This study examines the cultural climate of successful groups in online undergraduate sociology courses that developed social contracts aimed at fostering positive group work experiences and academic achievement. An analysis of participants' group assessment papers investigated the most important attributes of group cultures with congenial work…

There is considerable long-term interest in understanding the dynamics of collaboration networks, and how these networks form and evolve over time. Most of the work done on the dynamics of social networks focuses on well-established communities. Work examining emerging social networks is rarer, simply because data are difficult to obtain in real…

This article explores how assemblage and affect theories can enable research into the formation of a collective working-class identity, inclusive of written, print, publication, and organizational literacies through the origins of the Federation of Worker Writer and Community Publishers, an organization that expanded its collectivity as new…

This study was constructed as a qualitative analysis to understand how racial attitudes are socialized within members of traditionally White fraternities through a critical examination of participants' narratives on race. Narratives from seven participants were presented to identify five subcategories which were divided into two major themes for…

Research on bullying has confirmed that social identity processes and group-based emotions are pertinent to children's responses to bullying. However, such research has been done largely with child participants, has been quantitative in nature, and has often relied on scenarios to portray bullying. The present paper departs from this methodology…

Research has shown that educators may be reluctant to implement group work in their teaching due to concerns about students partaking in off-task behaviours. However, such off-task interactions have been shown to promote motivation, trust, and rapport-building. This paper details a study in which student groups were video recorded as they engaged…

Groups with a strong sense of collective efficacy set more challenging goals, persist in the face of difficulty, and are ultimately more likely to succeed than groups who do not share this belief. Given the many advantages that may accrue to groups who are confident, it would be logical to advise groups to build a high level of collective efficacy…

The group's absence norm, a construct from the applied psychology literature, was used to examine session absences in personal growth groups. Rather than examining the absence norm statically, we modeled it dynamically as a time-varying covariate (Tasca et al., 2010). We also examined moderation by modeling the interaction of the absence norm and…

Reviews literature concerning newcomers in groups in different settings. Presents a general model examining factors felt to be important for successful assimilation in group psychotherapy, i.e., overcoming resistance to join group, clarifying group process, examining client's in-group behavior, and confirming client's expectations. (BH)

The study investigated the relationship between group process training and group effectiveness. Statistical tests of the data revealed (1) significantly greater distribution of participation, (2) a significantly smaller percentage of self oriented contributions and a higher proportion of group oriented contributions and (3) significantly higher…

A class originally is a group of individuals. With a skilled teacher-leader, the non-voluntary nature of membership in the group can be overcome, equality of members achieved, and common goals determined. Techniques important to successful group formation include tone setting, structuring, blocking, linking, supporting, reflecting, and…

Describes how teachers can help children feel included, connected, and valued, explaining that the family is the child's first and most important group, and children learn the rules of social interaction from primary relationships with adults. As children play, they learn and formulate their own social rules. Teachers can provide structured,…

Nursing staff members (34) who participated in a 15-week group therapy course as a form of training for more personal effectiveness were observed during the meetings in order to verify assumed relationships between behavior in the group and member reactions to the group sessions afterwards. Five of the ten hypotheses were clearly, and three…

Status hierarchies typically emerge when groups of strangers interact. Relatively little work tests explanations for this process in homogenous groups, and the majority has been conducted in intragroup settings. We test an expectation-states explanation in an intergroup context using the multilevel application of the actor-partner interdependence…

Group members tend to like other members of their own group more than members of groups to which they do not belong. This paper focuses on some of the initial determinants of this own-group preference and on the isolation of factors which increase or decrease it. The major finding appears to be that the mere anticipation of cooperation or…