A Small Group

Working in small groups is either welcomed with excitement by individuals or dreaded with apprehension. However, group work is a fact of life. Whether in a classroom setting or workforce collaborating within small groups are experiences many will interact at some point or regularly participate in. According to the 2010 third edition of the book A Pocket Guide to Public Speaking by Dan O’Hair, Hannah Rubenstein, and Rob Stewart, small groups can be defined as “a collection of between three and twenty people” (321). Small groups, though, are interesting in that while a small collection of people communication role is imperative to the success of the group, but also demonstrates individual’s behaviors when interacting. During small groups, they way in which the member communicates with each other illustrates how individuals perform by taking on specific roles as well as exposing their leadership style. During participation in group work, there is a set of expectations individuals hold for themselves as well as members of the group. Individuals will subconsciously take on a specific role as to how they will help the group achieve their goal, whether that be cohesively or disconnected. Subsequently, the recognition of these acquired roles provides an insight into the individual’s corresponding leadership style. Depending on roles and leaderships style group work can be a consistency of either individual challenging or complimenting one another.

Chapter 3 of Essential of Sociology: A Down-to-Earth Approach by James M. Henslin discusses the topic of socialization, which is the process by which people learn the characteristics of their group—the knowledge, attitudes, skills, norms, values, and actions thought appropriate for them. Sociologists try to determine how much of a person’s characteristics comes from “nature” (heredity) and how much from “nurture” (social environment). Studying feral, isolated, and institutionalized children, such as The Skeels/Dye Experiment, have helped them understand how “society makes us human.” The theories and research of Charles Horton Cooley, George Herbert Mead, and Piaget to explain socialization into the self and mind. Cooley’s looking-glass self theory focuses on how we believe others perceive us.

Learning how to work effectively in a group situation is key to success in many professions as well as in social situations. Groups vary from each other based on the individuals that make up each group, all of us belong to various groups at one time or another. The roles that we fulfill vary from group to

In my opinion, group work is a type of cooperative learning that helps people to accomplish a certain task in a faster and more effective manner. Team working also helps to achieve the tasks that are impossible to finish by one individual. However, if people in a group have a lot of conflicts, group work will not be able to achieve as much as we expected. There are many reasons which lead to dissatisfaction in group work such as individualism as well as conflicts in opinion and time.

Socialization is an ongoing process in which individuals obtains a personal identity, learns norms, values and behaviour appropriate to his/her position. People constantly require approval of the things they do, they continually seek to be socially competent and to be accepted by those around them. It is human nature to want to be similar from others in order to be accepted in a certain social spheres but at the same time wanting to be different and unique. There are primary and secondary agents of socialization. The primary agents are those that are basic and fundamental to social beings, these include family and friends from which we learn behaviour at young age; they transmit norms and values to us. The secondary agents are those that are more external to us than family such as social institutions/organisations, these include schools,

Groups may be defined in many ways, indeed providing an absolute definition of a group, as with much of the theory around group work, is highly problematic and contestable. However for the purposes of discussing groupwork within a context of working with young people we may define a group as a small gathering of young people. Group work may simplistically be described as the study and application of the processes and outcomes experienced when a small group comes together.

A group should be small between five to nine persons, so that each one will be able to relate and engage every member in the group. The group is viewed as a system, the condition of any member affects the other (Fatout, 1992).

In life, we all play different roles. I am a daughter, niece, friend, student, employee and artist. The definition of a social group is two or more people who interact on a regular basis in routine ways and who share a common sense of membership and identity. A social group example would be classmates in one section of a class and an example of an aggregate would be New Yorkers riding the subway together. An aggregate is not a group but a collection of people who briefly share the same physical space but do not see themselves as belonging together. Over the summer, I auditioned to be part of a theatre company and was asked to join. The name of the company is called Complete Theatre Company and they do shows and have acting classes three days a week. I was recently part of their improvisation show “Call My Dog’’. The people in the class range from ages eighteen to seventy five, normally in the Friday class, they are about 15 people that come, but it depends on the day. It differs week to week. A normal acting class is formatted by doing physical and vocal warm ups, having a keynote speaker where we talk about different aspects about the business of acting and then Annie goes around the room and asks us if we have a scene or a monologue to work on and if we do, we work on them and the class gives positive feedback. We are a primary group because we are small in number, we interact personally (we know about each other’s personal life) and we show genuine interest and support

The term socialization can be defined as the process in which individuals learn the behavioral patterns that are most likely accepted and tolerated in society. This process includes the learning values in which children are taught and they develop the social values of their parents or guardians just by observing them. Socialization occurs from the birth of the individual and continues throughout their life. Socialization is classified as one of the most important process in the family. Of all the major sociological perspectives, symbolic interactionism has probably developed the most detailed theory of socialization, Haralambos, Holborn. Sociology -

Communication is essential in our society today. There are many different types and methods of communication that people use. Throughout life, people learn to use communication in order to interact in the everyday world. People form groups to place themselves where they think they belong in society. Whether people know they are doing it or not, they consciously or subconsciously place themselves into certain groups. There are many different reasons for people to join different groups, these being for learning, activity, personal growth, and problem solving. Members of groups must all contribute in order to complete a task. People can have both positive and negative effects on groups. There are many concepts that

This chapter reviewed many different aspects of group work such as different processes and skills required to run several different groups. The groups discussed were open-ended group, groups hosted in residential settings, single-session groups, and large activity groups.

Socialization is the process by which people learn the characteristics of their group- the knowledge, skills, attitudes, values, norms, and actions thought to be appropriate for them (J. Henslin, 2017. 69). When we are born, we are not aware of who they are or what is appropriate to do in our environment. This is where socialization comes into play. As we grow, we start to develop awareness to our surroundings. As children, we pick up what is right from wrong by how we are reacted to. As we grow, socialization alter the way we begin to look at our self. Author of Sociology: The Down-To-Earth Approach, James Henslin stated, “About a hundred years ago, Charles Horton Cooley, a symbolic interactionist who taught at the University Michigan, concluded that producing a self is an essential part of how society makes us human.” (J. Henslin, 2017. 70). Basically, society gives us a reason to believe the type of characteristics we have, makes us human. For example, someone might assume they are funny because people laugh when they say something humorous. So, when we are asked what type of person we think we

“Group work is a form of voluntary association of members benefiting from cooperative learning that enhances the total output of the activity than when done individually”.

Socialization is “the process whereby an individual acquires a personal identity and learns the norms, values, behavior and social skills that are essential appropriate to his or her social environment.” Socialization applies to our daily life and it’s the most important process of human society. Without socialization the human would not be able to take part in group life and develop human characteristics. The world wouldn’t never be organized and everyone would have their own ways of doing thing. The general rules that we follow every day tells us what we should and shouldn’t do and how we should interact in situations. There are always consequences if we violate the rules and everyone recognizes the rules. Individual personality is really important in socialization. As a child, we start to learn and imitate others behavior, and as we get older, we start to understand the social life and accustom to the environment we live in, which can have effects on our personality. Personality refers to the patterns of feeling, thought, and action that characterizes human beings. The experiences we go through in life can change our personality too. Socialization essentially represents the process of learning throughout the life course. The important theories of socialization are defined by Charles Horton Cooley, George Herbert Mead, Erving Goffman, Sigmund Freud and Judith R. Harris. Charles Cooley, George Mead and Erving Goffman mention the importance of the social side of

Small group communication involve a small number of people, usually engaged in face-to-face interaction, actively working together toward a common goal (Hamilton 262). In the film Green Zone there were three groups that had the same goals to rebuild Iran: US Army, CIA, and Pentagon.