ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the lived character of role within multidisciplinary team practice. The concept of 'role', whilst relatively stable, can be viewed as being developed and promoted within the human sciences through a number of identifiable traditions. As an interactional device and resource, the chapter considers role as a means through which members practically, and locally accomplish, a sense of social order. Social psychological versions of role theory also advance the claim that an individual's psychological characteristics can be predicated via attention to their social position and/or context. The chapter explores the discursive and interactional characteristics of role as a situated members device. The notion of Team Leadership is one that has been outlined in some detail, particularly with respect to some of the textual accounts of professional roles within a team. The Team Leader is in charge of co-ordinating and allocating work to different members of the team.
