A Student's Guide to Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis

A Student's Guide to Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis: 

Scholars, Schools, and Intellectual Traditions

Wayne Martin Mellinger, Ph.D.

Last Updated: November 2025

If you're considering graduate study in ethnomethodology (EM) and conversation analysis (CA), you're entering one of sociology's most rigorous and methodologically distinctive traditions. This guide maps the intellectual landscape: who the key scholars are, where the major programs are located, what the different "schools" emphasize, and how you might navigate this field as a student.

What Makes EM/CA Different?

Before diving into scholars and programs, understand what makes this tradition distinctive:

- Radical empiricism: Only naturally occurring data (recordings) count as evidence

- Sequential analysis: Social order emerges turn-by-turn in interaction

- Members' methods: Study how participants themselves produce and recognize orderly conduct

- No coding: Resist quantitative reduction; stay close to singular instances

- Cumulative science: Build on prior findings about interactional mechanisms

This is not discourse analysis, not linguistics, not quite sociology as usually practiced. It's a distinctive research paradigm with its own standards of evidence and explanation.

THE FOUNDING GENERATION (1960s-1970s): THE SACRED TRINITY

Harvey Sacks (1935-1975)

The Founder

Sacks created conversation analysis from whole cloth. His lectures at UCLA (1964-1972) laid out the program: study actual recordings of talk, discover the machinery people use to produce orderly interaction, build cumulative knowledge about these mechanisms.

Key innovations:

- Turn-taking system (with Schegloff & Jefferson)

- Membership categorization analysis ("the baby cried, the mommy picked it up")

- Sequential analysis as method

- "Order at all points" - the fundamental insight that interaction is thoroughly organized

Essential reading: Lectures on Conversation (posthumous, edited by Gail Jefferson)

Career note: Sacks died tragically in a car accident at 40, leaving an unfinished program that his students and collaborators continued.

Harold Garfinkel (1917-2011)

The Ethnomethodological Prophet

Garfinkel founded ethnomethodology as a radical critique of conventional sociology. His "breaching experiments" (violating everyday expectations to reveal hidden norms) and close studies of work (jury deliberation, scientific discovery, gender passing) showed that social order is members' practical accomplishment, not sociologists' theoretical construct.

Key innovations:

- Ethnomethodology as distinctive program

- "Breaching experiments" revealing tacit social order

- Studies of work (professions, institutions, practices)

- "Vulgar competence" - the real expertise practitioners have

- Radical refusal of conventional sociological theorizing

Essential reading: Studies in Ethnomethodology (1967)

Career note: Later work (after 1980) became increasingly hermetic and focused on "studies of work" - mathematical proof, scientific discovery, professional practices. Some students found this inspiring; others found it impenetrable.

Emanuel A. Schegloff (b. 1937)

The Methodological Guardian

Schegloff co-founded CA with Sacks and has spent 60+ years refining its methods. He's the field's conscience: insisting on empirical rigor, defending sequential analysis against premature theorizing, clarifying what counts as evidence.

Key innovations:

- Opening and closing sequences (telephone calls)

- Repair organization (how people fix troubles in talk)

- Preference organization (why some responses are delayed or hedged)

- "Proof procedure" - next turn shows understanding of prior turn

- Methodological purity - resist importing sociological concepts

Essential reading: "Sequencing in Conversational Openings" (1968), "Repair" papers

Schegloff died in 2024

Student note: Schegloff represents "pure CA" - some find it liberating (no theory required, just data), others find it limiting (no way to address power, inequality, or broader social concerns).

Gail Jefferson (1938-2008)

The Transcriptionist and Analyst

Jefferson developed the transcription system everyone uses and contributed major findings on laughter, overlap, error correction, and troubles-telling.

Key innovations:

- CA transcription conventions (now standard)

- Laughter placement and functions

- Overlap resolution

- Error correction patterns

- "Troubles-telling" sequences

Essential reading: Her transcription manual; papers on laughter

Career note: Never held a regular faculty position despite massive influence - a cautionary tale about academic precarity even for foundational figures.

MAJOR INTELLECTUAL TRADITIONS: UNDERSTANDING THE SCHOOLS

The UCLA School: Methodological Purity

Location: University of California, Los Angeles

Active period: 1960s-present

Key figures: Sacks, Schegloff, Heritage (now emeritus), Candace West (deceased)

Characteristics:

- Fierce commitment to "unmotivated looking" - don't bring sociological theories to data

- Focus on mundane conversation as the baseline

- Resist premature engagement with "context" or "social structure"

- Build comprehensive models of interactional mechanisms

- Methodological conservatism - if you can't show it in the sequence, don't claim it

Best for students who:

- Want rigorous training in sequential analysis

- Appreciate methodological discipline

- Can tolerate bracketing "big" sociological questions initially

- Value technical mastery over theoretical ambition

Current status: Heritage recently retired; program continuing but less dominant than 1970s-1990s

Notable UCLA-trained scholars:

- Gene Lerner (turn design, compound TCUs)

- Galina Bolden (epistemics, so-prefaces)

- Chase Wesley Raymond (epistemics, gender, grammar)

- Makoto Hayashi (Japanese interaction, projectability)

- Tanya Stivers (medical interaction, cross-linguistic CA)

- Jeffrey Robinson (medical interaction, patient-centeredness)

The Santa Barbara School: Structure in Action

Location: University of California, Santa Barbara

Active period: 1970s-present

Key figures: Thomas P. Wilson, Don H. Zimmerman, Douglas Maynard

Characteristics:

- Explicitly theoretical - how does sequential organization constitute social structure?

- Focus on institutional settings (emergency calls, medical encounters, courtrooms)

- Willing to study power, inequality, gender - but always through sequential analysis

- "Structure-in-action" - institutions exist only as patterns in talk

- Integration with symbolic interactionism and Goffman

Best for students who:

- Want to combine CA rigor with sociological substance

- Care about institutions, power, inequality

- Appreciate theoretical clarity alongside empirical analysis

- Want to study "real world" settings with practical import

Key innovations:

- Emergency call studies (Zimmerman, Whalen)

- "Doing Gender" framework (West & Zimmerman)

- Bad news delivery (Maynard)

- Social structure as members' orientation (Wilson)

- Institutional talk as configured conversational machinery

Notable Santa Barbara-trained scholars:

- Steven Clayman (news interviews, presidential press conferences)

- Jack Whalen (workplace studies, troubleshooting)

- Geoffrey Raymond (epistemics, police encounters) - recent ASA EMCA award winner

Current status: Wilson retired; Zimmerman emeritus but active; Maynard at Wisconsin continuing the tradition

The British School: Video, Embodiment, and Applied Work

Location: Multiple UK universities (Loughborough, York, King's College London, Manchester)

Active period: 1980s-present

Key figures: Paul Drew, Christian Heath, John Heritage (dual UK/US), Elizabeth Stokoe

Characteristics:

- Heavy use of video (not just audio)

- Multimodal analysis - gesture, gaze, body position, material environment

- Workplace studies - operating rooms, control rooms, offices

- Applied CA - training professionals using CA findings

- More interdisciplinary - connects with design, HCI, linguistics

Best for students who:

- Want to work with video data

- Care about embodiment and materiality

- Interested in applied work (communication training, design)

- Value interdisciplinary connections

Key innovations:

- Video analysis methods (Heath & Luff)

- Workplace studies (Heath, Button, Harper)

- CARM - Conversation Analytic Role-play Method (Stokoe)

- Multimodal interaction (Heath, Hindmarsh)

- Institutional talk (Drew, Heritage)

Major centers:

- Loughborough University - Heath, Luff, Stokoe; strong in workplace studies and video analysis

- University of York - Paul Drew, Charles Antaki; focus on institutional interaction

- King's College London - Christian Heath; video studies, medical interaction

- University of Manchester - Wes Sharrock, Graham Button; ethnomethodology and technology

Notable British-trained scholars:

- Elizabeth Stokoe (CARM, police interrogation, mediation)

- John Hindmarsh (workplace interaction, museums)

- Jonathan Potter (discursive psychology - CA-adjacent)

- Derek Edwards (discursive psychology, emotion)

- Charles Antaki (intellectual disability, care work)

The Finnish Tradition: Cross-Linguistic Comparative CA

Location: University of Helsinki

Active period: 1990s-present

Key figures: Anssi Peräkylä, Marja-Leena Sorjonen

Characteristics:

- Focus on Finnish language interaction

- Epistemic particles and stance markers

- Psychotherapy and institutional talk

- Cross-linguistic comparison

Best for students who:

- Want to study non-English interaction

- Interested in psychotherapy

- Care about how language structure shapes interaction

Key innovations:

- Finnish particles in interaction (Sorjonen)

- Psychoanalytic therapy as interaction (Peräkylä)

- Incremental units in Finnish (Laury)

The Multimodal/Embodiment Tradition

Key figures: Charles Goodwin, Marjorie Harness Goodwin, Lorenza Mondada, Christian Heath

Characteristics:

- Video as primary data source

- Attention to gesture, gaze, body orientation, material environment

- Often studies work settings or children's interaction

- Influenced by phenomenology and ecological psychology

Key innovations:

- Professional vision (Goodwin) - how experts learn to see

- Embodied participation frameworks (M.H. Goodwin)

- Walking and talking (Mondada)

- Material artifacts in action (Goodwin)

Note: Charles Goodwin passed away in 2018; his loss is deeply felt in the field.

Radical Ethnomethodology: Studies of Work

Key figures: Garfinkel (late career), Michael Lynch, Eric Livingston, Douglas Macbeth

Characteristics:

- Focus on professional practices (science, mathematics, law)

- Phenomenological orientation

- Resistance to "formal analysis" or "theory building"

- Study the "lived work" of practitioners

- Often critical of conversation analysis as too formal

Best for students who:

- Have strong philosophical interests (phenomenology, Wittgenstein)

- Want to study professions and expertise

- Can tolerate ambiguity and resistance to systematization

- Prefer ethnographic immersion over transcript analysis

Key innovations:

- Laboratory studies (Lynch, Latour)

- Mathematics as lived practice (Livingston)

- Classroom pedagogy as natural phenomenon (Macbeth)

Warning: This tradition can be difficult to publish in mainstream journals and hard to get academic jobs in. It's intellectually rich but professionally risky.

EARLY ASSOCIATES AND SECOND GENERATION (1970s-1980s)

Anita Pomerantz

Foundational work on agreement/disagreement

Key contributions:

- Preference organization (why disagreements are delayed/hedged)

- Compliment responses

- Extreme case formulations ("Everyone knows that...")

- Assessments and second assessments

Currently: Teaching and occasional publications; trained multiple generations of students

John Heritage (b. 1949)

The Bridge Builder

Heritage connected CA to sociology and brought CA to institutional settings, especially news interviews and medical encounters.

Key innovations:

- Institutional interaction as systematic transformation of conversation

- Epistemics (knowledge in interaction) - K+ and K- positions

- "Oh" as change-of-state token

- News interview format and neutrality

- Medical question design

Career path: Born in UK, trained at Cambridge, moved to UCLA; now emeritus

Essential reading: Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology (1984) - still the best introduction

Current focus: Medical communication, particularly patient-centered care

Student note: Heritage represents successful bridge between CA and mainstream sociology - published in American Sociological Review, received major grants, influenced health policy.

Paul Drew

Institutional Talk Pioneer

Key contributions:

- Complaint sequences

- Teasing and humor

- Courtroom interaction

- Medical primary care

- Institutional CA methodology

Career: UK-based (York), frequent collaborations with US scholars

Candace West (1949-

Gender and Inequality

Key contributions:

- "Doing Gender" (with Zimmerman) - canonical in gender studies

- Interruptions and gender (with Zimmerman) - controversial but influential

- Medical encounters and gender

- Doctor-patient communication

Legacy: Showed CA could address feminist concerns about power and inequality

CONTEMPORARY LEADING FIGURES (BY SPECIALTY)

Medical Interaction

Douglas W. Maynard (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

- Bad news delivery in medical settings

- Diagnostic interaction

- Survey interviews as social interaction

- "Perspective-display series" - how doctors elicit parents' views before giving diagnosis

Why important: Showed CA has practical applications; influences medical education

Tanya Stivers (UCLA)

- Pediatric consultations

- Parent-child-doctor triadic interaction

- Treatment resistance

- Cross-linguistic comparison (10-language study of repair)

Why important: Bringing CA into comparative linguistics; methodologically innovative

Jeffrey Robinson (UCLA/Portland)

- Patient-centered communication

- Chronic illness interaction

- Action formation in medical settings

Anssi Peräkylä (University of Helsinki)

- Psychotherapy (psychoanalytic)

- Interpretation delivery

- Therapeutic resistance

- Institutional interaction

Why important: Brought CA to psychotherapy; shows how CA can study private, intimate interaction

Political Communication and News Media

Steven Clayman (UCLA)

- Presidential press conferences

- Journalistic neutrality

- Question design in interviews

- Political accountability

Why important: Shows how democratic accountability works (or fails) in actual interaction

David Greatbatch (Loughborough)

- Political speeches

- Applause management

- News interviews

- Business meetings

Workplace and Technology

Lucy Suchman (Lancaster University)

- Human-machine interaction

- Plans vs. situated action (critique of AI)

- Photocopier studies (Xerox PARC)

- Design and ethnography

Why important: Influenced human-computer interaction and design fields; critiqued AI from EM perspective

Christian Heath (King's College London)

- Medical interaction (video)

- Control rooms and collaborative work

- Museums and galleries

- Technology in professional settings

Paul Luff (King's College London)

- Workplace video studies

- Collaborative technology use

- Control rooms

Jack Whalen (Independent)

- Expert systems and troubleshooting

- Customer service calls

- Technical support interaction

- Emergency dispatch (with Zimmerman)

Gender, Sexuality, Identity

Don H. Zimmerman (Emeritus, UC Santa Barbara)

- "Doing Gender" with West

- Emergency calls (911)

- Institutional talk

- Social structure in action

Chase Wesley Raymond (University of Colorado Boulder)

- Singular "they" and non-binary reference

- Epistemics and stance

- Grammar and social action

- Negation in interaction

Why important: Bringing CA to contemporary gender issues; showing how grammar does social work

Kira Hall (University of Colorado Boulder)

- Language and sexuality

- Transgender interaction

- South Asian English

- Gender performance

Membership Categorization Analysis (MCA)

Stephen Hester (Independent)

- Deviance categorization

- Social problems construction

- Category-bound activities

Rod Watson (Telecom Italia, retired)

- Formulations and descriptions

- Ethnomethodology and MCA integration

Elizabeth Stokoe (Loughborough)

- Gender categories

- Racist talk

- Police interrogation

- CARM training method

Why important: Bringing CA findings directly into professional training; major grant funding

Multimodal and Embodied Interaction

Lorenza Mondada (University of Basel)

- Walking and talking

- Mobile interaction

- Multimodal coordination

- Video analysis methodology

Why important: Pushing boundaries of what CA can study; highly innovative methodologically

Charles Goodwin (1943-2018, UCLA)

- Gesture and gaze

- Professional vision

- Aphasia and communication

- Co-operative action

- Material environment

Legacy: Arguably the most important CA researcher of embodied interaction; his death in 2018 was a major loss

Marjorie Harness Goodwin (UCLA)

- Children's social organization

- Games and disputes

- Embodied participation

- Gender in children's interaction

Why important: Founder of CA studies of children; showed children's interaction is as complex and organized as adults'

Cross-Linguistic CA

Makoto Hayashi (Nagoya University, Japan)

- Japanese grammar and interaction

- Projectability in Japanese

- Turn construction

- Comparative syntax

Giovanni Rossi (UCLA/Max Planck Institute)

- Italian and Tzeltal Maya

- Other-initiated repair (cross-linguistic)

- Assistance and recruitment

- Comparative CA methodology

Nick Enfield (University of Sydney)

- Mainland Southeast Asian languages

- Kinship terminology in interaction

- Comparative pragmatics

Jack Sidnell (University of Toronto)

- Guyanese Creole

- Linguistic anthropology and CA

- Comparative interaction

Why important: These scholars are globalizing CA, showing which mechanisms are universal and which are language-specific

Grammar and Interaction (Interactional Linguistics)

Cecilia Ford (University of Wisconsin)

- Grammar as action

- Clause structure in interaction

- Second language learning

Sandra Thompson (UC Santa Barbara, retired)

- English grammar in interaction

- Units and projection

- Syntax emerging from use

Elizabeth Couper-Kuhlen (University of Helsinki, retired)

- Prosody and intonation

- English-German comparison

- Epistemic stance and prosody

Gene Lerner (UC Irvine)

- Compound turn-constructional units

- Collaborative turn completion

- Complex sentences in interaction

Repair and Epistemics

Emanuel Schegloff (UCLA, emeritus)

- Organization of repair

- Preference for self-repair

- Types of repair initiation

- Methodological foundations

Geoffrey Raymond (UC Santa Barbara)

- Epistemics and grammar

- Yes/no question design

- Police encounters

- Type-conforming answers

Recent recognition: ASA EMCA Section award winner

Kobin Kendrick (University of York)

- Other-initiated repair

- Recruitments

- Assistance sequences

Applied CA and Communication Training

Elizabeth Stokoe (Loughborough)

- Conversation Analytic Role-play Method (CARM)

- Police training (interrogation, crisis negotiation)

- Mediation training

- Sales and customer service training

Why important: Secured major funding (£2M+ grants); showing CA's practical value; influencing professional practice

Alison Pilnick (University of Nottingham)

- Genetic counseling

- Pharmacy consultations

- Healthcare communication training

Children and Family

Marjorie Harness Goodwin (UCLA)

- Children's disputes

- Pretend play

- Social organization

- Embodied interaction

Susan Danby (Queensland University of Technology)

- School settings

- Playground disputes

- Children's peer interaction

Amy Kyratzis (UC Santa Barbara)

- Bilingual children

- Peer interaction

- Pretend play

Sally Wiggins (Linköping University)

- Family mealtimes

- Food and eating

- Membership categorization

Discursive Psychology (CA-Adjacent)

Jonathan Potter (Loughborough)

- Fact construction

- Stake and interest

- Rhetoric

- Conversation-analysis-influenced discourse analysis

Derek Edwards (Loughborough)

- Emotion in talk

- Cognition as discursive

- Relationship counseling

- Script formulations

Note: Discursive psychology uses CA methods but is more interested in psychological concepts (emotion, memory, cognition) than interaction itself. Some "pure" CA practitioners are skeptical; others see it as productive extension.

RECENT AWARD WINNERS AND RISING STARS

The American Sociological Association's Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis section gives annual awards. Recent winners represent the field's future:

Geoffrey Raymond (UC Santa Barbara)

- Epistemics

- Police encounters

- Grammar and social action

Jason Turowetz (UC Santa Barbara)

- Autism and diagnostic interaction

- Atypical interaction

- Neurodiversity

Charlotte Klemmensen

- Acquired brain injury

- Atypical interaction

- Integrational linguistics with CA

Other Emerging Scholars to Watch:

Elliott Hoey (Max Planck Institute)

- Embodied orientation

- Pre-beginnings

- Participation framework

Matthew Townsend (independent)

- Negative interrogatives

- Prosody

- Polarity in questions

Chloe Shaw (Loughborough)

- Children's laughter

- Response tokens

- Turn design

Rebecca Clift (University of Essex)

- Stance and positioning

- Grammar and action

- Reported speech

Galina Bolden (Rutgers)

- So-prefaced responses

- Epistemics

- Multimodal analysis

RADICAL ETHNOMETHODOLOGY: THE ALTERNATIVE PATH

Not all ethnomethodology is conversation analysis. A distinct tradition focuses on "studies of work" - how professionals actually do their jobs.

Key Figures

Michael Lynch (Cornell)

- Laboratory studies

- Scientific discovery as practical work

- Legal settings

- Mathematical proof

Eric Livingston (University of New England, Australia)

- Mathematics as lived practice

- Proving theorems as embodied work

- Phenomenological ethnomethodology

Kenneth Liberman (University of Oregon)

- Tibetan monastic debate

- Understanding practice

- Phenomenology and EM

Douglas Macbeth (Ohio State)

- Mathematics classrooms

- Pedagogic natural facts

- Curriculum-in-action

Tim Koschmann (SIU School of Medicine)

- Learning sciences

- Medical instruction

- Joint action

Wes Sharrock (University of Manchester)

- Philosophy and EM

- Social theory critique

- Technology and ethnomethodology

Graham Button (Xerox, various UK institutions)

- Technology design

- Workplace ethnography

- Ethnomethodology and design

Characteristics of Radical EM

- Phenomenological orientation (Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty)

- Resistance to "formal analysis" or systematization

- Focus on "lived work" of practitioners

- Ethnographic immersion over transcript analysis

- Often critical of CA as too removed from lifeworld

- Garfinkel's later work as touchstone

Career Considerations

Pros:

- Intellectually rich, philosophically sophisticated

- Genuine alternative to positivist sociology

- Strong in science and technology studies (STS)

Cons:

- Very difficult to publish in mainstream journals

- Limited job market (few positions specify radical EM)

- Can be intellectually isolating

- Garfinkel's late writing is notoriously difficult

Best for: Students with strong philosophical background who want to study professions, science, or mathematics education, and who have patience for difficult texts

CHOOSING A GRADUATE PROGRAM: STRATEGIC ADVICE

Top-Tier Programs for EM/CA (as of 2024)

1. University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)

- Strengths: Pure CA, methodological rigor, medical interaction, cross-linguistic

- Key faculty: Tanya Stivers, Jeffrey Robinson, Marjorie Goodwin (emeritus: Schegloff, Heritage)

- Best for: Students wanting traditional CA training, medical focus, or cross-linguistic work

- Placement: Strong in research universities; medical schools

2. University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB)

- Strengths: Institutional talk, social structure, theoretical sophistication

- Key faculty: Geoffrey Raymond (Wilson and Zimmerman emeritus)

- Best for: Students wanting to combine CA with sociological substance

- Note: Program smaller since retirements; check current faculty

3. University of Wisconsin-Madison

- Strengths: Medical interaction, survey research, diagnostic settings

- Key faculty: Douglas Maynard

- Best for: Medical sociology, practical applications, bad news delivery

- Placement: Strong in medical sociology positions

4. Loughborough University (UK)

- Strengths: Video analysis, workplace studies, applied CA (CARM)

- Key faculty: Elizabeth Stokoe, Alexa Hepburn

- Best for: Video work, multimodal analysis, applied training research

- Note: UK funding is challenging for US students

5. University of York (UK)

- Strengths: Institutional interaction, intellectual disability, care work

- Key faculty: Paul Drew, Charles Antaki, Kobin Kendrick

- Best for: Care settings, disability studies, institutional CA

6. King's College London

- Strengths: Video analysis, medical settings, technology

- Key faculty: Christian Heath

- Best for: Medical interaction, video methodology, technology in practice

7. University of Helsinki (Finland)

- Strengths: Cross-linguistic CA, Finnish, psychotherapy, epistemics

- Key faculty: Anssi Peräkylä, Marja-Leena Sorjonen (emeritus)

- Best for: Non-English interaction, psychotherapy, European setting

8. Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (Nijmegen, Netherlands)

- Strengths: Comparative CA, cross-linguistic, typology

- Key faculty: Nick Enfield, Giovanni Rossi, Kobin Kendrick

- Best for: Cross-linguistic comparison, linguistic anthropology

- Note: Research institute, not university - different structure

9. University of Basel (Switzerland)

- Strengths: Multimodal, mobility, video analysis

- Key faculty: Lorenza Mondada

- Best for: Cutting-edge multimodal methodology, mobile interaction

10. University of Colorado Boulder

- Strengths: Gender, sexuality, grammar and social action

- Key faculty: Chase Wesley Raymond, Kira Hall

- Best for: Gender studies, contemporary social issues, grammar

Second-Tier Programs (Good but Smaller/Less Established)

- Rutgers University - Galina Bolden (epistemics, multimodal)

- University of Toronto - Jack Sidnell (comparative, Creole)

- University of Sydney - Nick Enfield (comparative, Southeast Asia)

- University of Nottingham - Alison Pilnick (genetic counseling, healthcare)

- Linköping University (Sweden) - Sally Wiggins (food, family interaction)

- Cornell University - Michael Lynch (science studies, radical EM)

- Ohio State University - Douglas Macbeth (radical EM, education)

Programs to Consider for Specific Interests

Medical Interaction:

- UCLA (Stivers, Robinson)

- Wisconsin (Maynard)

- King's College London (Heath)

- Helsinki (Peräkylä)

Institutional/Political:

- UCLA (Clayman)

- York (Drew)

- Wisconsin (Maynard)

Gender/Identity:

- Colorado Boulder (Raymond, Hall)

- UCSB (Raymond)

- Loughborough (Stokoe)

Multimodal/Video:

- Basel (Mondada)

- Loughborough (Heath, Stokoe)

- King's College London (Heath)

- UCLA (Goodwin)

Cross-Linguistic:

- UCLA (Hayashi, Rossi, Stivers)

- Max Planck (Enfield, Rossi, Kendrick)

- Helsinki (Finnish specialists)

Applied CA:

- Loughborough (Stokoe - CARM)

- Nottingham (Pilnick - healthcare training)

Radical EM/Studies of Work:

- Cornell (Lynch)

- Ohio State (Macbeth)

- Manchester (Sharrock) - if still active

What to Look For in a Program

1. Active faculty publication - Check recent CVs; are they still publishing?

2. Student placement - Where do graduates get jobs?

3. Data access - Can you collect recordings? IRB support?

4. Intellectual community - Regular data sessions? Visitors?

5. Funding - Full funding packages? TA/RA support?

6. Fit - Pure CA or applied? Theory or method? Institutional or mundane?

Red Flags

- Only one CA faculty member (what if they leave?)

- Faculty emeritus but not replaced

- No regular data sessions

- Program treats CA as "method" not intellectual tradition

- Hostile senior faculty who don't "believe in" CA

- No recent publications by faculty

- No graduate student publications

CAREER PATHS: WHAT CAN YOU DO WITH EM/CA TRAINING?

Academic Positions (In Order of Commonality)

1. Sociology Departments

- Research universities (R1s)

- Teaching-focused colleges

- Medical sociology

- Social psychology

- Theory/methods

Reality check: Academic job market is extremely difficult. Many PhDs don't get tenure-track jobs. CA training helps (marketable skill) but doesn't guarantee anything.

2. Communication Departments

- Health communication

- Organizational communication

- Interpersonal communication

- Language and social interaction

Note: Communication departments are often more receptive to CA than sociology

3. Medical Schools / Schools of Public Health

- Medical education

- Patient-provider communication

- Healthcare disparities research

- Communication skills training

Growing area: Medical schools increasingly value communication research and training

4. Education Schools

- Classroom interaction

- Learning sciences

- Teacher education

- STEM education

5. Linguistics Departments

- Pragmatics

- Discourse analysis

- Sociolinguistics

- Language acquisition

6. Psychology Departments

- Discursive psychology

- Social psychology

- Developmental psychology (children's interaction)

7. Interdisciplinary Programs

- Science and Technology Studies (STS)

- Gender Studies

- Disability Studies

- Anthropology

Non-Academic Careers

1. Communication Training / Consulting

- Healthcare communication (major growth area)

- Police/law enforcement training

- Customer service / sales training

- Mediation training

- Corporate communication

Model: Elizabeth Stokoe's CARM - using CA findings to train professionals

2. User Experience (UX) Research

- Tech companies

- Design firms

- Product development

- Human-computer interaction

Model: Lucy Suchman's trajectory (Xerox PARC)

3. Market Research

- Focus group analysis

- Interview methods

- Consumer interaction

- Service design

4. Healthcare / Clinical Settings

- Communication specialists in hospitals

- Patient advocate training

- Medical interpreting

- Healthcare quality improvement

5. Government / Policy

- Emergency services (911 optimization)

- Court administration

- Public services improvement

- Legislative process analysis

6. Education / EdTech

- Curriculum design

- Online learning platforms

- Teacher professional development

- Educational assessment

Salary Realities

Academic (Assistant Professor):

- R1 research universities: $65k-$85k starting

- Liberal arts colleges: $55k-$75k

- Medical schools: $75k-$100k+

Non-Academic:

- UX Research: $80k-$130k

- Communication consulting: $60k-$120k (highly variable)

- Healthcare consulting: $70k-$110k

- Tech companies: $90k-$150k+

Reality: Non-academic jobs often pay significantly better than academic positions, especially early career.

ESSENTIAL READING: BUILDING YOUR FOUNDATION

Foundational Texts (Read These First)

1. Harvey Sacks, Lectures on Conversation (Volumes 1 & 2)

   - Dense but essential; the founding vision

2. Harold Garfinkel, Studies in Ethnomethodology (1967)

   - Chapter 1 (breaching experiments)

   - Chapter 5 (Agnes - gender passing)

   - Skip the jury deliberation chapter initially

3. Emanuel Schegloff, "Sequencing in Conversational Openings" (1968)

   - First major CA paper; still readable

4. Harvey Sacks, Emanuel Schegloff, & Gail Jefferson, "A Simplest Systematics for the Organization of Turn-Taking for Conversation" (1974)

   - The turn-taking paper; technical but fundamental

5. John Heritage, Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology (1984)

   - Best introduction to EM; clear and comprehensive

6. Paul ten Have, Doing Conversation Analysis (2nd edition, 2007)

   - Practical guide; excellent for beginners

Key Papers by Topic

Repair:

- Schegloff, Jefferson, & Sacks (1977) "The Preference for Self-Correction"

Preference Organization:

- Pomerantz (1984) "Agreeing and Disagreeing with Assessments"

Sequence Organization:

- Schegloff (2007) Sequence Organization in Interaction

Institutional Talk:

- Heritage & Greatbatch (1991) "On the Institutional Character of Institutional Talk"

- Drew & Heritage (1992) Talk at Work

Epistemics:

- Heritage (2012) "Epistemics in Action"

- Raymond & Heritage (2006) "The Epistemics of Social Relations"

Medical Interaction:

- Maynard (2003) Bad News, Good News (book)

- Heritage & Maynard (2006) Communication in Medical Care

Gender:

- West & Zimmerman (1987) "Doing Gender"

Social Structure:

- Wilson (1991) "Social Structure and Sequential Organization"

- Zimmerman & Boden (1991) "Structure-in-Action"

Methodological Guides

- Sidnell & Stivers (2012) The Handbook of Conversation Analysis

- Sidnell (2010) Conversation Analysis: An Introduction

- Schegloff (2007) Sequence Organization in Interaction

- Pomerantz & Fehr (1997) "Conversation Analysis: An Approach to the Study of Social Action as Sense Making Practices"

KEY JOURNALS: WHERE TO PUBLISH AND READ

Tier 1 - CA/EM Specialty Journals:

1. Research on Language and Social Interaction (ROLSI)

   - Premier CA journal

   - Rigorous peer review

   - Mix of mundane and institutional interaction

2. Journal of Pragmatics

   - Broader pragmatics journal but lots of CA

   - More linguistic orientation

   - International scope

3. Discourse Studies

   - CA, discourse analysis, multimodality

   - Interdisciplinary readership

4. Text & Talk

   - Conversation analysis, discourse, sociolinguistics

   - Walter de Gruyter press

Tier 2 - Sociology Journals that Publish CA:

5. Social Psychology Quarterly

   - ASA social psychology section journal

   - Publishes CA work on interaction

6. Symbolic Interaction

   - Interactionist tradition

   - Receptive to ethnomethodology

7. Human Studies

   - Phenomenology and ethnomethodology

   - More philosophical

8. Sociology

   - British Sociological Association journal

   - Publishes CA, especially British scholars

Tier 3 - Interdisciplinary Journals:

9. Social Studies of Science

   - STS journal

   - Publishes radical EM, workplace studies

10. Communication Monographs / Communication Theory

    - Communication discipline

    - Health communication, organizational communication

11. Applied Linguistics

    - Second language acquisition, classroom interaction

12. Sociology of Health & Illness

    - Medical interaction, healthcare communication

Top-Tier General Journals (Rare CA Publications):

- American Sociological Review - Heritage has published here

- American Journal of Sociology - Occasionally publishes CA

- Annual Review of Sociology - Review articles

Student Tip: Start with ROLSI, Journal of Pragmatics, and Discourse Studies. These are the core CA outlets and where your reviewers will be knowledgeable and fair.

PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS AND CONFERENCES

American Sociological Association (ASA)

Section: Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis

- Annual meeting sessions (August)

- Section awards (student paper, book, career achievement)

- Newsletter and networking

- Relatively small section (~300 members) - easy to connect

Why attend: Network with North American scholars, present work, job market

International Conference on Conversation Analysis (ICCA)

- Held every 4 years

- Large international gathering (500+ attendees)

- Last: 2022 (Mannheim); Next: 2026 (TBD)

- Multiple parallel sessions, workshops, social events

Why attend: THE major international CA conference; essential for serious scholars

International Institute for Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis (IIEMCA)

- Annual workshop (usually July)

- Intensive week-long data sessions

- Small, intimate (50-100 people)

- Held in different locations

Why attend: Deep engagement with data; learning from senior scholars; building research networks

National Communication Association (NCA)

Division: Language and Social Interaction (LSI)

- Annual meeting (November)

- More communication-oriented

- Health communication, interpersonal, organizational

Why attend: If interested in communication departments or applied work

International Pragmatics Association (IPrA)

- Biennial conference (odd years)

- Very international, very large

- Broader pragmatics, includes CA

Regional Conferences

- Western States Communication Association (WSCA)

- International Communication Association (ICA)

- Various European national associations

DATA COLLECTION: PRACTICAL REALITIES

What Counts as Data?

Gold Standard: Audio or video recordings of naturally occurring interaction

"Naturally occurring" means:

- Not staged, simulated, or role-played

- Not elicited by researcher (no experimental manipulation)

- Would have happened anyway without researcher presence

- Participants doing "real" activity, not performing for researcher

Acceptable data types:

- Phone calls (with consent)

- Medical consultations

- Classroom interaction

- Workplace meetings

- Family dinners (if naturally occurring)

- Emergency calls (public records in some jurisdictions)

- News broadcasts (public)

- Court proceedings (public)

NOT acceptable:

- Research interviews (these are research-generated)

- Focus groups

- Lab experiments

- Role-play scenarios

- Retrospective accounts

IRB Challenges

Reality check: Getting recordings of interaction is increasingly difficult due to IRB restrictions, especially in medical settings.

Strategies:

- Start building relationships with research sites early

- Budget time for IRB process (6-12 months)

- Consider public data (broadcasts, court proceedings)

- Look for existing corpora (ask faculty)

- International data collection (some countries easier than US)

Programs with good data access are more valuable - ask about this when choosing schools

Technical Skills Needed

- Audio recording and editing (Audacity, Adobe Audition)

- Video recording and editing (iMovie, Adobe Premiere, Final Cut)

- Transcription software (ELAN, Praat for phonetics)

- Basic statistics (for applied work, grant writing)

- Presentation software (creating compelling video presentations)

CONCLUSION: IS EM/CA RIGHT FOR YOU?

You'll Thrive in EM/CA If You:

- Love working with actual data (recordings) more than abstractions

- Have patience for detail and repeated listening/viewing

- Enjoy discovering patterns through close observation

- Value empirical evidence over theoretical elegance

- Can tolerate intellectual isolation (small field)

- Want to build cumulative knowledge

- Care more about "how" questions than "why" questions

- Find social interaction itself inherently fascinating

Warning Signs This Isn't For You:

- Need to theorize before observing

- Uncomfortable with ambiguity and openness

- Want quick results and publications

- Prefer large datasets and statistics

- Find transcription tedious

- Care mainly about policy implications or social justice outcomes (though CA can address these, it's indirect)

- Need your field to be prestigious or well-understood

The Honest Truth About EM/CA Careers

Pros:

- Intellectually rigorous and satisfying

- Cumulative research program with real progress

- Skills are marketable (both academic and non-academic)

- International community is welcoming and supportive

- Small field means easier to make connections

- Growing applications (medical, legal, design)

Cons:

- Academic job market is terrible (like all of sociology)

- Field is small - limited positions

- Can be intellectually isolating at many universities

- Methods-intensive (data collection, transcription extremely time-consuming)

- IRB challenges for data access

- Theoretical minimalism can feel limiting

- Not prestigious in broader sociology

Bottom line: Do EM/CA because you love the work itself - studying how people actually accomplish interaction. Don't do it for job security, prestige, or easy publication. The field rewards intellectual honesty, empirical rigor, and patience more than cleverness or theoretical sophistication.

If you're genuinely fascinated by how people coordinate turns, repair trouble, display understanding, manage knowledge, organize openings and closings, negotiate identities, and accomplish all the other intricate work of social interaction - and if you have the patience to listen to recordings hundreds of times to discover these things - then EM/CA might be your intellectual home.

The scholars listed in this guide have spent careers demonstrating that mundane social interaction is anything but mundane - it's a phenomenally complex, beautifully organized, endlessly fascinating domain. If that vision speaks to you, welcome to the conversation.

About This Guide:

This overview was created by compiling information from multiple sources including academic publications, university websites, and professional organization materials. It represents the landscape as of late 2024. Programs and faculty positions change; always verify current information before making decisions. For corrections or additions, contact your institution's EM/CA faculty.

Acknowledgments:

Thanks to the generations of scholars who built this field and to those who continue pushing it forward. Special recognition to Harvey Sacks, whose vision initiated everything.

For Students:

Use this as a starting point, not gospel. Talk to current graduate students, read scholars' work directly, attend conferences if possible, and follow your intellectual passion wherever it leads.