Group Development in a High School Adjustment Seminar
by Nubra Elaine Floyd
Abstract
Bion’s concept of psychodynamic group process and Bennis and Shepard’s theory of group development are applied to data gathered during participant observation of an ongoing seminar group consisting of five ninth-graders in academic difficulty. All were of Afro-American descent, as was the group’s primary facilitator. Events noted over the life of the group that suggested phasic development are discussed in terms of the theory, and an alternative perspective is offered on the “dilemma” of the Black woman in authority.
Full Text
Group Development in a High School Adjustment Seminar
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AUTHOR’S NOTE: The author was a postdoctoral fellow at Yale’s Institution For Social and Policy Studies and was supported by a grant from the Josiah Macy Foundation, while the experimental group described in this article was being conducted. Requests for reprints may be addressed to the author at Second Saturday Network, Post Office Box 8347, Santa Cruz, California, 95061.
SMALL GROUP BEHAVIOR, vol 20, no 3, August 1989, 32—332
© 1989 Sage Publications, Inc
