COM 597 Reading Guide Questions for June 7 - Irwin Mallin, IPFW Communication

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COM 597, Summer 2007 – Reading Guide Questions for June 7

For Harrison and Morrill (2004):

1. p. 319: So what exactly is an ombudsperson? Have you had an ombudsperson anywhere you’ve worked or gone to school or at any organizations of which you’ve been a member?

2. pp. 319-320: And what exactly is reconciliation? What is its relationship to forgiveness?
What’s the link between reconciliation and the three goals?

3. pp. 320-321: What do the authors mean by social context? Why is it significant for the study of conflict? What’s the distinction between uniplex and multiplex ties? Why is it significant for the study of conflict? Merry’s distinction between ending and continuing relationships? What’s its significance for the study of conflict? Which of the three goals is emphasized most in these concepts?

4. pp. 322-323: In your own words, what is normative pragmatics? How does their discussion of active listening v. interrogation illustrate the utility of normative pragmatics for studying conflict processes?

5. pp 324-326: What are their research questions? How did they gather data? From whom? About what specifically?

6. p. 327: Did the students tend to share the ombudsperson’s goal of reconciliation? How
do you account for that?.......

7. p. 328: ........And how do the authors account for that? Does that make sense? How does the student-professor relationship differ in the regard to other relationships? Landlord – tenant? Employer-employee? Romantic partners?

8. bot, p. 328-mid p. 329: The authors identify four elements of the ombuds process and then note contradiction between the university’s goal of fairness and justice and the ombudsperson’s goal of relationship reconciliation. Which goal is better served by these four features? Why? Is that appropriate? To what extent was the ombudsperson able to enact the goal of reconciliation? What prevented it?

9. mid p. 329: What tended to happen when the disputants had face-to-face interaction? How do the authors account for that?

10. bot. p. 329 - top p. 330: What was the result of the ombudsperson allowing the participants to dictate the subject matter?

11. bottom p. 330 - top p.331: Explain Nader and Todd’s distinction among grievance, conflict, and disputes? How does it compare to Felsteiner, Abel, and Sarat’s? What does it mean here to say that these disputes “bypassed the conflict state and progressed immediately to the dispute stage?” Why is that significant?

12. Case 14 (pp: 331-332): What are the student’s 3 goals in this case? What features do the authors identify that made relational maintenance successful in this case?

13. Case 8 (pp. 332- 333): What are the student’s 3 goals in this case? How is the ombudsperson approach different here than in case 14? Why would it be successful?

14. Case 17 (p. 333): What are the students 3 goals here? What did the ombudsperson do? Why would that be successful?

15. Case 43 (p. 334): Students 3 goals here? Was justice & fairness achieved? Was reconciliation achieved? What factors lead to those results?

16. p. 335: So what do the authors agree is the link between a dispute system’s design and its goals? What examples do they use to back this up? What would you choose as the goals of a dispute system at IPFW? (Reconciliation? Justice & fairness? Both? Something else?) How would you design it?

17. p. 336: How do the authors suggest fixing the system studied here to enhance reconciliation? Do you agree?

18. p. 337: What questions do the authors suggest be asked about the disputes regarding relationships and about how to use the answers to those questions? Do you agree?

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