Applying findings and creating impact from conversation analytic studies of gender and communication

Abstract

Studies of workplaces frequently focus on gender, investigating and challenging inequality. In that many studies start with ‘gender’ as a taken-for-granted category, measuring gender differences in organizational life, or interviewing participants to elicit accounts of their employment experiences, they exaggerate and even create stereotypical ‘common knowledge’ about gender. In contrast, this article illustrates a conversation analytic approach which can show if, when and how gender becomes consequentially relevant within any given communicative encounter. Drawing on a large corpus of institutional interaction, the article demonstrates two things: that (1) robust claims about the gendering of social life can be made once those claims are grounded in what people actually do; and (2) systematic patterns in people’s endogenous orientations to gender can be found in communication. Finally, the article showcases a real-world application of conversation analytic work, demonstrating the impact and relevance of such research programmes for understanding everyday gendered social life.