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Hi and welcome to the lecture for Chapter Five, "Diversity." Over the next several slides
we'll have a meaningful discussion about what diversity is and how it functions inside the
small group. Let's get going. So, first off, let's go ahead and start with the definition.
When we talk about diversity, what we're talking about is differences among group members,
and this can range from personality to learning style to cultural background to even differences
of opinion. As we progress through the next few slides, our goal is to be looking at the
way these things function inside the group and try to gain some insights and ideas at
how these can actually be utilized and seen as a net-benefit to group interaction. So,
first a couple of definitionary things. Homogeneity versus heterogeneity. When we talk about homogeneity,
what we're talking about is groups composed of members who share a wide variety of member
characteristics, right? So these are the groups that are very similar to one another. This
can be contrasted with heterogeneous groups, which are groups composed of members who are
very different in a variety of different dimensions. In the next slides, we're going to get an
idea as to what those dimensions are, but keep in mind just here at the outset that
most of the research we talk about in this book and in our class shows that groups that
are more heterogeneous--that have differences between them--tend to be more successful.
While, albeit, there can be more of a struggle during the earlier phases of group development,
in the long run the differences that the group members bring with them can ultimately act
as a benefit to the group members. So, a couple things to consider inside of that. First,
as we already discussed, heterogeneous groups can be more effective, right? There's a strong
link here between increased skills and effectiveness. But the second thing here is, as we discuss
these concepts in the next few chapters, understand that any discussion of diversity requires
a little bit of generalization to gain insights and ideas as to how different dimensions of
diversity function inside of the group. Now, know that not all members of any group are
going to fit that mold. Right? While we might say that individuals that have more active
learning styles tend to function in a given way, it isn't going to be true that everyone
that might fit inside that category. And in fact, the reality is that there is no perfect
peg for a perfect hole anywhere out there and in fact we are all different and unique.
It's the benefits of those differences that we're trying to focus on here. All right,
so, one of the key differences that we can talk about in diversity inside groups are
some of the key reasons as to why people join groups. And in this course, what we tend to
do is divide a line between task-oriented individuals and relationally-oriented individuals.
Your task-oriented individuals are individuals that focus on having control of the achievement
goals and believe that, in general, the group's main focus is accomplishing those goals that
they set out, right? This is the individual that's like, "We're here in a group and we're
here to get work done." This is contrasted with relationally-oriented individuals. These
are individuals that, while they might tertiarily care about the task focus of the group, are
more interested in the relationships and the connections made with other people inside
of the groups. For groups to be effective, it's good to have a wide variety of both task-oriented
and relationally-oriented individuals inside the group. The reason for this is that, if
a group is too task-oriented, ultimately that is going to lead to relational breakdown,
and when conflict comes around it's going to be really, really bad. Whereas relationally-oriented
individuals tend to have more insight as to how to deal with those things. On the flipside,
if you had all relationally-oriented individuals, chances are you might spend a lot of time
hanging out and enjoying company--not a whole lot of time actually getting the tasks the
group has before them done. So a mix tends to be better in these two individuals. So,
the next thing that we can talk about as a dimension of diversity is a diversity of learning
styles. There's a lot of different learning styles out there, but some of the key ones
that we can talk about are as follows. If someone was to be categorized in the Concrete-Experience
learning style, this is an individual that learns best by actively participating and
doing things, right? This is the hands-on experience, not just explaining things but
following along with the explanation, right? You're explaining something, I'm doing it--okay,
now it makes sense. This can be contrasted to the Reflective-Observation style that is
going to participate to a certain extent, but is more interested in kind of hanging
back, listening, thinking about that, and reflecting on that. Now, a lot of people get
these ones confused but this is different than the Abstract-Conceptualization. The Abstract-Conceptualization
learning style speaks to individuals that tend to learn better in solitude. Not as participatory
in the group, or even observing in the group but tend to like to withdraw, study, and gain
understanding on their own. Again, a little bit different inside of this is the final
learning style, which is Active-Experimentation. This is the individual that doesn't want the
lecture, doesn't want to read the instructions, wants to dive right in, figure out what works
and what doesn't work. Now, while you might find yourself drifting towards one of the
categories more so, don't be worried, because people tend to kind of move in and out of
these learning styles to a certain reflective amount as they engage in the process of exploring
new information. All right, the next thing we can talk about in terms of dimensions of
diversity is diversity of culture. When we talk about cultural diversity, what we're
interested in is how individuals beliefs, morals, values, background, and shared identification
to a group ultimately changes the individual's perspective. As we talked about way back in
the first one--in the first lecture, the importance of groups in our lives--is the primary group--our
first primary group, our family group--has a large and fundamental impact on who and
what we are. Even more than this is that growing up in a given culture allows people different
ways of communication, different ways of thinking, and different values.Having these differences
with each other ultimately can allow us to bring new ideas and new perspectives on seeing
things differently, which can, in the long run, definitely benefit. Diversity of sex
and gender is our next dimension of diversity worth discussing. But before we dive too deep
in this, I think it's important to separate the difference between gender and sex, because
one of these things we're interested in and one of these things we're less interested
in in this chapter. So, when we talk about gender, or somebody's gender, what we're talking
about here are the learned characteristics of masculinity and femininity. What this means
is that the types of attitudes and interactions that we engage upon, which are social constructs
in our society. Basically, these are things that are learned through norms inside culture
and have no biological reason that they exist in the way that they are. This is contrasted
by sex, which is the inherent biological characteristics of maleness and femaleness of which people
are born. And this is something that is determined by chromosomes, though even then it's not
always simple as we start to look at the nuance of this and people that are born inter-sexed,
and different levels inside of here. So even this might not be as black and white as we
try to pretend it to be. But the thing here is that sex is not linked to communication
style. There is nothing in the massive body of research that says men communicate one
way and females communicate another way based on their biology. It is all based on learned
characteristics of what it means to be masculine or what it means to be feminine inside of
that. And so, as we experience this, and we engage in diversity of sex and gender in the
group, this can ultimately lead to different approaches in terms of engaging with one another,
different reflections on how we communicate, and so forth. But again, keep in mind: focused
on gender here and not biological sex. All right, the next definition of diversity that
we're interested in is generational diversity, specifically how individuals from different
generations tend to communicate differently based on their lived experience. And so, for
the most part what we look at here, is sets of different time periods ranging from 1901
all the way up to the 1990s at this point, and different characteristics that we tend
to associate with these generational differences. So, briefly, the group of individuals born
between 1901 and 1945 are commonly referred to as "The Builders" generation. Now, these
are individuals that were heavily influenced by the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl in
the United States, as well as World War I and World War II. So we saw a lot of differences
inside of that, periods of scarcity...dealing with that scarcity ultimately impacted that
experience. This generation gave way to "The Boomers" generation, which took place for
individuals born between 1946 and 1964. These are individuals that were heavily influenced
by the growth of media, television, and more specifically the social upheaval and cultural
revolution that took place in the 1960s. The Boomers gave way to the "Generation Xers,"
which were born between '65 and '76. This was influenced by governmental failures and
corruption and general mistrust of "the man." Finally, this led to the most currently named
generation, which is the "Net Generation." These are individuals that were born between
1977 and 1997, which includes probably a lot of individuals that are currently enrolled
in college at this point. This is a group of individuals that were heavily influenced
by computers and technology, the digital revolution, and having access to information fairly easily
inside of this. We're still kind of waiting to see what the next generation takes place
inside of that and what, ultimately, it's going to be but I suspect it will be an evolution
of the Net-Generation into something even more technologically savvy and connected.
So, now that we have some ideas about the differences and dimensions of diversity, let's
talk a little bit about working with diversity and bridging those differences. One of the
most important concepts as we talk about this is remaining mindful in our communication
strategies. You ultimately cannot address diversity in a meaningful way unless you do
this. So, mindful communication is a type of communication approach which ultimately
just involves being open to multiple perspectives, being willing to see the world from others'
viewpoint, and shifting perspective as necessary to be able to gain insight and understanding
into the lived experience of others. Ultimately, as you get better at practicing mindful communication,
it becomes easier to see diversity as a net-benefit as opposed to something that has to be "addressed"
and "dealt with" inside group functioning. So, a couple of principles I want to leave
you with as we wrap up this chapter's discussion on diversity. The biggest and most obvious
one, perhaps, is value diversity. There tends to be a lot of approaches to diversity that
see that there is like diversity problems and issues, and I think a lot of that can
be bridged by saying that diversity is something that is useful to the group, that will allow
groups to be more complete, more adaptive to changing situations, and ultimately will
present better perspectives for others. That being said, don't try to mask diversity and
mask differences inside the group and is something that just has to be socialized and assimilated
out. Acknowledge differences; discuss these differences, discuss how it presents you challenges,
but also be willing to discuss the ways these differences might be beneficial to the group.
Talk about how you could use those differences to be effective, to be successful and to ultimately
embrace them. Try to develop a group culture and identity that is based on highlighting
those differences and ultimately, continue to work to become collectively competent in
the communication that allows you to bridge those differences and understand the perspective
of the other. All right, that wraps our discussion for this chapter. Once again, thank you for
watching. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at one of the
variety of methods that is made available to you.