precisely the topic of Alfredo Bautista’s chapter, “‘I Don’t Know’:
Uncertainty in High School Students’ Talk About Science-Related Careers.” Specifically, Bautista – an educational psychologist and piano teacher – illustrates and
analyzes the use of the phrase “I don’t know” during the interviews that Hsu conducted with the high school biology students. More specifically, Bautista focuses
on the different functions of this phrase. His conceptual framework, too, is discursive psychology. His analysis reveals (a) a literal function, which refers to the students’ mental state of “lacking knowledge” about different issues and (b) a nonliteral function, acting as a communicative device for articulating talk-ininteraction. With respect to the latter function, the phrase “I don’t know” tends to
be mobilized as a pet phrase even in contexts in which students do not refer to any
kind of lack of knowledge or uncertainty, and when scientific careers are both
liked and disliked. The author concludes that “I don’t know” does not only characterize students’ discourse about scientific careers but in fact helps them to coarticulate their identity and their Selves during a period of their life marked and
sometimes complicated by transitions (from high school to college or university).
From the perspective of high school students, there are periods of learning that
have to occur before they can enter some careers. For some students, this may be
an apprenticeship training associated with a professional program at a college. For
others, this learning takes place at a university. Because learning is an integral part
of the trajectory, from where high school students currently are to where they will
be when they enter their first fulltime job, it would not surprise if learning and
knowledge were also a discursive topic or resource during career talk. In chapter 4
entitled “Talking Learning in Career Talk,” Cathryn (Katy) Connelly – an elementary school computer lab teacher – explores what high school students have to say
about their learning experiences. She draws on the sentiments expressed and on
educational theory to identify three areas of interest that students articulate for the
interviewers while talking careers: The relevancy of high school to society, fact
memorization and testing, and society-based learning. Connelly’s findings allow us
to understand how students articulate perceptions and attitudes towards learning.
Her analyses assist us in understanding how the role of learning discourse plays in
thinking about possible career choices.
What we do is used to identify who we are – someone tells a lie and he will be
labeled as a liar. But doing/acting changes who we are, as we are transformed in
and by the activities in which we participate. At some point later, we remember
16
INTRODUCTION
events of our lives and use these memories to further constitute our identities. Our
memories, therefore, are integral to who we are, whether the “we” refers to a nation – generally using memorials and remembrance days for constituting national
identities – or to us as individuals. In chapter 5, entitled “Childhood Memories in
Career Plans: How Past Memories Shape Our Identities,” Alena Kottová – who
had worked for the Ontario Science Center before running the Mad Science Center
on Vancouver Island – suggests that experiences in life, particularly the early experiences, have a strong influence on who we become. Childhood memories appear
to be powerful organizers of our life history narratives. Much of existing research
on early childhood memories requires participants to make an effort and remember
their earliest memories with an experimental manner, yet the discourse psychological approach articulated in the introduction and also in chapter 12 suggests that
language itself provides the means to remember. That is, as seen in chapter 15,
auto/biography constitutes a genre, with identifiable forms of plots and characters,
which also serves as a template for telling situations in which one has participated
during childhood. Kottová investigates how childhood memories play a role in the
decision-making discourse of high school students. She identifies two categories of
memories: “empty memories” that lack descriptive detail and render useless our
capacity to reason; and “descriptive memories,” being formed in later years of
childhood, allow clear articulation of events, description of actors, and logical
structuring of the recollected story. Drawing on childhood memory discourse, participants shape the identities articulated during the interviews. We need to keep in
mind, however, that what any person can articulate about the past is mediated not
only by the kinds of discourses available but also by the ever-changing interpretive
horizon of the speaker. This means that in looking back, we do not see the original
experience. Rather, we look at the original experience through the layers of intervening experiences that refract what and how we can see events in the past.
Young women often enter science as a means to obtain a career that provides
them psychological rewards from helping others. Existing studies suggest that
women often choose careers in the biological and medical sciences with the aim of
entering a career that allows them to provide assistance and have the opportunity to
address social problems because of the psychological rewards. Women may also
justify their careers in the biological and medical fields by stating that in the related professions they are more likely to obtain psychological rewards from contributing to society. In chapter 6, “The Psychological Rewards of Career Path
Choices,” Kathleen Hall – a long-time high school art and career course teacher –
draws on discourse analysis to bring out the role that psychological rewards play in
young women’s career discourse. Her analysis identifies four dimensions that are
salient in young women’s career discourse: emotional, spiritual, intellectual, and
physical realms. Each realm has different characteristics concerning psychological
rewards. Hall’s findings allow educators and counselors to better understand young
women’s considerations for choosing careers and can serve as a foundation to further facilitate young women’s full potential. Readers should particularly note the
way in which the excerpts from the interviews are presented: very much like internal monologue. This is highly relevant in the Part C of the book, where three chap17
PART A: DISCOURSE ANALYSES OF CAREER TALK
ters deal with questions of representations and how the participants appear in
scholarly works.
Each chapter in Part A contributes to our understanding of career discourse.
These six very different chapters should not be taken, however, as a concretization
of the attitude that is often taken by constructivist researchers: Our reading of transcript is personal, subjective. If it were like this, then there would be little interest
to others to read this or that analysis. Instead, as the discussions among all contributors to this book showed, their respective analyses made sense to others. That
is, each author could find other analyses as compelling as their own. Each dimension highlighted in the chapters therefore is a singular within a whole that only
exists through these singulars. That is, unsurprising to the discourse analyst, there
is a multiplicity and complexity at work within language. In our analyses, we highlight the different dimensions underlying the multiplicity. But in each case, there
was but one interviewer, one interviewee, and one conversation. That is, the multiplicity is that of a unicity. The language we analyze in this part and in the book as a
whole is a singular plural, a one and a many at the same time: A one that is many,
and a many that is one simultaneously. We therefore need to understand the following chapters as highlighting different fibers constituting a thread: without constitutive fibers, no thread, without thread, no constitutive fibers.
18
PEI-LING HSU & WOLFF-MICHAEL ROTH
1. INTERPRETATIVE REPERTOIRES FOR TALKING
(ABOUT) SCIENCE-RELATED CAREERS
One of the main objectives of many science educators is to enroll students into
science majors and careers, that is, to get students into what scientists call “the
science pipeline.” Past research has investigated students’ views of science in
terms of factors and influences that guide students to choose science as a career.
However, few investigations exist that have studied the forms of language culture
makes available for articulating possible careers generally or the ways of grounding (justifying) these possibilities particularly. In this chapter, we investigate ways
of using language for supporting justifications of career choices in interview situations. We draw on discursive psychology as theory and method to identify four
interpretative repertoires that are deployed during the interviews: the (a) formative, (b) performative, (c) consequent, and (d) potential repertoires. These interpretative repertoires do not merely characterize the discourse about different sciencerelated professions but in fact co-articulate different science-related identities.
DISCURSIVE RESOURCES IN CAREER DISCOURSE
Researchers and public policymakers have expressed concerns about the lack of
interest and participation in science among high school students. Natural scientists
are so concerned with “filling the pipeline” that flagship journals such as Science
regularly feature articles about getting more students to enroll in science and have
entire sections devoted to career-related issues (“Focus on Careers”). Yet it is
widely known that many adolescents, and particularly female and minority students, choose not to pursue careers in mathematics, science, and technology.
Therefore, to better understand students’ rationales of their choices and decisionmaking for pursuing careers has become an important and urgent topic in science
education. As a result, studies have been designed to identify the critical factors
and influences on students’ science career aspirations and identities. For instance,
we may find research that articulates apparent key components including (a) students’ self-efficacy, interest and motivations; (b) ethnic identity, academic
achievements, and socioeconomic status; (c) educational outcomes, instructional
quantity, and home environment; (d) the role of social encouragement for students’
science motivation and confidence; (e) the influence of informal science programs
on career decisions; (f) the effect of percent female faculty on students’ science
identities; (g) the view of the nature of science and support for deep-seated life
goals; and (h) gender differences and correlations in students’ science-related interests, attitudes and experiences.
In this chapter, we introduce a different approach from that which is usually
W.-M. Roth & P.-L. Hsu (Eds.), Talk About Careers in Science, 19–41.
© 2010 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
HSU AND ROTH
taken to career aspirations. Rather than assuming that there is something characteristic in and of individual students, we presuppose consistent with our discursive
psychological approach (Edwards & Potter, 1992) that the discourse students mobilize forms of talk about topics that are cultural and therefore constitute a widely
shared collective phenomenon. It is because the discourse is shared that interviewer and interviewees can understand each other while talking and talking about
career and life choices. Precisely because the available language and topics are
already intelligible, what students and researchers can say and do say in an interview is not at all singular. Rather, language generally and the interpretative repertoires (i.e., unchallenged forms of language use) specifically provide students and
researchers with specific resources on how they can talk and what they can talk
about. In contrast to most research, we are less interested in what factors or attitudes affect students’ career aspirations. We are more interested in how language is
deployed to produce these factors and attitudes as an effect and how it is used to
articulate and relate to possible careers. That is, our study aims to identify the language resources of interpretative repertoires that are shared and mobilized in the
career choice discourse. Underlying our research is the supposition that any higher
psychological function is and has been a soci(et)al relation (Vygotsky, 1978). Accordingly, we take a relatively recent approach consistent with this supposition –
discursive psychology – as our method and theory. Utilizing this conceptual
framework, we analyze the discourse deployed in an interview situation involving
an academic researcher and high school biology students. We identify interpretative repertoires⎯the shared discursive resources⎯to better understand aspects of
science-related careers and identity talk as the participants explored possible science-related careers.
Interpretative repertoires denote forms of talk that discourse participants unquestioningly (a) take for granted for the purpose at hand and without reflecting
upon (e.g., the audience had not challenged the speaker’s statements) and (b) draw
on to buttress other aspects of talk that are more contentious and uncertain (e.g.,
the speaker had no absolute answers to the topic of conversation). Interpretative
repertoires are part of a community’s unreflected upon and unconscious common
sense and they are available to the members of a culture as a basis for shared understanding. They can be thought of as books on the shelves of a public library,
permanently available for borrowing by the members of a discursive community.
Speakers draw on these resources presupposing that these are unchallenged by the
audience; that is, interpretative repertoires constitute general ways of talking that
speakers implicitly presume to be shared. Thus, although conversation participants
may take different positions with respect to some topics, such as epistemology or
knowledge, they can drew on the same repertoires and remain unchallenged. The
concept of interpretative repertoires has increasingly been adopted in science education to study different forms of discourses. Studies conducted in our research
laboratory show that students’ discourse on science ontology and epistemology,
environmentalists’ discourse about environmental curriculum design, identity discourse in regard to science learning at work, classroom discourse of introducing
authentic science activities to students, and students’ discourse concerning envi20
INTERPRETATIVE REPERTOIRES IN CAREER TALK
ronment and environmental protection.
Because the discourse of career choices is at the heart of how someone comes to
be described and how the possible futures can be envisioned, investigating the discourse allows us to understand the connection and relationship between students
and science. Identity – who we are for ourselves and who we are in relation to others – is a complex phenomenon, and seems to have a core that undergoes developments when we articulate ourselves. The science education literature over the past
decade has shown that identity is increasingly becoming one of the core issues in
the study of knowing and learning generally and in science education more specifically (Roth & Tobin, 2006). Importantly, how students engage in science is influenced by how students view themselves with respect to science. Thus, studying the
topic of identity in science discourse where includes students’ voices provides us
an avenue to understand the relationship between science and students. As a result,
investigating interpretative repertoires allows us to better understand students’
ways of connecting to science-related careers in general (students informed us
whether their career choices relate to science or not) and science-related identities
exhibited in their discourse in particular.
In this chapter, we are interested in how discursive resources are mobilized for
co-articulating science-related identities. We take identity as a phenomenon that
arises from social interactions. Thus, as shown in chapter 12, a research interview
becomes not just an elicitation of information but also a site of co-production,
management, and presentation of identities. For instance, in what turned out to be
the first study of interpretative repertoires, scientists’ discourse exhibited their
identities as objective and impartial people through the empiricist repertoire and as
social beings through the contingent repertoire, which they used to articulate the
personal and societal influences on the research process and research results
(Gilbert & Mulkay, 1984). Following this approach, we identify in this chapter the
interpretative repertoires in students’ science-related career discourse to understand
aspects of science-related identities as available from their discourse. Here, identity
provides a lens through which individuals reason about the world and their roles in
it, but at the same time, this reasoning provides a resource to produce and reproduce identity. That is, students’ identities in this study are produced and reproduced in and through talk–in–interaction in an interview situation. How students
reason about the relationship between themselves and possible science-related careers⎯how students draw on interpretative repertoires (cultural resources) to articulate their possible careers⎯provides a site for understanding aspects of science-related identities exhibited but not necessarily consciously attended to in such
discourse. Because of the shared nature of interpretative repertoires, students concretely realize cultural possibilities so that their talk reveals not merely a singular
identity but a form of identity available to members of this culture.
INTERPRETATIVE REPERTOIRES FOR TALKING ABOUT PREFERRED AND
DISPREFERRED SCIENCE-RELATED CAREERS
This chapter aims at articulating the opportunities that discourse provides young
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adults to talk about career choices in student–researcher interviews generally and
the science-related identities exhibited in such discourse in particular. Drawing on
discursive psychology as theory and method, we identify four salient interpretative
repertoires used in the interview discourse when students talk about career options.
Each of these interpretative repertoires presents a linguistic resource for (dis)identifying with science-related careers (See Table 1.1). These interpretative repertoires pertain to the (a) formative, (b) performative, (c) consequent, and (d) potential dimensions of actions. These interpretative repertoires can be thought as
cultural resources or as a toolbox with different compartments or a tote tray from
which participants draw on for their conversations. The resulting discourse therefore has properties that do not belong to individuals but to the culture and are
merely realized in a concrete manner by individuals. These interpretative repertoires can serve as both possibilities and constraints in the interview discourse.
Possibilities exist in the sense that participants can freely and without reflecting
draw on these intelligible and cultural possibilities to assist in their articulations;
and constraints exist in a sense that only certain forms of language (e.g., interpretative repertoires) can be used without the threat of being challenged. In the following sections, we demonstrate how these cultural tools were mobilized for articulating career choices in interviews. Each of these interpretative repertoires is
described and illustrated with different examples in terms of (dis-) identifying with
various careers. With the identification information, we further discuss how science-related identities were co-articulated and exhibited in such discourse. (Transcription notation for excerpts: period indicates falling pitch or intonation; question
mark indicates rising pitch or intonation; comma indicates a temporary rise or fall
in intonation; period inside single parentheses indicates a brief pause; capitalized
text indicates shouted or increased volume speech; colon indicates prolongation of
a sound; period and “h” inside single parentheses indicate audible inhalation; and
text in double parentheses indicates annotation of non-verbal activity.)
Formation and Preparation for Becoming
The formative repertoire constitutes discourse about formations, special characteristics or requirements for becoming a vocational agent. If we look at the example
of being a scientist, this vocation is normally associated with being smart, professional, and special and specialized. It is noted that someone needs to undergo a lot
of schooling before being a scientist. These required characteristics or processes
become discursive resources to articulate careers in the discourse. In this section,
we demonstrate how this kind of resource – the formative repertoire is mobilized in
our database to reason and (dis-)identify with possible career options. We exhibit
six excerpts (two identifying and four dis-identifying) to demonstrate the use of the
formative repertoire in the interview situations.
In the following excerpt, we make available a conversation that occurred after
Mandy wrote down “specialized doctor” as her preferred career and “clinical doctor” as a disliked career. When asked for justifications for the choice of “specialized doctor,” the character of specialized personnel – “focus in on one thing” and
22
INTERPRETATIVE REPERTOIRES IN CAREER TALK
“master”⎯the trait of being a specialized doctor is utilized as a resource in an for a
response.
Interviewer:
Mandy:
Interviewer:
so number three is?
specialized doctor, i guess i (.) just am:: uhm you
could focus in on one thing, and you could really
kind of MASTER that and be able to open something,
i am not sure exactly what the would be (.) yet,
but something more specialized rather than just
like a clinical doctor ((points to the “clinical
doctor” card))
so do you discuss this with your friends or family
before?
The excerpt shows that not any form of doctor constitutes a possible career but a
specialized one. Specialty becomes the central feature for justifying this choice as
if specialty is something attached to that particular career. That is, the characteristic of being specialized is a resource, one form of the formative repertoire, mobilized in the conversation to legitimize the choice of being a doctor. In the next excerpt, Elise also draws on the formative repertoire to articulate one of her career
choices – psychologist.
Interviewer:
Elise:
Interviewer:
Elise:
so how about this one ((points to the “psychologist” card)), psychologist?
psychologist, um::: i think psychology is SO interesting i love just learning about that, because in
order to do this sort of a job (.) or anything, to
succeed in any type of job, you have to be, like
you have to understand psychology because (.) like
if you are a lawyer or a message therapist, you
have to learn how to communicate with people and
understand like (.) when it is right to say what
(.) and what to say (.) and you know just generally
it is just a really good thing to know, it is a
good course or if you can get a degree in that (.)
it is really good
like a necessary (.) a course you have to do.
yea
In response to the question of being a psychologist, Elise quickly relates to the
subject of “psychology” – a subject needed to be studied before being a psychologist. The advantage of learning psychology to other occupations “lawyer” and
“message therapist” is connected, as learning psychology is a way to many successful careers. She also describes how she enjoys learning about the subject of
psychology “psychology is so interesting,” “it (psychology) is a good course.” As
the interviewer’s comment “like a necessary a course you have to do” suggests, we
can hear the conversation as emphasizing the importance and benefits of taking
psychology courses – these formation processes before being a psychologist become a salient resource that allow Elise to identify with a possible career.
The same interpretative repertoires can be used to make opposing claims. This
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HSU AND ROTH
is the case in the present data sources when students draw on these discursive resources to dis-identify with certain career options. In the following excerpt, we
show how the formative repertoire can be used as a resource to dis-identify with
some careers including surgeon, general practitioner, or pediatrician by relating to
the schooling requirement.
Kelly:
Interviewer:
Kelly:
Interviewer:
because if i want to become any of these other
things ((point to the surgeon, general practitioner, paediatrician cards)), i have to go to
school for at least seven years (.) so that is
holding me back too
so you mean when you graduate from high school, you
can be a personal trainer?
yea, i can pretty much go into that (.) easy
okay
“Personal trainer” is Kelly’s favorite career that is then compared to other positively marked careers (surgeon, general practitioner, pediatrician). Although being
a doctor is one of her favorite careers, the years of schooling⎯the time demands
for becoming a doctor is an issue that “holds her back.” That is, one aspect of the
doctor formation – time requirement for schooling – is a resource to make the career justification possible in the discourse. With a similar but slightly differing way
of reasoning, the preparation before being a professional is also used as a resource
to justify the choice of doctor.
Interviewer:
Claire:
Interviewer:
Claire:
Interviewer:
Claire:
which part situation you don:t like about it
((points to the “doctor” card))?
the schooling
oh:: i see (.) you have to take a lot of courses
a lot of courses (.) and i don:t know if i can handle that though (.) because my cousin tried taking
some of the course but he (.) it was too much for
him (.) so::
um:: so he give up?
yea he give up
Claire ranked “doctor” as her third preference. The discourse she draws on highlights the required “schooling” as a concern and describes the situation from a witness perspective – the cousin gave up being a doctor because of “too much”
courses. Here, Claire draws on the formative repertoire to justify her position and
further supported by a reliable voice – her own cousin who is a relative of Claire
and would not likely lie to her. It is almost common sense that such corroboration
– is there another witness to this event? – from a reliable witness has the tendency
to make utterances stronger and more convincing.
In addition to the aspect about schooling of transformation to be a sciencerelated agent, other aspects of career formations are also made salient in the formative repertoire. For instance, the following excerpt shows that the physical preparation required can be mobilized as a resource to justify and dis-identifying with the
choice of “astronaut.”
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INTERPRETATIVE REPERTOIRES IN CAREER TALK
Interviewer:
June:
Interviewer:
June:
Interviewer:
June:
Interviewer:
Jun:
Interviewer:
you like the science subject but you don:t like
astronomy?
no
why?
well (.) i would love to go up into space, but it
is so much preparation in order to do that, so if
there is something in the future, someway to go up
into space without all those ((waving hands))
physical training?
yea, tasks, it is too much i think (.) but if you
could just shoot up there, i would love to go
then you would do that.
yea
okay, so how about this one. ((Points to another
card))
The excerpt shows that the preparation before being an astronaut “so much
preparation in order to do that” is a resource for justifying June’s choice in the
conversation. The formative repertoire again helps June to convince her position to
the other without being challenged. Besides the time or physical demands, the environments in the process of formation could also be dimensions for dis-identifying
with a career. For instance, in the next excerpt, drawing on the formative repertoire
Candy dis-identifies with being a “teacher.”
Interviewer:
Candy:
Interviewer:
so a teacher?
um:: so my philosophy on that is that, you go to
school to get out of school, to go back to school,
to go back to SCHOOL, again they need to be done,
obviously teachers need to (.) because you know (.)
yea nobody, i can really respect someone who can go
k to twelve, go to university and then come back to
maybe grade twelve or grade eleven, or, you know,
that is not for me.
so how about the group named “inside”?
The discourse about getting oneself into and out of school (“go to school [K–12]
to get out of school, to go back to school [university]” and “to go back school [K–
12]”) is described as a repetitive process to becoming a teacher. Here, we can see
that situating something in similar environments in the process of becoming a
teacher is a resource in the discourse to dis-identify with the career of “teacher.”
As the six examples demonstrate, the formative repertoire, addressing special
characteristics and requirements, legitimizes career choices without raising questions. We also find that when careers are commented upon as special and beneficial, a positive identification usually follows (see Table 1.1). That is, sciencerelated identities of “specialist” and “beneficiaries” emerge with the formative repertoire in the discourse. This then illustrates the importance of discourse addressing
special characteristics, benefits and advantages in the formation and transformation
for becoming professionals, because they make the process of preparation meaningful and relevant.
25
Table 1.1. The interpretative repertoires and identification resources for talking about possible careers
Interpretative
Repertoire
Identification Resource
(Identify)
Special and Beneficial
Formation or
Formative
Example
Psychologist – “Psychologist, uhm I think
psychology is so interesting . . . I love just
learning about that”
Waitress – “it is pretty mediocre. It is kind
requirement of
(Dis-identify)
of funny to knowing that I can make as much
Actions
Too ordinary/
as a 45 years old woman.”
Too challenging (ex- Astronaut – “well I would love to go up into
treme cases)
space but it is so much preparation to do
that”
Immunologist – “I find it interesting like
Performative
(Identify)
how you can work with, like viruses and find
Practicable
sort of ways to like slow them down and sort
of test with that.”
Actions
Dentist – “It’s just like drilling in your teeth,
(Dis-identify)
ah, I just oh, I cannot, like the noises, oh it
Impracticable
just gets to my ears and it drives me crazy. I
just can't do it.”
(Identify)
Influential
Consequent
Effects of
Actions
Doctor – “After helping a patient, it would
be pretty cool to see have them like smile
you know”
Chemistry/Math teacher – “There is no turn-
(Dis-identify)
Not influential/
out, like sure you solve the equation but then
what? what is the point?”
Too influential (ex- Surgeon – “I would be like really paranoid
treme cases)
that I would screw up or something and kill
somebody.”
Biotechnologist – “You can sort of branch
Potential
(Identify)
out into different topic areas and a lot of it is
Expanding
sort of finding different ways to like make
Action
things better”
Potentialities
Elementary teacher – “It usually kind of
(Dis-identify)
seems to stay the same, like the same curri-
Stationary
culum. I think I would be more interested in
being able to keep learning”
INTERPRETATIVE REPERTOIRES IN CAREER TALK
Situating in Performance and Practice
The performative repertoire invokes discourse that highlights actions and performances practiced in particular occupations. When considering possible careers, relevant actions involved in these careers are often mobilized as resources to support
career choices. For instance, in the discourse of choosing to be a scientist, the descriptions of experimental practice and hand-on activities in scientific projects are
often utilized as resources to support such a choice. In this section, we illustrate
how conversation participants draw on the resource of the performative repertoire
to articulate career choices with three identifying and two dis-identifying cases.
The interview protocol was designed to understand ways of justifying the careers written on cards. After writing down “marine biologist” on a card as one of
her preferred careers, Amy starts to articulate this card even before the interviewer
has asked any question about it.
Amy:
Interviewer:
Amy:
Interviewer:
Amy:
Interviewer:
um:: marine biologist, i don’t know, i have always,
since i was little i just said i want to be a marine biologist
OH REALLY? why?
i don:t know WHY, i was just so drawn to it, like i
LIKE animals (.) and the work experience that you
get to do, it:s like going out on the site (.) and
like seeing everything all the wild and how it
naturally is like, i think it is just so amazing.
you say all animals or marine animals?
just marine animals
okay
The discourse drawn upon articulates the actions that a marine biologist would
do in their work (i.e., “going out on the site” and “seeing everything all the wild”).
Here, the excerpt shows that the actions performed by a marine biologist serve as a
central resource to articulate the choice of becoming a marine biologist. In a similar way, the next excerpt shows how Kyla, for the benefit of the interviewer, mobilizes the performative repertoires as a resource to legitimize one of her preferred
careers: immunologist.
Interviewer:
Kyla:
Interviewer:
okay how about this one? ((points to the “immunologist” card))
that one (.) i find it interesting like how you can
work with, like viruses, bacteria, and find sort of
ways to like slow them down and sort of test with
that. ((Then continues to talk about being a
teacher))
and which level you want to be a teacher?
In response to the interviewer’s question, Kyla draws on discourse that describes actions practiced in a working situation: an immunologist would have to
“work with viruses,” “slow them down,” and “test them.” That is, the discourse in
both Amy’s and Kyla’s cases depicts actions performed by the particular sciencerelated agent to identify with a career.
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HSU AND ROTH
In the following excerpt, Jennifer also draws on the performative repertoire for
addressing many actions that occur at work to articulate her preferred career – being a marine biologist, but with an emphasis of her personal experience of working
with them. After listening to Jennifer’s experience in a camp, the interviewer asks
“which part” of the camp experience she liked most, thereby setting the student up
to draw on this rather than other repertoires.
Interviewer:
Jennifer:
Interviewer:
Jennifer:
so which part you like (.) most?
um i liked the field experience, like going out, we
went dredging and um which is where you pull a net
behind a boat, and it drags along the bottom, and
you pull it up and you bring it onto deck and you
get to see what is on the bottom, all the sea life.
so we have, like, at one point, we had an octopus
actually, so it was this big and little and orange
and swimming around in our hands, it was so cool,
like sea cucumbers and um:: little decorative crabs
and stuff, it was pretty fun.
wow::
yea::
The discourse depicts many actions “went dredging,” “pull a net behind a boat,”
“drags along the bottom.” Also, many plural pronouns are used in this discourse
“we went,” “we had,” and “our hands” as if Jennifer had done the same as a biologist. The description of what Jennifer has done with the biologist illustrates her
detailed observation of biologists’ work. These descriptions are vivid, and as vivid
descriptions, they provide detail of incidents that can be used to create an impression that the speakers have made a skilled observation. In the excerpt, we see how
the performative repertoire is mobilized for describing numerous actions to support
the justification of being a marine biologist.
In addition to identifying with possible careers, the following excerpt shows that
the performative repertoire could be mobilized to dis-identify with possible careers
as well. After Elise wrote down one of her non-preferred careers on a card (“doctor
[I can’t handle too much blood]”), the excerpt shows that the interviewers has
noted the bracketed comment (“I can’t handle too much blood”) and asks Elise to
talk about her experience with blood. The discourse describes doctors’ actions
(“doctors are doing plastic surgery”) and relevant associated phenomena (“blood”)
while acting as a doctor. In conclusion, Elise waves her hands and says “Oh my
gosh, no” to express her comments on these actions.
Interviewer:
Elise:
Interviewer:
28
do you have some experience with the blood?
oh blood, no, i just get so nauseous. i don’t know,
i just CAN’T handle it. like you know, people on
the shows, on TV and when they are doing plastic
surgery, and they’re like they show you that stuff
on tv. now i am like, OH MY GOSH, no ((waves
hands)).
okay yea, so now you’re going to category, so name
(.) some way to group it
INTERPRETATIVE REPERTOIRES IN CAREER TALK
In this situation, the performative repertoire is mobilized in the discourse to justify
a position of not choosing a doctor as a possible career. In the following statement,
Alice also uses the resource of the performative repertoire to dis-identify with
other careers (dentist or nurse).
Interviewer:
Alice:
Interviewer:
why?
well i don’t know. it’s just like the drilling in
your teeth, AH::: i just UM:: i cannot ((waves
hands)), like the noises, AH::: it just gets to my
ears and it drives me crazy. i just can’t do it.
and the nurse, i don:t know, i am taking chemistry
right now and i don’t like chemistry (.hhh). and
like my teacher is like, chemistry you have to know
all this stuff. like AH::: it:s like, it is a lot
of measurements and stuff.
your dad would like you to do the nurse?
In a similar way, the discourse highlights the dentists’ actions “drilling in your
teeth” and Alice’s unpleasant reactions “the noises . . . it drives me crazy.” Furthermore, dentist’s actions are described as something impracticable (“I just can’t
do it”). As for being a nurse, Alice connects the occupation to chemistry, the subject that she does not like and the disliked actions “a lot of measurements” that her
teacher has previously mentioned. Here, we can see that the performative repertoire is utilized for dis-identifying with being a dentist or nurse.
In mobilizing the performative repertoire as illustrated in the five examples, the
discourse highlights occupational actions and performances and successfully justifies these career choices without being challenged by the interviewer in the subsequent turn. We also find that a positive identification often follows when a description has articulated actions as practicable. In other words, the discourse articulates
these actions as practicable to identify with possible careers and impracticable to
dis-identify with possible careers (see Table 1.1). The performative repertoire
therefore exhibits science-related identities of “being successful practitioners.”
This then points out the importance of discourse that illustrates actions and their
practicability in careers, because they exhibit the nature of a vocation and what
students can envision themselves doing them.
Consequence and Effect of Practice
The consequent repertoire invokes discourse about the effect, impact and influence
of actions in occupations. In the discourse of justifying career choices, the consequence or influence of particular careers are often utilized as a resource to legitimize these options – e.g., helping people, improving the environment, having an
impact on society. To exemplify the consequent repertoire, we demonstrate four
identifying and two dis-identifying cases and one mixed case to show how the consequent repertoire is mobilized in and by the discourse.
“Psychologist” is one of June’s preferred careers. After June describes the work
of being a psychologist, the interviewer asks, “Which part do you like most?” as a
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HSU AND ROTH
psychologist. The conversation then addresses the effects on other people then follows.
Interviewer:
June:
Interviewer:
so which part do you like most? to be a psychologist.
um i like the helping part, helping people and making them better, yea.
okay great, now you just write this one ((points to
another card))
Here, the terms of “helping part,” “helping people,” and “making them better”
derive from one form of discourse – the consequent repertoire, and are mobilized
as a resource to justify a position (the choice of being a psychologist) without being questioned. In the following excerpt, the description of helping people is also
used to justify the choice – being a pediatrician, but with a further description of
the nature of the recipient.
Interviewer:
Kelly:
Interviewer:
why do you want to be a paediatrician?
just because helping children and stuff like that
(.) and it just i have always been fascinated with
children and how, they are so innocent too and they
can’t, and they are helpless as well.
okay
One particular kind of recipient (“children”) is made salient and further described as “innocent” and “helpless.” Here, the consequent repertoire is constituted
not only by the effective acting (helping) but also the details about the recipient of
the effect (innocent and helpless children). The resource of the consequent repertoire again makes possible the legitimization of the choice of being a pediatrician.
In addition to the description of the effective acting and recipients, the feedback
from the recipient is also depicted in the consequent repertoire. In the next excerpt,
Claire, who has noted “doctor” as a possible career choice, responds to the interviewer who is asking her about the aspect she likes most about being a doctor.
Interviewer:
Claire:
Interviewer:
Claire:
Interviewer:
Claire:
Interviewer:
Claire:
and which part do you like most about being
tor?
after helping a patient, it would be pretty
see have them, like smile you know?
and recover?
yea
and which part do you like most about being
tor?
after helping a patient, it would be pretty
see have them, like smile you know?
and recover?
yea
a doccool to
a doccool to
We can in this excerpt see that Claire draws on a form of discourse that not only
describes a recipient’s reaction (“smile”) to the help, but also a doctor’s reaction
(“[feel] cool”) in terms of the patients’ feedbacks. These three examples above all
30
INTERPRETATIVE REPERTOIRES IN CAREER TALK
illustrate how the resource of the effects of actions is mobilized to legitimize career
choices.
The following example of the consequent repertoire also exhibits the effective
act of “helping,” but not with the exact term “help.” It is concretely realized when
Amy responds to the interviewer’s question about Amy’s choice of being a “sports
therapist.”
Interviewer:
Amy:
Interviewer:
your first one would be sports therapist?
therapist like working with people who have either
injured themselves or (.) have problems that they
don:t know how to solve. so just working with them
to overcome THOSE kinds of:: things.
mm:: what is the difference? ((points to other two
cards))
Amy draws on a form of discourse that describes sports therapists’ work with
people who have injuries or problems and the help people receive for overcoming
these issues. Here, the “help” is articulated in the expression “work with them to
overcome (problems),” which posits the therapist as the helper of these injured
people. These terms indicating the effective actions are all constituted the consequent repertoire that is available in the discourse for justifying career choices. In
addition to identifying with possible careers, the consequent repertoire can be
drawn upon to dis-identify with a career. The next excerpt shows how the consequent repertoire explains careers categorized as “disliked.” Before the conversation, the student has put “pilot” and “surgeon” together and has named the group
“precision/risk."
Joe:
Interviewer:
yea and i wouldn’t want to be a pilot or a surgeon
((points to the “pilot” and “surgeon” cards)) because (.) it seems too risky to me. like i’ll (.)
if i was a surgeon, i would be like really paranoid
that i would screw up or something and kill somebody. same with the pilot it is the same in a way,
not for me.
okay great, so your number one is medical lab technician. could you talk about why you want to be a
technician?
Here, we can see that the discourse that depicts the possible negative consequences (“screw up or something and kill somebody”) and an unpleasant reaction
(“I would be like really paranoid”) to dis-identify with the careers of pilot and surgeon. It has been suggested that people frequently draw on what conversation analysts have come to call extreme-case formulation (Pomerantz, 1986) such as the
extreme terms “never,” “completely,” and “every” to justify their arguments. Here,
the mobilized discourse not only employs extreme terms (“too [risky]”) but also
describes an extreme incident (“killing somebody”) to emphasize possible consequences. This extreme-negative consequence, a language resource accompanying
the consequent repertoire, becomes an unchallengeable and convincing reason for
dis-identifying with these careers.
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HSU AND ROTH
To dis-identify with a career, the following excerpt shows that the consequent
repertoire is used in a similar way with the previous case. “Teacher” is one of
Amy’s preferred possible careers. In addition to the general question “how about
teacher?,” the interviewer asks a more specific question about which academic
subject she would like to teach.
Interviewer:
Amy:
Interviewer:
Amy:
Interviewer:
Amy:
Interviewer:
Amy
okay great. how about teacher? Which subject do you
want to teach?
well i definitely wouldn:t want to teach math, or
chemistry, yea no
no math or chemistry?
no math or chemistry.
why? why not?
i just don:t like i don:t like working with equations (.) it just bothers me. like there is no
turnout, like sure you solve the equation but then
what? what is the point?
you mean:: you mean no meaning?
yea sort of (.) there is no point
Amy does not answer this question directly, that is, she does not answer which
subject she wants to teach but talks in an exclusive way, mentioning which subject
she does not want to teach (neither math nor chemistry). Then the interviewer repeats what she heard by asking a question “No math or chemistry?.” Amy confirms
the interviewer’s understanding by saying the same words but with an affirmative
intonation “no math or chemistry.” The interviewer asks “why?” and “why not” to
request further expansion. Amy first says that she does not “like working with
equations” and describes an issue that bothers her – she does not see the point of
doing an equation. Here, the discourse mobilizes one form of the extreme formulation “no turnout” and “no point” to emphasize the importance of knowing the point
or the consequence of these actions for choosing a career. Here, we can see that the
resource of the consequent repertoire with an extreme formulation is mobilized in
and by discourse to strengthen particular justifications.
In addition to utilizing an extreme formulation in the consequent repertoire to
(dis-) identify with possible careers, we notice in our database that another kind of
rhetorical device – contrast (Heritage & Greatbatch, 1986) is mobilized to enhance
justifications. For instance, in the following excerpt the contrast of different effects
is articulated to justify a career option – becoming a marine biologist.
Interviewer:
Mandy:
32
so, why not? because you have a lot fun there, but
you don’t want it ((points to the “marine biologist” card)) to be a career?
YEA um:: (.) i guess i am more interested in things
that affect humans, rather than kind of the marine
animals. it:s (.) i kind of like the larger scale,
like the actual visual impact rather than just (.)
researching and knowing everything about crabs. but
i guess to me it is more effective or (.) i’d feel
like i was doing more if i was learning about diseases, so i could help people rather than just
INTERPRETATIVE REPERTOIRES IN CAREER TALK
Interviewer:
Mandy:
Interviewer:
crabs.
so you mean helping people is more?
yea, helping people is more what i would like to
do, having an impact and knowing that i am doing
something.
mm:: so how about this one? ((points to another
card))
After mentioning a camp experience, Mandy comments that she had great fun at
the camp but being a marine biologist is not her preferred career. The interviewer
asks “why not?” and requests Mandy to elaborate on the phenomenon – she has
fun working with marine biologists but does not consider it as a possible career.
Mandy responds saying that what interests her more is “affecting humans rather
than kind of the marine animals,” “the actual visual impact rather than just researching and knowing everything about crabs,” and “so I could help people rather
than just crabs.” The terms “affect,” “help,” and “impact” indicate an emphasis on
the effect and implication of a preferred career – the consequent repertoire. Here,
the terms “rather than” appears three times in the excerpt thereby enhancing the
contrast between helping people and helping animals. That is, the consequent repertoire together with the contrast makes Mandy’s statement more convincing and
legitimate in the discourse.
As illustrated in these seven examples of the consequent repertoire, effects, influences, or consequences of actions are foregrounded as intelligible and unchallengeable resource for justifying career choices in the discourse without being
questioned. We also find that the discourse about having influence on something is
utilized as a resource for identifying with a possible career and having no or an
extreme influence for dis-identifying with possible careers (see Table 1.1). That is,
the articulation of having influence (except extreme ones) tends to be accompanied
by positive career identification in the discourse. The consequent repertoire thus
co-articulates a science-related identity as a “contributor.” There are studies pointing out that girls, like most students in our study, choose science-related careers
often based on being able to help people, animals, or environments. The consequent repertoire is a useful component in discourse that addresses effects or consequences of professions, because it attributes feedback and meaning to practitioners’
actions.
Potentiality and the Dynamics of Practice
The potential repertoire invokes discourse describing possibilities, potentialities or
trends in one’s career. For instance, being a scientist is often described as a preferred career in the discourse as someone who can learn something different everyday, obtain new information and even work on diverse projects. In the section,
we list four identifying excerpts and two mixed excerpts to exemplify how the resource of the potential repertoire is mobilized in the discourse for justifying career
choices.
After completing the mapping process, Wendy mentions that one group of her
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HSU AND ROTH
possible careers are all related to the subject of science. As illustrated in the following excerpt, a question appears in the discourse with regard to other subjects
“why not History or English?” This then orients the interviewee to articulate particular form of discourse.
Interviewer:
Wendy:
Interviewer:
but why not history or English or
i guess the sciences are more exciting, and there’s
endless possibilities to them.
hmm
Wendy responds to the question by drawing on discourse related to excitements
“sciences are more exciting” and potentiality “there’s endless possibilities.” Here,
we can see that an extreme formulation term “endless” is deployed to address the
potential or the room in science. That is, the discourse allows potentiality to be
utilized as a central resource for justifying a position to the other. In addition to the
term of “possibilities,” other terms could be constituted in the potential repertoire.
For instance, in the following example Kyla draws on discourse that uses the term
“different” twice, thereby reiterating the potential of being a biotechnologist.
Interviewer:
Kyla:
Interviewer:
how about number one? why do you want to be a biotechnologist?
um, because it really interests me and with something like that, from what i can understand, you
can sort of branch out into different topic areas
(.) and a lot of it is sort of finding different
ways to like make things better sort of and find
better ways to deal with things like oil spills and
stuff.
wow it sounds like you know this career very well
Sentences like “branch out into different topic areas” and “find different ways to
make things better” show the diverse nature of work suggested in the discourse of
being a biotechnologist. In the end, a description of one concrete example of these
possibilities (“like oil spills”) also supports the potential repertoire. The excerpt
here shows how the recourse of the potential repertoire can be utilized as an intelligible resource to legitimize a choice followed by a social appreciation of being
convinced (“wow it sounds like you know this career very well”).
We also notice that the potential repertoire and extreme terms are often mobilized together to justify career choices. For instance, in the discourse of articulating
the choice of being a surgeon as demonstrated in the following excerpt, the potential repertoire is embedded with many extreme terms. Before the conversation,
having a goal is described as a consideration for choosing a career. With regard to
the “surgeon” card, the interviewer asks goal related questions and therefore sets
up a particular form of discourse to follow.
Interviewer:
Kelly:
34
how about this one? ((points to the “surgeon”
card)) you think they have high goals?
yea you are always taking new courses, you are always having to update, you are always learning new
INTERPRETATIVE REPERTOIRES IN CAREER TALK
Interviewer:
things, it is never the same. all you (.) like you
will probably never see the same injury ever. like
maybe a broken bone, but it is never going to be
broken in the exactly the same place. there are always going to be different situations like factors
around and everything like that.
ok so how about this one ((points to another card))
In response to the interviewer’s question about the surgeon card, discourse that
describes the dynamic process of being a surgeon follows: “always taking new
courses,” “always having to update,” “always learning something new,” and “always going to be different situation.” Here, we see the strong emphasis on the potential dimension of being a surgeon in terms of words like “learning,” “new,”
“update,” “different.” Particularly, the extreme terms “always” and “never” occur
four and three times, respectively, in the affirmation of a career. The excerpt shows
how the potential repertoire can be mobilized repeatedly and integrates with extreme formulations to become an unchallengeable recourse for justifications in the
discourse. In the next excerpt, the potential repertoire is also mobilized to buttress
articulating a choice of being a family doctor but with a larger time scale description.
Interviewer:
Jack:
Interviewer:
Jack:
Interviewer:
Jack:
Interviewer:
do you think this one ((points to the family card))
is a good career? the family doctor?
yea
why?
um:: well as a career, it is good because there is,
well, a lot of room for advancement and learning
all that, but, um mostly just it is something, i
know i can enjoy it for a very long time. um something i can continue to be learning and using new
information and all that for well, the rest of my
life basically.
do you mean you have to learn new information
yea, you would have to learn new information as the
year passes
yea, okay, so how about this one ((points to another card))
The excerpt shows discourse that articulates the continuous growth of being a
family “a lot of room for advancement,” “continue to be learning,” and “learn new
information.” This ongoing learning discourse is associated with a longer time
scale “enjoy it for a very long time” or “the rest of my life.” Here, we can see that
the discourse not only highlights the importance of these learning opportunities but
also the progressive aspects of being a family doctor. That is, the resource of the
potential repertoire is associated with a larger time scale and allows Jack to legitimize his career choice.
Similar to the formative, performative, and consequent repertoires, the potential
repertoire can also be mobilized in the discourse to dis-identify with careers. In the
following excerpt, Jennifer draws on the potential repertoire to describe nurse as a
non-preferred career compared to people who take care of animals.
35
HSU AND ROTH
Interviewer:
Jennifer:
Interview:
and how about being a nurse?
nursing, yea yes and no. i have always thought
about it but it doesn’t, it isn’t the same as marine biology (.) i think animals they can be very
different, and human beings are like the same but
with tiny bits of difference.
mm:: you said your grandparents live very near the
ocean?
When Jennifer talks about being a nurse, she quickly compares it to her favorite
career, marine biologist “it (nursing) isn’t the same as marine biology.” Then she
points out marine biologists’ study targets vary (“animals can be very different”)
and refers to the service target of nurses as similar (“human beings are like the
same but with tiny bits of difference“). That is, the “difference” and “sameness”
dimensions of the potential repertoire are mobilized to compare and justify these
two options. In the next excerpt, Mandy also draws on the potential repertoire to
produce a discourse that identifies and dis-identifies with careers (being a doctor
and a teacher) but further connects to emotional descriptions.
Interviewer:
Mandy:
Interviewer:
so how about teacher?
it is a lot of i don’t know, just preparation, and
doing the same thing like. if i wanted to be a
teacher, i would have to probably be more at middle
school or something where you teach a range of subjects, rather than teaching the same thing year after year. i think i would get kind of bored of it
when you are not learning. like with a doctor something you are always learning something new and
kind of always having to update. where as with a
teacher, it usually kind of seems to stay the same,
like the same curriculum. so i think i would be
more interested in being able to keep learning.
okay, so if you are a teacher which subject you
teach?
The discourse articulates the non-changing aspect of being a teacher (i.e., they
usually do the “same” thing) and associates emotional descriptions with the routine
work (“I think I would get kind of bored of it”). Then another career (doctor) is
contrasted with the first. The dynamic aspect of being a doctor is depicted (“always
learning something new and update”) and the non-changing aspect of being a
teacher is described (“stay the same”). Here, the discourse situates the student in
the future and emphasizes that a career should be more dynamic and expanding
rather than stationary. That is, the potential repertoire affords identifying and disidentifying with careers in terms of these possibilities and potentialities for learning.
The potential repertoire, as demonstrated in the six examples, allows making
explicit potentialities and possibilities of actions to support the justifications of
career choices without being challenged in the discourse. The discourse tends to
identify with science-related careers when these are associated with possibilities of
36
INTERPRETATIVE REPERTOIRES IN CAREER TALK
personal growth, variety, potential, and diversity. That is, the discourse makes salient the expanding action possibilities as important resources in identifying with
possible careers, and a stationary state as a resource for dis-identifying with possible careers (see Table 1.1). That is, this potential repertoire co-articulates a science-related identity as a “lifelong learner.” This then shows us the importance of
discourse addressing possibilities that careers offer, because they not only serve as
goals for learning practices but also as goals of transcending present-day achievements.
In summary, the formative, performative, consequent, and potential repertoire
not only allow students to justify the preferences they have among different possible careers, but also co-articulate particular forms of identities as specialist, beneficiaries, practitioners, contributors, and life-long learners, respectively.
SCIENCE AND NON-SCIENCE RELATED CAREERS
In the previous section, we introduce and demonstrate concrete examples of four
salient interpretative repertoires mobilized in the science-related careers discourse.
Our focus is to identify the repertoires that make career choice justifications possible. That is, the previous section articulated the possibilities of constituting and
supporting career options. This, however, does not tell us much about how substantive these resources are to help a particular group of students, here eleventh-grade
high school biology students participating in career-related interviews, to justify
their choices. To get a better picture of how students use these repertoires, we
show in this section how frequently interpretative repertoires are employed and
whether interpretative repertoires are used differently for articulating science and
non-science related careers.
In the interviews, students were asked to name careers they would like and
would not like to pursue and further ranked their choices in terms of the degree of
their preference and dis-preference. Students noted between two and 20 different
careers. For the purpose of representing the data, we selected the first three ranked
careers in each list (likes and dislikes) and counted interpretative repertoires used
in articulating their reasons for choosing these careers. From these 13 students, we
collected 37 preferred and 37 dis-preferred careers. We find that students use these
interpretative repertoires to articulate 32 preferred and 27 dis-preferred careers (see
Table 1.2). That is, 86% of the preferred careers and 73% of dis-preferred careers
were buttressed by these interpretative repertoires. On the average, 80% of careers
were articulated and supported by these four interpretative repertoires that serve a
high degree of representative quality.
In the interview discourse, students also informed us whether their careers
choices are science-related or not. Most students’ preferred careers are sciencerelated and some students’ preferred careers are non-science-related careers (e.g.,
lawyers, singers). To count the frequency of using repertoires to articulate these 59
careers (28 science-related, 31 non-science-related), we use turn-taking as a unit.
That is, we consider the communicative act as a unit – interviewer’s question, student’ answer, and interviewer’s response – as illustrated in the previous excerpts.
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HSU AND ROTH
Sometimes, students drew on several interpretative repertoires to articulate a single
career, whereas sometimes only one interpretative repertoire was employed. Also,
these interpretative repertoires may be embedded together for articulating these
career choices. To support their choices of the 28 science-related careers, students
used the four interpretative repertoires a total of 65 times and 31 non-sciencerelated careers for a total 34 times. Because students spent more time talking about
their science-related careers (probably relating to the fact that they were situated in
a science class and the researcher is associated with a science-project), we interpret
the data in terms of percentage information that allows us to have a better baseline
for comparison. The results are summarized in Table 1.2 in terms of different interpretative repertoires, identification, and (non-) science-related careers.
From the frequency of the formative repertoire, we can see that the formative
repertoire for articulating science- (20%) was mobilized more than non-sciencerelated careers (6%). Also, these science-related careers were described as something special and beneficial in the transformation of being a science agent and justified as possible careers (15%). However, some science-related careers were articulated as something too challenging to achieve (e.g., doctor, astronaut). As for
non-science-related careers, being a non-science agent was not described as special
and beneficial but as something too ordinary and not requiring schooling or preparation (6%). From the frequency of the performative repertoire, it is noted that the
Table 1.2. Frequencies of interpretative repertoires when articulating the first three preferred and dispreferred careers in 13 students’ interviews.
Interpretative
Repertoire
Identification
Identify
Formative
Dis-identify
Special
and
beneficial
Ordinary/
Too challenging
Identify
Practicable
Dis-identify
Impracticable
Identify
Influential
Performative
Dis-identify
Not
tial/
Too
tial
Identify
Expanding
Dis-identify
Stationary
Consequent
influen-
21
times
(32%)
19
times
(29%)
influen-
Potential
38
32 preferred careers and 27 dispreferred careers
Science (28 careers) Non-Science (31 careers)
65 times
34 times
10
0 (0%)
13
(15%)
2 times
times
(6%)
0 (0%)/
2 (6%)/
(20%)
3 (5%)
0 (0%)
12
times
(19%)
18
(27%)
17 times
(50%)
3 (5%)
15 (44%)
17
(26%)
0 (0%)/
2 (3%)
11
(17%)
1 (2%)
2 (6%)
1 (2%)
9 times
(26%)
6 times
(18%)
6 (18%)/
2 (6%)
0 (0%)
6 (18%)
INTERPRETATIVE REPERTOIRES IN CAREER TALK
performative repertoire was mobilized most to reason both their choices for science- (32%) and non-science-related careers (50%). The actions in science-related
careers were described as practicable actions (27%) to identify with a career,
whereas the actions in non-science related careers were depicted as something impracticable (44%). With respect to the consequent repertoire, we find that it was
mobilized to support science-related careers (29%) and non-science-related careers
(26%). However, science-related careers were portrayed as influential practice and
as making important contributions to society (26%), whereas non-science-related
careers as not influential practice (18%). As for the potential repertoire, it was used
equally to legitimize science- (19%) and non-science-related (18%) career choices.
Nevertheless, most science-related careers were described as having many action
potential and possibilities (17%) and non-science-related careers as having repetitive practice and without potential for learning (18%). In summary, the discourse
sample produced during the interviews suggest that among the four repertoires the
performative repertoire was articulated more predominantly for both science and
non-science careers, and the formative, consequent and potential repertoire were
used less frequently. In particular, the formative repertoire is utilized more frequently to articulate science-related than non-science-related careers.
UNDERSTANDING SCIENCE-RELATED CAREER DISCOURSE FROM A
DISCURSIVE PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
In this chapter, we investigate the forms of discourse that is and can be employed
in (interview) conversations about possible futures generally and possible science
careers in particular. The topic is salient because one of the aims of science educators is to recruit students into science and science-related careers. However, lack of
student enrolment and interest has become an issue in science education. A related
issue is that of science-related identity. Understanding science-related identities in
discourse is useful because it accounts for the importance of both individual
agency as well as societal structures that constrain individual possibilities. To understand career-related aspects of possible science identities, we invited high
school students who were enrolled in a science honors class to talk about their possible careers. The rich science-related discourse in our recordings provides a great
opportunity for understanding descriptive connections to science.
We identify four interpretative repertoires that function like tool kits in talking
about preferred and dis-preferred careers: the (a) formative, (b) performative, (c)
consequent, and (d) potential repertoires. Our research shows how this discourse
describes science professionals in terms of “what is required for them to become a
science agent (formative repertoire),” “what they do (performative repertoire),”
“what they do in relation to others (consequent repertoire),” and “what they can do
differently as a science agent (potential repertoire).” As illustrated in this chapter,
these interpretative repertoires are mobilized as discursive resources to identify and
dis-identify with career choices. In particular, science-related identities emerge in
such students’ careers identification discourse include (a) beneficiary in the process of becoming, (b) competent practitioner, (c) contributor in and to the world,
39
HSU AND ROTH
and (d) lifelong learner. That is, the study not only identifies interpretative repertoires that serve as cultural resources for helping students to articulate their career
choices, but also illustrates science-related identities that are co-articulated in such
discourse.
We draw on discursive psychology, which is less concerned with these students
and more with the possibilities of the English language and current Anglo-Saxon
culture for talking about and defending (dis-) preferred careers. Our study therefore
provides us with insights not merely about these students but into the culture that
they represent and where their ways of talking makes sense. That is, these interpretative repertoires illustrate a culture that allows us to understand how these high
school students who have had rich science experiences relate to science in general
and how they identify with science-related careers in particular. In fact, “the immediate social situation and the broader social milieu wholly determine – and determine from with, so to speak – the structure of an utterance” (Vološinov, 1973, p.
86, our emphasis). For our case, these forms of language use – interpretative repertoires – not only allow us to illustrate the discursive resources during the interview
(the immediate social situation) but also the relevant ideology shared in the culture
such as the high school or society discourse (the broader social milieu) concerning
science-related careers. For instance, we find that the interviews tend to articulate
science-related careers as something that requires more special and specialized
characters or requirements than non-science-related careers. This then provides us
with a site for discussing why such a difference exists in career discourse. Do people always articulate the special and specialized characteristics for becoming a
science agent in the society? Is the image or ideology of science-related careers
distant from other careers? Do they interfere with students’ decision-making at the
time they choose their careers? These are important issues to facilitate our deeper
understanding about the process of considering career choices and can serve as
research questions for further investigations.
The purpose of a democratic science education cannot be to manipulate students
into choosing this over that career. The way in which our study can help science
educators and teachers is in providing students with the possibilities of extending
their repertoires in depth and in breadth. Therefore individual students may learn to
participate in mobilizing these interpretative repertoires, which are usually invisible and used implicitly, to articulate some positions over others both for themselves and relevant people around them. That is, those students who have less experience in articulating science careers may learn from these interpretative
repertoires to help them justify their positions concerning future careers.
Moreover, our research has practical implications. Individuals interested in recruiting students into science could practically use our findings by addressing students in terms of these repertoires. For example, career counselors can draw on
discourse that integrates these repertoires in career workshops or seminars for the
purpose of recruiting students into science; teachers can employ these repertoires
to encourage students participating science-related science activities; educators or
researchers can integrate these repertoires for writing about the life world of scientists in textbooks; and scientists can draw on these repertoires guiding students to
40
INTERPRETATIVE REPERTOIRES IN CAREER TALK
appreciate their work and relate to themselves in outreach activities or internship
especially. It is especially useful when educators, researchers or scientists can only
convey certain aspects of science work in a short time to students. With these repertoires in mind, they thereby ascertain not only that students find such talk intelligible but also that they find it convincing, increasing the probability that students
are drawn into science-related fields. Importantly, students can develop a sustained
interest in science especially when their science experience connect with their envision of futures. The interpretative repertoires identified in our study may serve as
discursive resources for bridging such connections for students.
Our study also has relevance to the expansion of the theoretical frameworks
science educators may use for framing and doing research. In most experimental
studies, researchers presuppose language as a neutral window used to detect what
individual has in mind. However, because “language is for the other, coming from
the other, the coming of the other” (Derrida, 1998, p. 68), what students say is inherently possible to be said within their culture and therefore not so singular at all.
That is, language is never neutral or owned by individuals but shared and mobilized in the culture. It is therefore important to have a theoretical framework that
allows researchers to confront the nature of language – the foundation for almost
every kind of social science research. Discursive psychology is a theory and
method for studying discourse without attributing characteristics or psychological
features into individuals’ minds (which are forever inaccessible in any case). The
discourse we analyze is used by interview participants (students, researcher) who
talk about a new topic; they do so by drawing on discourse and repertoires that
they, by the very fact of using it, assume to be intelligible, available, and unchallengeable. That is, rather than taking individuals as the units of analysis, which is
the characteristic of most of previous studies, we analyze and theorize discourse,
which never belongs to the research participants alone or even to the research
situation (including the interviewer, interviews, and available tools) but to the culture as a whole.
Our study also engenders possibilities for future research. Research may aim at
identifying forms of discourse and the discursive repertoires drawn upon prior to
and following special programs in which students engage for the purpose of increasing their interests (e.g., participation in summer workshops, laboratory internships, or participating in environmentalist activities). Further research might be
conducted with different participants who are situated in different cultures such as
with non-science major students, pre-service teachers, service teachers, principles,
and scientists about their science discourse. Finally, research might be conducted
to find whether the forms of discourse and the discursive repertoires can be found
in other regions of the world and across languages. If there were additional discursive features and repertoires, of interest would then be to identify the additional
forms of identity that are co-articulated in the discourse.
41
NORAH MCRAE
2. “I WANT TO BE A DOCTOR”
Discourses of Medicine as a Possible Career
Career development professionals working with students in the sciences are quick
to realize that many students identify becoming a doctor as a career aspiration, and
yet most of these students will not and perhaps should not succeed in reaching this
career goal. The problems that arise from this situation are many: students identify
a career goal of doctoring based on an idealized view of what being a doctor means
and then, if they are successful, find themselves in a career that they are not well
suited for. Students adhere to a doctor-career path that might not be realistic given
the student’s capabilities and this adherence can blind them to other equally valid
career possibilities and can lead to an erosion of feelings of self-worth when the
doctor path turns into a dead end. The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate
how analyzing the talk of science students about becoming a doctor can provide
career educators with strategies and tools to help students develop a better understanding of what being a doctor means and to provide a different way of talking to
students about alternate career choices that still meet with their personal goals.
Applying this approach could reduce the number of students who become doctors
when they should not and those who want to become doctors when they cannot.
This could leave us then with those students who can and should become doctors
applying to and being successful in our medical schools and in society as practicing physicians.
MANY ARE CALLED, FEW ARE CHOSEN
Many science students articulate the desire to be a doctor as their main reason for
studying science. This desire is reinforced pervasively in society through the positive images of doctors in the media. Many popular television shows depict doctors
as young, attractive, smart, caring, and important. Who would not want to become
that? The typical approach for students pursuing medicine in North America is to
get good grades in the core science subjects in high school; then go to university
and take a science undergraduate program trying to get the highest marks possible.
If they have time during university studies, they might do some volunteer work to
get health-care related experience. Towards the end of their degree they start applying to medical school. This process requires a very high grade point average,
often the MCAT test, usually reference letters, and sometimes an interview. Of all
of those high school students who fantasized about becoming that glamorous television doctor, very few actually make it. For those who do not make it, very few
have an alternate career plan. How can we help those that do not succeed? A cenW.-M. Roth & P.-L. Hsu (Eds.), Talk About Careers in Science, 43–57.
© 2010 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
MCRAE
tral tenet and key outcome for education is to provide students with the knowledge,
skills and abilities to have meaningful careers and lives. How do we know what
will be a meaningful career or life for a student, and how can we best support them
through their educational experiences? These are the questions being examined in
this chapter that uses discourse analysis to analyze the talk of thirteen students who
are describing their preferred career choice of becoming a doctor. Through analysing the students’ discourses we can identify themes that allow us to consider issues
such as interests, motivation, beliefs, and identity as these are mobilized in career
talk (Edwards & Potter, 1992). The insights we gain can help educators support
students’ decision making concerning career choices in a meaningful manner. Considering these issues before a student enters medical school might have implications for both their success in a medical program and in a medical career. Having
students articulate these issues early on also provides the makings for the development of alternate routes for fulfilment in addition to that of becoming a doctor.
JUST BECAUSE ONE CAN, DOESN’T MEAN ONE SHOULD
Selection processes into medical schools have traditionally focussed on academic
achievement, as pre-university grade point average levels have been good predictors of medical school performance (Hulsman et al., 2007). However, it has long
been recognized that becoming and being a successful doctor requires more than
academic achievement based on cognitive skills. Non-cognitive qualities such as
the “ability to relate to patients, empathy, listening skills, and conscientiousness
strongly affect the success of a physician and are necessary for effective patient
care” (Streyffler, Altmaier, Kuperman, & Patrick, 2005, p. 1). Increasingly medical
schools have used additional admission processes such as MCAT tests, essays,
interviews, and letters of reference to determine non-cognitive student qualifications. However, these various admission procedures have not proven to be reliable
or valid predictors of the non-cognitive characteristics deemed important for successful medical practitioners. Additionally, many of these methods require high
levels of time, money, and effort to administer and evaluate.
A study conducted in the Netherlands in 2007 demonstrated that students selected for medical school based on non-cognitive factors – including such things as
social and ethical understanding of health care – were more profoundly committed
to health care. Whereas these students did not have the highest levels of academic
achievement, their motivation was high and sustained and their commitment was
demonstrated in their extra-curricular activities in areas related to health care and
their study habits (Hulsman et al., 2007). To select these students for these noncognitive factors, the researchers used grade point averages and had the students
write an essay on health care, the students completed an exam, and they underwent
a video-based exam on social skills.
It is clearly important that we admit students to our medical school that have the
appropriate non-cognitive skills as well as an appreciation of the social and ethical
issues facing health care. Methods such as those mentioned above have proven to
be problematic in terms of both the resources required and their lack of validity
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I WANT TO BE A DOCTOR
and reliability. Perhaps a discursive approach might work more effectively, and
specifically one that identifies the themes articulated by students interested in becoming doctors, those that are successful as medical students, and of successful
physicians. Identifying those themes that are articulated by individuals at all three
stages could give us insights into the beginnings, makings, and beings of successful doctors in our society. Applicants that want to become doctors are not necessarily those that are good medical students or those that become good doctors. However, their talk might give us insights into whether a medical career, or another
career altogether, might be a fruitful choice.
CAN THE TALK MATCH THE WALK?
This chapter looks at the first of the three stages of talk: the stage where students
are articulating their interest in becoming doctors. Each of the thirteen students’
interview transcripts was reviewed for any reference to a career choice, whether
preferred or dis-preferred, of doctor. When doctor talk emerged, the students’
words were separated from the rest of the text. Each student’s talk about being a
doctor was then analysed and categorized according to the theme that appeared.
When all of the transcripts had been reviewed, an analysis of all of the themes
from the ten students that had identified doctor as a possible career in their talk was
conducted to see what commonalities and differences existed. An analysis of the
differences and commonalities between those seven that wanted to become doctors
and the three that did not was also conducted. Each theme is examined in light of
what it tells us about students’ understanding of what it might mean to be a doctor.
These analyses help us identify strategies and tools that career educators might use
to better prepare students for either a career as a doctor, or to advise them otherwise.
All of the students being interviewed were high school students attending eleventh grade in the city of Victoria, BC, Canada. Of the ten students who identified
doctor in their talk eight were female and two male. Of the three of those who did
not want to be a doctor two were female and one male. A few of the students had
direct contact with the field of medicine, either through a family member or
through their own exposure through activities such as volunteering and job shadowing. All of the students had chosen to take a course related to planning for careers in science. All of the students were preparing to participate in a lab experience at the local university.
These ten students’ interviews were analyzed based on their doctor-talk. In
comparing the talk between the two groups: those who want to become doctors and
those who do not, we find that there are fewer themes for those who do not want to
become doctors. On average, in the discourse of the seven students who do want to
become doctors, there are 3.8 themes; of the three students who do not want to be
doctors, there are 1.6 themes. This could mean that the latter group did not have
much to say around the topic of doctoring because it was not a career choice they
were considering. Creating talk about a career as a doctor is fairly easy in our society. There are many doctor role models in existence through television, movies,
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Table 2.1. A summary of the found frequency of the themes from the students.
Theme
Being helpful
Being interested
Being needed
Being challenged
Being rewarded intellectually
Being in a compatible workplace
Being affirmed by family
Being rewarded financially
Being risk adverse
I want to be a doctor (N = 7)
7
6
3
3
3
3
2
2
0
I don’t want to be a
doctor (N = 3)
2
2
0
0
0
0
1
1
2
books and other forms of media. Whereas this does provide a powerful source of
information, it can also be limiting in a sense that the role of doctor can overshadow other meaningful roles in society, roles that are congruent with the students’ desire to help others (see also chapter 6, this volume, by Hall). Perhaps one
way that educators interested in career development can assist students is by exposing them to a range of career examples so that their themes can extend past
what is easily available in our cultural context. There are many ways to help others
in the world, being a doctor is only one of those ways they can be in the world
while still having meaningful careers and lives.
Table 2.1 shows a summary of the themes that emerged in their talk. The table
shows that the theme of “being helpful” was the most prevalent, followed by “being interested” and so on. Those students who wanted to become doctors identified
a wider range of themes in their talk than those that did not want to become doctors. The latter group were the only ones to talk about “risk,” in that they did not
want to be doctors because of the risks associated with that career, or that there
would be a risk they might hurt someone (the antithesis of helping). For a fuller
understanding of how these themes appeared in the talk, each theme is identified
and followed by specific examples from the student interviews.
Being Helpful
Nearly all of the students identified being helpful, or at the very least avoiding
harm, as something that motivated them to become doctors. As illustrated from the
excerpts below, we can see that wanting to be helpful would seem to be an important quality in the talk of someone wanting to become a doctor. For some, it means
problem solving, making patients happy, making them better, helping the helpless,
and having an impact.
“Doctor it is still like helping people also but you know you are like really
aware of like you know yourself and other people, helping them.” (Alice
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I WANT TO BE A DOCTOR
wants to be a doctor)
“I put general practitioner because you are working with clients helping
them.” (Amy wants to be a doctor)
“Well I like the idea of being able to help people work through problems that
know your patients and help them through whatever they are going through.”
(Amy wants to be a doctor)
“Helping people makes people happy.” (Clare wants to be a doctor)
“After helping a patient, it would be pretty cool to see them smile.” (Clare
wants to be a doctor)
“I can helping people.” (Jack wants to be a doctor)
“Yea helping people.” (Jack wants to be a doctor)
“Um I like the helping part, helping people and making them better yea.”
(June wants to be a doctor)
“Just because helping children and stuff like that and it just I have always
been fascinated with children and they are so innocent too and helpless as
well.” (Kelly wants to be a doctor)
“Also helping others at the same time.” (Mandy wants to be a doctor)
“Yea helping people is more what I would like to do, having an impact and
knowing that I am doing something.” (Mandy wants to be a doctor)
“Share what I know and if they have a problem be able to fix that and help
them.” (Mandy wants to be a doctor)
“I have a slight interest in this field because of the rewards. Rewards being
helping people.” (Elise does not want to be a doctor)
“I am not a big risk taker. I would never want to do something where the
chance of endangering someone’s life is high.” (Joe does not want to be a
doctor)
Seven of the students who want to be a doctor articulated the theme of “helping”
in their talk. For some of these students, the idea of helping is associated with solving problems, making people happy, making them better, and making a difference
(Amy, Clare, June, Mandy). In the case of Alice, Jack, and Kelly, helping is not
really explained as to what it means to them – it just is; and as such is provided as a
rationale for becoming a doctor. For the two students who explicitly state that they
do not want to be doctors, one identifies that even though she does not want to be a
doctor, being in a position, such as being a doctor, to help people would be rewarding (Elise). The final student, Joe, says that he would be afraid that if he were to
become a doctor he might “endanger” someone and he does not want to take the
chance of being fatally unhelpful.
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Being Interested
In the discourse, being interested is a strong theme. Students who wanted to be a
doctor seemed to be grounded in a general interest in areas of science such as the
human body, chemistry, biology, and discovery. The student interviews show a
limited understanding of the subject areas and topics required for entering medical
school and for becoming a doctor.
“I really love how the human body, how like all these nerves and things work
and I love that and like all these diseases and stuff if you know a little bit
about.” (Alice wants to be a doctor)
“It is interesting when there is something new to find out what it is and just
being able to explore different ways and coming up with a solution.” (Amy
wants to be a doctor)
“I think doctors usually discover new things yea, like they try and fix it too
with like curing and medicine.” (Clare wants to be a doctor)
“I’m interested in biology and like to understand it very clearly.” (Jack wants
to be a doctor)
“I really like knowing a lot of things.” (Jack wants to be a doctor)
“I have always been brought up around the hospital and around patients and
that is just where I feel comfortable, that is where I feel the most, I’m interested.” (Kelly wants to be a doctor)
“I don’t know why medicine, it’s just something I’ve been interested in.”
(Mandy wants to be a doctor)
“I’m really interested in medicine kind of the whole chemistry biology side
of it and if I became a doctor I would have lots of the education about that, I
get to take lots of those courses.” (Mandy wants to be a doctor)
“I’m just not interested in being a doctor. Lots of people seem to think that
being a doctor is what they really want to do but for me it isn’t something I
am interested in.” (Kyla does not want to be a doctor)
“Like it just doesn’t interest me.” (Joe does not want to be a doctor)
We can see from the talk of those two who want to be a doctor that being interested seems to be related to a positive emotional state. Alice’s talk uses words such
as “love,” Kelly’s talk associates feeling “comfortable” with being interested. In
the case of Amy and Clare they articulate interest as being linked to discovery and
problem solving; Amy expresses wanting to “explore different ways and coming
up with a solution,” Clare articulates doctors as “discover[ing] new things.” In Jack
and Mandy’s talk, “interest” seems to be about having access to quantities of information as in knowing “lots of things” (Jack) and having “lots of the education”
(Mandy). The two students who do not want to be doctors, Kyla and Joe, do not
explain what interest is or linke becoming a doctor to interest.
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I WANT TO BE A DOCTOR
Being Needed
Only the students who wanted to be doctors included talk about being needed. This
might reflect an idealized notion of what it means to be a doctor – a notion reinforced by images in our culture when the doctor can be portrayed as a savior. The
students talk about being a doctor who does not get paid, being a needed female
doctor, and working in countries where help is most needed. This talk is related to
being helpful; but it also appears to be very idealizing and idealized talk.
“Like all over the world doctors are needed right. Like people can’t afford
then and I think it is kind of cool to like if you could like be one of those
people that like no one really had to pay right. Cause it is the money too like
you make good money just like helping in like a major way too. Cause everyone gets sick, everyone gets something right.” (Alice wants to be a doctor)
“It was a female so that was really cool too so there’s a big demand for female doctors too so that would be good.” (Kelly wants to be a doctor)
“So I could help the less fortunate, or in countries where help is most
needed.” (Mandy wants to be a doctor)
In the interview talk involving Alice and Kelly, the concept of being needed is
linked to the idea of supply and demand, and of them being in demand. Alice talks
about “all over the world doctors are needed” and Kelly says, “there’s a big demand for female doctors.” Mandy’s talk also identifies that there is a need for those
who are less “fortunate” and from certain countries where “help is most needed.”
In Mandy’s talk, “need” is linked not only to demand for doctors willing to work
with these groups of people and in these regions of the world, but also to a stronger
sense of a requirement to fill a void that is causing suffering.
Being Challenged
Students who want to become doctors should love a challenge, and this seems to be
the case with several of those who identified doctor as their career choice. This
theme, associated with hard work, seems clear in the following excerpts.
“I also like challenges.” (Clare wants to be a doctor)
“Yea I like to do the challenge, go further than just being a nurse, going
straight to the doctor.” (June wants to be a doctor)
“I guess it would be a challenge it would make me push my abilities so it
would make me work harder.” (Mandy wants to be a doctor)
Clare and June describe a positive response to a challenge, Clare likes “challenges” and June likes “to do the challenge.” June, for some reason, does not associate being a nurse as sufficiently challenging. Mandy does not express an affective
result from a challenge, but she does talk about how challenges act as a motivating
force as they “would make me work harder.”
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Being Rewarded Intellectually
This theme is linked to the idea of life-long learning. Students talked about wanting a career that could satisfy them intellectually throughout their studies and beyond during their lives. Whereas only three students who wanted to be doctors
talked about this theme, they had a lot to say.
“Well a lot of room for advancement and all that but uhm mostly just it is
something I know I can enjoy for a very long time.” (Jack wants to be a doctor)
“I can continue to be learning and using new information and all that for well
the rest of my life basically.” (Jack wants to be a doctor)
“Always taking new course you are always having to update, you are always
learning new things, it is never the same it is like you will probably never see
the same injury ever. Maybe a broken bone but it is never going to be broken
in the same place. There are always going to be different situations like factors around and everything like that.” (Kelly wants to be a doctor)
“Like when you’re in something like that like you’re always working you’re
like always learning more and having to apply your knowledge.” (Mandy
wants to be a doctor)
“Like with a doctor you are always learning something new and always having to update.” (Mandy wants to be a doctor)
“I would be always learning, it would be something I am interested in, I
would be able to help people and I guess share what I know and if they have
a problem be able to fix that and help them.” (Mandy wants to be a doctor) For these students being rewarded intellectually seems to be linked to being
provided with the opportunity to learn throughout their lives and careers. This opportunity is viewed in a positive light as it allows them to “enjoy” the field for long
time (Jack), having variety in their work (Kelly), and being exposed to new concepts giving an enhanced ability to solve problems (Mandy).
Being in a Compatible Workplace
Three students talked about the theme of being in a workplace that felt right for
them, or was compatible. This covered such topics as getting along with coworkers, hours of work, the workplace itself and features of the job such as travel.
“I can get along with people well.” (Jack wants to be a doctor)
“Yea and it would just be something that I would really enjoy doing. The
only thing is that there are way too many hours for that so I wouldn’t be able
to have a family and no family life. There are all these different factors and
stuff so I don’t know if I will go into that. But if the hours are good 100%
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I WANT TO BE A DOCTOR
that is what I would do.” (Kelly wants to be a doctor)
“Dermatologist that’s, it is because it is still in the medical field and there are
good hours and it gives you lots of money to and you can work like Monday
to Friday.” (Kelly wants to be a doctor)
“Just in the actual hospital. Because this is in your own office sort of thing
and I want to be in the hospital.” (Kelly wants to be a doctor)
“Doctors without borders is I’m really interested in travel as well.” (Mandy
wants to be a doctor)
Jack’s talk about the workplace is related to interpersonal relationships on the
job and that he can get along with people “well.” Kelly has the most to say about
the workplace and touches on the need to balance the working hours with her interest in having a family life so that she could “work like Monday to Friday.” Kelly
also identifies the setting she would like to work in as being “the hospital.” For
Mandy, lifestyle options such as combining a career as a doctor with travel was of
interest.
Being Affirmed by Family
One might have expected to see more reference to family influence in the talk of
these students. Two students talked about this influence, one in a case of direct
affirmation of a career choice and the other in the role influence a parent had due
to working in a medical setting.
“There wasn’t any big discussion I want to be a doctor Dad. I don’t know I
just said I wanted too and they said wow neat, sure.” (Jack wants to be a doctor)
“And I talked to the workers and . . . and I have gone in there a couple of
times actually where my mom works and I talk to people around there and
the environment is just so friendly and people are all there for the same reason to help people.” (Kelly wants to be a doctor)
In each case where family influence is articulated this influence is a positive or
affirming one, not negative. For Jack, his family supports his desire to be a doctor
by saying “wow neat, sure.” For Kelly, her mother works in a healthcare setting
and her exposure to that setting has provided her with positive experiences where
the environment is “friendly” and where other workers, too, want to “help people.”
Kelly associates where her mother works as being a possible future workplace for
herself.
Being Rewarded Financially
Surprisingly, the theme of financial rewards only came about in the talk of two of
the students. Given the common understanding of the potential for great financial
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MCRAE
rewards through a career in medicine, this was an unexpected result. Perhaps it is
so commonly understood that the students did not feel the need to articulate it, or
perhaps it is not as important to them as we might imagine.
“Cause it is the money too like you make good money just like helping in
like a major way too.” (Alice wants to be a doctor)
“So if that’s going to happen you’re going to have to choose with your heart
not like because of money or because of other things but because of what you
want to do.” (Kelly wants to be a doctor)
“It gives you lots of money too.” (Kelly wants to be a doctor)
For both Alice and Kelly, their talk of financial reward is linked to other nonmonetary rewards, such as “helping in a major way” (Alice) or choosing being a
doctor “with your hear.” Kelly does make the connection between having a career
as a doctor and financial reward with her statement that it gives you “lots of
money.”
Being Risk Adverse
The final theme is one that was only spoken of by the students who expressly did
not want to become doctors. They talked about risks associated with making decisions that might be wrong and that might result in harm and the stress that might
cause.
“A doctor is a bit extreme in terms of what I am capable to handle.” (Elise
does not want to be a doctor)
“I wouldn’t pick this mostly because of the stress from this job.” (Elise does
not want to be a doctor)
“I wouldn’t want to be a pilot or a surgeon because it seems too risky to me.
Like if I was a surgeon I would be like really paranoid that I would screw up
or something and kill somebody.” (Joe does not want to be a doctor)
Of interest is that only the two students who did not want to be doctors identified risk and stress. Elise talked about how being a doctor might prove more than
she could “handle” and that the job would be too stressful. Joe’s comments were
related to risk and fear of making a mistake that could have terrible consequences,
he might “kill somebody.”
Summary
All of the talk to this point shows what these students consider when they conceive
of a career as a doctor and why that career might, or might not, be suitable. Within
the talk we can gain insights into high school students’ views of doctoring. These
insights can help inform career educators and others counseling students on career
choices about how to best support students with aspirations to become doctors.
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I WANT TO BE A DOCTOR
DISCUSSION
This study was designed to analyze the talk of high school science students who
were interviewed about their possible careers in science and who identified becoming a doctor or not becoming a doctor as a career aspiration. Analyzing the doctortalk of students allows us to identify themes emerging from that talk. These themes
provide a possible foundation upon which career educators could build strategies
and tools to help these students. I present nine themes that characterize the discourse about becoming or not becoming a doctor. These themes include: (a) being
helpful, (b) being interested, (c) being needed, (d) being challenged, (e) being rewarded intellectually, (f) being in a compatible workplace, (g) being affirmed by
family, (h) being rewarded financially, and (i) being risk averse. In the following I
briefly comment on each of these themes and their relevance to how career educators could support students considering a career as a doctor and how they might
guide students who might not, or perhaps should not, follow that aspiration.
The intentions behind “being helpful” may be considered good. It certainly
seems to be a positive starting point for someone wanting to become a doctor.
What these excerpts show is that whereas the motivation seems good, the notion to
these students of what being helpful means in the context of doctoring is quite undefined. It might be of value for career educators working with students at this
stage to show to students some examples of what “being helpful” as a doctor might
mean. It might not always result in happiness or problem solving, and that is part
of the reality that doctors need to be able to cope with.
Having a genuine interest in science subjects and a hunger for discovery are key
ingredients to foster the curiosity that being a successful medical student and doctor requires. Medical school can be very demanding with heavy course loads and
long hours of studying or doing intern work. Practicing doctors need to keep up to
date on current research and changes in practice. Through the lens of the students
at this stage in their lives, it would seem that having an interest in a subject would
be sufficient to carry them through the grueling hours of study required in medical
school. Career educators might help students develop a more realistic picture by
making available examples of course curricula used in a variety of medical
schools. This could show prospective students the full array of courses required
and the hours of work needed to be successful – not all of which will be interesting. Through examining an actual curriculum, a prospective student might be in a
better place to assess whether they can obtain the courses and grades to get into
and succeed in medical school. Additionally, if career educators provide a menu of
curricula that show other career paths that also require sciences, but perhaps different courses or combinations of courses then students with interests in science could
begin to get a broader picture of alternate career possibilities.
Some of the talk around being needed seems motivated by recognizing a void
that has caused some measure of suffering and that could be filled in part by doctors. While this motivation seems to be grounded in positive intentions, it could
become problematic if not tempered with reality. Career educators when detecting
this kind of talk could explore underlying motives with students to ensure that
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MCRAE
these students do not become disillusioned when faced with the reality of working
as a doctor. Perhaps exposing students to doctors who have worked in more difficult circumstances such as overseas, with lower socio-economic groups and high
risk groups might help ground these motives in reality.
Only three of the students did identify challenges in their doctor talk. Given how
hard we know it is to get into and succeed in medical school as well as the work
required to be a successful doctor, it might be that career educators should explore
this idea of hard work more extensively with students wanting to be doctors. A
strong work ethic would seem to be crucial and if students either do not have one
or do not seem compelled to develop one then that might be an important indicator
of possible success or lack of success. Providing a benchmark of the number of
hours and effort required to get the marks needed for admission to medical school
and to sustain the grades throughout medical school could be very informative.
Students who are not prepared to work this hard might start considering more suitable career choices. Students who are working that hard and yet are not getting the
required grades might gain some insights into their capabilities. Similarly, providing alternate programs of study and effort required might help students identify
alternate, more appropriate careers.
Life-long learning would seem to be critical to the success of a doctor. There is
always the need to keep apprised of new developments, research and practices.
Should these students pursue a career in medicine, this need could certainly be
fulfilled to the benefit of them and their patients. Many other careers have the capacity to offer life-long learning opportunities. It might be useful for career educators to provide students with examples of how life-long learning plays out in a
range of careers. After university, what additional professional credentials are required? What post-graduate studies are available? More fundamentally, why is the
pursuit of life-long learning important?
Interestingly, being in a compatible workplace was a more frequent topic of talk
than financial rewards. This supports the idea that working life for some individuals might be more than the pay cheque. People so inclined might need to feel as if
where they work is a good fit for their lifestyle and values. Sometimes people
leave, or are asked to leave, their places of work as a result of their lack of “fit”
with the workplace. This is an important consideration for any career choice. The
more that career educators can support students having experiences in a range of
workplaces the better able those students are to identify the features of a workplace
that are either a good fit or not. This is equally true for those seeking to become
doctors. The lifestyle of a doctor can be very difficult: long hours, being on call,
and high stress levels. The more realistic a view that students have of this life the
better off they will be. Similarly, the more students are exposed to a range of
workplaces, the more informed they become about what might be a suitable workplace.
The current discourse about the millennial generation identifies the parent and
family as being highly influential. The set of interviews analyzed here does not
support such view. But it could be that the question about family influence was
never directly asked. Before career educators assume that parents and family are as
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I WANT TO BE A DOCTOR
significant as is believed, it might be useful to explore this with students individually. Family influence can be a strong force, both positive and negative, and ignoring it as well as giving it unwarranted credence should be avoided. Discussing this
with a student before hand could shine light on whether or not family might be a
resource to the career educator and the student in forming career decisions.
The students’ talk about money is fairly ambiguous. None of the students came
right out and said that they wanted to become a doctor only for the money. The
money talk is qualified by words related to helping and choosing also with one’s
heart and not for the money alone. Considering the materialistic society we live in,
the lack of talk about material wealth is interesting. For career educators who often
focus on financial rewards when providing information about possible careers, this
might be something to consider. Other rewards might be more compelling for students.
There are risks associated with being a doctor. The stakes can be high when
making important decisions for the life to come. It is interesting that so few students considered the consequences and the negative results that can, and do, happen in this profession. Many doctors at some point in their careers face the consequences of a wrong decision and it can be challenging. Much of the talk from the
students wanting to be doctors centered on positive themes, but there is a downside
to this career choice. Doctors do live under considerable stress and do have to
make some difficult choices. We therefore cannot ignore the powerful role of emotionality in the constitution of thought (Vygotsky, 1986). Fear of failure, lack of
confidence, lack of self-efficacy are all significant issues for consideration with
any career choice. How can we recognize and address these fears in students so
that they can either overcome or accept these fears? One way is by utilizing “scaffolding.” Through scaffolding educators provide supports for students such as having opportunities for students to talk about their hopes and aspirations in an environment that is supportive and helpful. It might seem safer to talk about becoming
a doctor than to talk about being afraid to become a doctor. In the case of the former instance, there are many positive affirmations in the discourse of society about
those that either are or aspire to be doctors: They appear to be clever, capable, and
caring. In contrast, those that are afraid of becoming a doctor could be seen to be
not as clever, nor as capable and not motivated to care. Neither of these depictions
would be fully accurate or fair. As we see in the interview data, the students deploy
a discourse of wanting to help others were, in part, interested in exploring careers
in science. Given that they were all taking high school sciences in the higher
grades they would appear capable of some meaningful career. We can support the
development of the emotional-volitional and ethico-moral dimensions in our students through providing opportunities for students to co-participate, see practicerelated principles in action, and to receive assurance, reassurance and correction
that would help address these fears (Roth, 2007).
WALKING THE WALK HELPS THE TALK
The students who exhibited some of the most extensive doctor talk were those who
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MCRAE
had some direct experience or exposure to the field of medicine. They either had
family members who were in health care (Kelly) or had engaged with the practice
through volunteer work or job shadowing (Jack). This could be a demonstration of
the notion of situated cognition in that students who had some lived experiences
were better able to articulate their ideas through richer talk. This extensive talk
might be evidence of the student’s sense of being which we can find in the intimacy of experience (Southwell, 1987). The students were better able to see themselves in the role of doctor, or see themselves as the other with a “practical understanding” of what it might mean to be a doctor (Ricœur, 1992). Returning to the
idea of health related extra-curricular activities, this might be a way to develop and
support the emotional-volitional and ethico-moral dimensions for students, possibly leading to the development of better physicians for our society. If students
were exposed to some of these difficult situations, it might better prepare them for
what might lie ahead. If career educators provided students with realistic scenarios
and opportunities to experience the harder aspects of this career, then these students might make alternative career decisions.
With reference to the study from the Netherlands mentioned at the outset of this
chapter, students who engaged in extra-curricular activities related to health care
had a stronger commitment to health care and demonstrated those qualities associated with becoming good doctors (Hulsman et al., 2007). So not only are they better able to see themselves in the role of a doctor, to articulate this in extensive talk,
but also this may be a significant factor in their ability to be successful as a doctor.
The important role that legitimate peripheral participation can have in building a
student’s understanding of themselves and what they could be within the context of
a community of practice could be helpful in considering these findings (Lave &
Wenger, 1991). Providing students with a range of opportunities to engage in
medicine through legitimate peripheral participation could enable them to have
better informed talk to draw on, could lead to a stronger and wider range of interests and could build motivation. Furthermore, engaging with communities of practice and more experiences career educators could provide students with additional
strategies and tools to be successful. By interacting more with doctors and others in
the medical field, students might very well develop better understandings of what it
means to be helpful, what it takes to be interested, how to be needed without being
ego-driven, the required work ethic, the importance of life-long learning, what
makes for a good workplace fit, the role of family support, the significance of rewards other than money and the true risks associated with the career choice of being a doctor.
FUTURE CONSIDERATIONS
In this chapter, I show that through analyzing the interviews of students who were
pursuing science and who identified doctor as a career in their talk we can shine
light on underlying assumptions that this talk requires about what being a doctor
means to them. Analyzing the students’ discourse allows us to identify and consider issues such as interests, motivation and beliefs. Having this understanding
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could allow career educators to better prepare students for what becoming a doctor
might actually mean. This in turn could ensure that universities have stronger and
more suitable candidates applying for medical schools and also that universities
have offered stronger and more suitable alternatives for students who should not or
are not capable of pursuing a medical career. Further research might be done by
doing a similar analysis of the talk of successful medical students and subsequently
the talk of successful doctors. By considering and finding congruent patterns in the
talk at all three stages of beginnings, makings, and beings of successful doctors in
our society, we might find better candidates for our programs, develop better supports for our medical students, and prepare our medical school graduates more
effectively for their careers as doctors.
57