Dvora Yanow
Professor
Department of Public Affairs & Administration
California State University, East Bay
Hayward, CA 94542 US
tel. +1 510 885-3253
fax +1 510 885-3726
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Dvora Yanow (Ph.D., 1982, Planning, Policy, and Organizational Studies, M.I.T., Department of Urban Studies and Planning) teaches and conducts research in two substantive areas, public policy and organizational studies, as well as in the philosophy of social science and interpretive research methods.
An organizational and policy anthropologist, her research focuses on interpretive approaches to policy and organizational analysis, guided by an overall interest in the communication of meaning in policy and organizational settings. In a policy context she is particularly interested in immigration and race-ethnic related policies. In organizational studies, she has focused on organizational learning (from a collective, practice-based perspective), organizational culture, and organizational diagnosis. In addition to publishing in these areas, she has written on interpretive policy analysis, organizational metaphors, organizational and policy myths, race-ethnic category-making, passionate humility in administrative practice, and how built spaces communicate policy and organizational meanings, among other topics. Her books include How Does a Policy Mean? Interpreting Policy and Organizational Actions (Georgetown University Press, 1996); Conducting Interpretive Policy Analysis (Sage, 2000); and Constructing "Race" and "Ethnicity" in America: Category-making in Public Policy and Administration (M. E. Sharpe, 2003. winner of the first "Best Book" prize awarded by the Section on Public Administration Research of the American Society for Public Administration), and the co-edited Knowing in Practice (M.E. Sharpe, forthcoming July 2003). Interpretation and Method: Empirical Research Methods and the "Interpretive Turn," co-edited with Peregrine Schwartz-Shea, is forthcoming in the Spring, 2005 (M E Sharpe).
Professor Yanow received the first "Breaking the Frame" award (1993) given by the editors of the Journal of Management Inquiry for the best paper in its first two years of publication, for the essay "Culture and Organizational Learning" (together with her co-author). She has also been honored with invitations to serve as Opponent on a dissertation defense at Lund University (Sweden) and as external examiner for dissertations at universities in Australia and Finland. She was named a Fulbright Senior Lecturer/Researcher in Spain for 1994/1995 (although she had to decline the honor) and a 1994 Fellow of the Erasmus Ascension Symposium on "The limits of pluralism" by the Stichting Praemium Erasmianum (Amsterdam).
She has also conducted training workshops in organizational diagnosis and policy analysis for mid-career administrators and consulted to public, private, and nonprofit organizations on questions of organizational design, organizational culture and learning, and program evaluation. Her most recent consultancies have been to the State of California's Administrative Office of the Courts and to Pew Charitable Trusts for an evaluation of the Pew Fellowships in the Arts program.
When not researching, writing or in the classroom, she reads mysteries, practices the violin/fiddle, piano, and hand percussion, and sings, grows tomatoes, folk dances, and walks a 14-minute mile.
Recent and selected articles
Essays
Book links (informational flyers)
Constructing
"Race" and "Ethnicity" in America:
Category-Making
in Public Policy and Administration
Knowing in Organizations: A Practice-Based Approach
Methods workshop and reference
list
Workshop
in Interpretive Research Methods in Empirical Political Science
(Western Political Science Association, March 2003, Denver)
Course syllabi