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An Approach to the Analysis of Faculty-Student Interactions in Small Groups

Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, 74 Fenwood Road, Boston, Massachusetts 02115.

Roger L. Shapiro

George Washington University School of Medicine

The adolescent's experience in groups and institutions is determined in important ways by the nature of the authority in these settings. To study adolescent relationships with those in authority positions we have used methods of participant observation in small groups. In two different settings we served as consultants for regularly meeting groups of adolescents and adults. On an adolescent psychiatric ward, these groups included patients, the ward administrator, and the head nurse. In a comparison setting from a private day school the groups comprised students, a school administrator, and a teacher. In this paper we report findings from the school study, where one of us (STH) met as a consultant with three groups over a total of 1/2 years. The observations we discuss primarily concern the various coping strategies used by the groups'faculty members. Attempts to abandon school role behaviors were common among the faculty members of the groups. Our observations suggest that these repeated efforts to either abandon or blur their roles represented modes of coping with a highly stressful situation. Examples of these stresses and the coping strategies are detailed within the paper, together with illustration of how the consultant unwittingly participated in such role shifts.

Human Relations, Vol. 29, No. 9, 819-832 (1976)
DOI: 10.1177/001872677602900902


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