Iversen2020

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Iversen2020
BibType ARTICLE
Key Iversen2020
Author(s) Clara Iversen, Ann-Carita Evaldsson
Title Respecifying Uncertainty in Pupil Health Team Collaboration: The Morality of Interpreting Pupils' School Problems
Editor(s)
Tag(s) Accountability, Collaboration, Complaining, Discursive Psychology, problem description, pupil health, uncertainty, EMCA, Medical EMCA
Publisher
Year 2020
Language English
City
Month
Journal Qualitative Research in Psychology
Volume 17
Number 3
Pages 430–449
URL Link
DOI 10.1080/14780887.2020.1725948
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

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Abstract

The article examines professionals' displays of uncertainty in their reports of pupils' school problems during Swedish Pupil Health Team (PHT) meetings. PHT-meetings reflect an effort to address pupils' problems through multi-professional teamwork, involving, e.g. counsellors, nurses, and special education teachers. Barriers to such collaboration have been attributed to professionals' difficulties to understand one another because they operate within differing discourses. Using discursive psychology to analyse audio-recorded meetings, we found that the PHT-professionals used vagueness as a resource. By reporting pupils' problems while displaying uncertainty about their causes, professionals could imply a morally delicate interpretation and distribute responsibility for this interpretation. Thus, the problem reports can be seen as designedly vague, working to involve recipients in a potentially problematic explanation. Based on this respecification of uncertainty as a discursive construction, we argue that at stake in PHT-meetings is not so much professionals' differing discourses as the moral accountability of interpretation.

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