Mixed-Gender Group Discussion About Renewable Energy

Title : “Mixed-Gender Group Discussion About Renewable Energy”

Introduction

(Conceptualise and identify the group, context and reasons for observation)

Language and gender are always an interesting issue. Since such kind of feminist research had bloomed as a theoretical framework in social research, dominance and difference were analysed in the way how male and female use a language in interaction (Coates, 2004).

Despite the fact that dominance is attributive of power, the context of language use must be analysed. In addition to that, the sound influence of culture by which participants in a mixed-gender interaction may result in its dynamic (Thorne, Kramarae, & Henley, 1983).

In this observation, dominance is viewed as frequency and duration of speech called ‘assertiveness’ (Brooks, 1982). While, engagement is defined as contribution to discussion by listening and paying attention. Irrespective of cultural differences and the equal number of male and female participants, considering solely on language use context in this interaction in which all participants were free to speak in this short discussion, it can be stated hypothetically that males’ speech was more dominant than females.

The context was a mixed-gender and intercultural interaction discussion about renewable energy. From their physical features and verbal expressions, they are classified as international students. They talked about a presentation they had to do in group. The discussion was informal at Wentworth Building where most students sat and ate some food. They had to create a PowerPoint presentation and discussed some issues in relation to the most potential renewable energy in Australia. From the topic, they would be students at the Faculty of Engineering of University of Sydney.

The reason of observation was mainly to examine the interaction amongst participants where the context of language was group discussion with 6 (six) participants ; 2 females and 4 males. The mixture of gender and cultural difference were two interesting focal points in the selection of the group. Their physical features and pronunciation supported cultural background difference and indicators that they are non-native speakers of English.

The Participants and Their Features

The Diagram of Subjects’ Position

Procedure and Analysis

The observation instrument was a checklist table with 7 (Seven) columns consist of Times, Verbal Behaviour (VB), Non-Verbal Behaviour (NVB), Face (F), Eyes (E), Movement (M), Subjects, and Comments.

The observation was undertaken at 2.46 pm on 9^th September 2014 at Wentworth Building, University of Sydney. The observer realised that it was hard to concentrate on many subjects at the same time. Rather, the observation tried to mitigate this difficulty by stating which subjects who were active and became prominent at certain period. Also, the observer watched the other subjects who were not active (face and eyes only such as listening) and wrote additional information in the column of comments.

The frequency of all behaviours was counted and the model of interaction amongst participants was figured out through analytic induction method (Miles & Huberman, 1994 as cited in Punch, 2013, p. 198). As what previously stated, the most added-value features in data display is frequency and duration of speech of participants (verbal behaviour, face, eyes, non-verbal behaviour) as the first concept. Afterwards, the engagement of participants into the discussion by listening or paying attention without speech was displayed supported by (non-verbal behaviour, face, and eyes) as the second. A least and minor value behaviour is movement since its nature is to support either frequency and duration or engagement (without speech).

Findings

The major finding is that the dominance of male participants was significantly high represented by subject No. 1 and No. 2 compared to female participants regardless the equal number of participants in this short discussion.

Subject 1 and Subject 2 were the most participants who dominated the verbal behaviour with 12 and 10 occasions respectively. While the other two male participants did not use their roles significantly, only 4 and 2 occasions of the verbal behaviour by Subject 5 and Subject 6 respectively. In comparison with the female participants, in fact they were more likely to be active, only 3 and 5 occasions of the verbal behaviour made by subject 3 and subject 4 respectively.

Frequency of Features by All Subjects

The relationship between the dominance and engagement is shown on the following matrix that confirm the dominance of male participants (1 & 2) over female participants regardless the equal gender difference and the level of effort to contribute into the discussion with minor speech. In fact, female participants (3 & 4) made a considerable engagement by listening and paying attention. Subject No.6 was the least contributor into this short discussion as well as the least dominant subject.

Matrix of Dominance and Engagement

Another thing is the model of interaction. This report has admittedly faced a big curiosity (no any inference due to the nature constraint of non-participant observation). From the diagram, we can see that Subject 3 and Subject 4 did not communicate with Subject 5 but only to Subject 1. Subject 1 was the richest interaction pattern compared to other participants. Intrapersonal conversation was also made between 3 and 4, 5 and 6, and 1 and 2. What can be encapsulated is that interaction from subject 1 and subject 2 to other subjects outweighed other interactions as they were also more active than that of other subjects.

Diagram of Interactional Model

Reflective Critical Analysis

The observer is a male with no interest with the result of observation. The observer also realizes that the relationship of gender and power is by no means exclusive in real life as what the observer believes that mutual-shared roles in life is the answer for this issue (as the observer faced in his household management).

The observer is also highly aware of the inferences made in this observation. One sensitive issue is ethnicity of subjects. Yet, a few subjects were easily identified by their typical dialects/repertoires belong to a group of ethnicity. It is strongly believed that all subjects are non-native English speakers or international students. Additionally, in relation to ethnicity, this observation report tries to avoid any stereotype might emerge between the level of dominance and the ethnicity of subjects.

The observer set strategy to be as close as possible to listen to the discussion. Unfortunately, there were some challenges/constraints since some subjects might have felt that they were being observed. The observer had to take a few breaks and generally captured some utterances in chunks. However, frequency and duration as well as engagement could be recorded by observation proportionally.

The observer is certainly convinced that to analyse the dominance, a same-gender group interaction tends to explore more the dynamic of conversational style or phenomenon on males and females compared to a mixed-gender group discussion.

Appendix

Analysis of Observation

References

Brooks, V. R. (1982). Sex differences in student dominance behavior in female and male professors' classrooms. Sex Roles, 8(7), 683-690.

Coates, J. (2004). Women, men, and language: A sociolinguistic account of gender differences in language: Pearson Education.

Punch, K. F. (2013). Introduction to social research: Quantitative and qualitative approaches: Sage.

Thorne, B., Kramarae, C., & Henley, N. (1983). Language, gender, and society: Newbury House Rowley, MA.

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