Chapter 8

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Teaching Resources

Chapter 8

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Discussion Questions

1) Do you agree that the CR group is a “contested” archetype?  Does it still have cultural relevance?

  • Think about some groups that you have been part of that helped shape the way you think about who you are today (potential examples include families, sports teams, church groups,  fraternities/sororities, community or activist organizations, etc.).
  • What made these groups important to your own identity?
  • Do these groups have anything in common with CR groups?  If so, what?

2) What is the difference between group norms and group member roles? What is an example of a norm that is important in a group you are part of? How does your group influence members to adhere to that norm?

3) How well do the socialization paths described in Figure 8.1 fit with your own experiences in groups?

4) Does your family have any stories or inside jokes that are told over and over again? Does this happen in your group of friends or in some other group you are part of?

  • What happens when group members share these stories or jokes?  How do other people respond?
  • How well does the discussion of symbolic convergence fit with your experience?

Section Activities

CR Groups Exercise

These documents provide a basic outline for an exercise related to Consciousness Raising Groups that can be completed in discussion sections, or in the larger class, around the time you will be covering Chapter 8. It revolves around discussions about how LGBT people and their friends and family deal with the process of coming out of the closet. The Word document below provides a description of the exercise, information for instructors and students, and discussion questions for students. The Powerpoint document provides handouts and slides covering the basic Embedded System Framework and a form of that framework describing the formation of group norms, symbols, and identity.

Classroom Activities

1) Socialization

Ask students to look up “Noogler” online and describe what the term means and what it says about the socialization into an organization like Google. (In addition to dictionary definitions, there are several blog posts from Google interns and new employees that describe their experiences.) Students could write a short reflection paper or prepare a brief presentation to the class on this topic.

Questions to consider:

  • How do small work groups within Google help socialize newcomers into the organizational norms?
  • How does this relate to your own experience as a newcomer to a group?

2) Influence, Conformity, and Deviance

Student groups should analyze the following scenario and offer feedback to the group members on how to address

Scenario

SafeSpace is a student-run organization that is dedicated to providing assistance to homeless, abused, or neglected kids in your local community.  It’s a relatively small organization, and it is guided by the actions of the leadership team.  SafeSpace’s leadership team is made up of Leo, Francine, T. J., Amelia, and Kevin.  Leo is the president of the organization and he is very well organized.  He has an agenda for every meeting, he rarely deviates from the agenda, and he insists of having very formal voting procedures for each decision that the leadership team makes.  Leo’s leadership style is very directive, and upon observation, it seems to you that it is not working well with this group.

Even though the rest of the leadership team is highly skilled and committed to the cause of helping kids in need, Francine and Amelia often seem discouraged by Leo’s command of the group. They have begun to get together outside of the formal team meetings to vent about Leo and second-guess decisions that were made at the meetings. T. J. typically follows along and does what Leo asks and describes himself as “a pretty laid back guy.” But, even T.J. has recently grumbled to Kevin that he thinks Leo is an overbearing jerk, and Kevin has said he’s not sure whether it’s worth his time to continue being part of the leadership team.

Leo sometimes seems frustrated with the other group members.  He gets angry when people don’t take on responsibilities he wants to give them. He also doesn’t understand why the other team members don’t speak up in meetings. Leo worries that he is losing control of the team and he wants to know what he can do to get everyone on board with SafeSpace’s overarching goal to make a difference in the lives of needy local kids.

Questions

  • What kinds of norms have developed in this group?
  • What evidence of conformity and deviance do you see in this scenario?
  • What means of group influence (see Table 8.1) has Leo been using with this group?  What is the result?
  • What feedback would you offer to this group?  Be as specific and constructive as possible

3) Social identity and inter-group conflict

Show part of the movie Remember the Titans (2000) and ask students to analyze the ways in which social identity and inter-group conflict are present in the football team. Students can use the model provided in Figure 8.2 to aid their analysis.

Questions for students to respond to include:

  • What social identities are most salient to the members of this football team?
  • Do you see examples of de-individuation, prototyping, and stereotyping?  Explain these examples.
  • How does this group successfully resolve their intergroup conflicts? Refer back to Figure 8.2 in your textbook to answer this question.
  • What do we learn about identity from this group that could be useful for other groups?

4) Identity, conflict, and public dialogue

Have students peruse the website for the Public Conversations Project (http://publicconversations.org/) and/or the Public Dialogue Consortium (http://www.publicdialogue.org/) to get an understanding of how these organizations engage groups of people in dialogue about controversial issues. This exploration can be done in class as a large-group discussion, or it could be done in smaller groups as an in-class (if the technology is available) or as a homework assignment.

Questions to address in the exploration:

  1. How does this organization design dialogue events?  Who comes to the events? How many people come? What do they do when they are there?
  2. What is the communication supposed to be like in these forums?  Why?
  3. What is the role of social identity groups in the design and facilitation of these programs?
  4. What is the goal or desired outcome for these dialogues?
  5. How do the efforts of these organizations help us understand issues of social identity, conflict, and relational communication in groups?

Note

The organizations share similar goals, but have different approaches to organizing events and creating opportunities for dialogue. The Public Conversations Project (PCP)explicitly brings two distinct social identity groups together to talk about the issue that is most divisive for them. The Public Dialogue Consortium (PDC) offers more varied programming that is open to a variety of community members.

Contrasting these organizations’ approaches to group dialogue might be interesting to help students synthesize some of the concepts from the chapter. However, in some ways the PCP’s model is a more clear application of social identity theory, the contact hypothesis, and inter-group conflicts. So, it might also be useful to have students look closely at PCP by exploring their website and answering the questions above, and then instructors can use PDC as a comparative example in class discussion.