Humor plays a significant role in the personal interactions of our everyday lives. Studies of workplace humor are far reaching, discussing the multiple important functions humor plays at work. Of particular significance in these studies is that humor is context dependent. How humor functions in law enforcement, particularly within specialty areas that are exposed to high stress and psychologically threatening work conditions, has been neglected. This study examines the functions of humor within the arena of crime scene investigators. Semi-structured in-depth interviews revealed that humor functioned within group dynamics. Humor served to reduce stress so that job tasks could be completed, and it was also used as a barometer of the investigators' negotiation of the emotional burdens of such work.

Within work settings, humor is used by workers for a wide variety of purposes. This study examines humor applications of a specific type of worker in a unique work context: crime scene investigation. Crime scene investigators examine death and its details. Members of crime scene units observe death much more frequently than other police officers and they encounter extremely graphic and violent sensory and mental images. Within this unique work context, humor resides. This study helps human resource development practitioners understand the purposeful application of humor in a specific work context. This increased understanding can help them to interpret humor applications and to use humor in their workplaces to achieve individual and organizational goals.

In this article, authors Matthew Wolfgram, Brian Vivona, and Tamanna Akram present a comparative case study analysis of five students from a comprehensive, urban Hispanic-Serving Institution whose experiences exemplify a coordination of intersectional factors that amplify barriers to internship participation. Research shows that college internships yield academic, economic, and professional benefits. However, the opportunity to locate and participate in internships is not equal across student demographic and socioeconomic contexts. There are multiple complex barriers to internship participation for students who are socially and institutionally minoritized by race, gender, and other contextual factors, including finances, work responsibilities, travel, and gendered familial obligations. These factors intersect with systems of power and privilege to amplify challenges and foreclose futures. The authors argue that the delineation of barriers into types alone, such as financial, social, and cultural, without additional analysis of the dynamics of how such barriers intersect and amplify, runs the risk of misconstruing students’ actual experiences when they struggle to access internships and other educational opportunities.

In order for joking to actually have a function in the workplace, it must have a forum. There are many pieces of empirical research on humour in the workplace, however the notion of the appropriateness of joking behaviour is often overlooked. The time, place, and circumstances of when joking does or does not occur is related to the situated and contextual nature of humour and issues linked to the private/public domain often will delineate when humour is acceptable or not. When, where, and, most importantly, the permission to joke is important to the understanding of the functional nature of humour. In order to gain an understating of how workers understand the notion of appropriateness, a qualitative study of a very unusual group of workers, crime scene investigators, was undertaken. Tacit personal and organisational belief systems related to culture and learned normative behaviours help determine when and where joking is allowed or forbidden.

Crime scene investigators (CSIs) are subjected to many complexities of working in a context of death, trauma and tragedy. They experience this context in a more intimate manner than any other member of the criminal justice community. Within these challenging work settings in which human lives have ended, humor can emerge as crime scene investigators attend to their tasks. The research question this study addressed is “How is humor used to negotiate work experiences and make meaning from working in a context that includes death, trauma and tragedy?” CSIs were interviewed and provided narratives from their lived experiences regarding humor during their challenging work. Humans often use storytelling to frame and construct meaning of their lived experiences. For the CSI, the telling and retelling of stories of laughter and stories of tears has several individual and organizational outcomes, including group socialization, negotiating the stresses of the work and meaning making.