Collaboration and gender communication traits: The negotiation of authority in a composition class
Lori Beth Baker
- School: Purdue University (0183)
- Degree: Ph.D.
- Date: 1999 pp: 231
- Advisor: Lauer, Janice
- Source: DAI-A 62/06, p. 2096, Dec 2001
- Subjects: Language, Rhetoric And Composition (0681); Education, Language And Literature (0279); Education, Sociology Of (0340); Speech Communication (0459)
- ProQuest Document Number:
- ISBN: 0-493-27871-0
- UMI Number: AAT 3017570
Abstract:
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This dissertation studies two types of authority in collaboration -- sociocultural authority and
writing authority -- in two contexts, the pedagogical and rhetorical approaches being forwarded
by a writing instructor. Each framework implicates different roles and emphases of the students'
and teacher's sociocultural and writing authority. A case study examined gender communication
traits in the interactions between three members of a peer group and their instructor throughout
a semester of a first year composition course. Collaboration on individual work was studied
through the first four paper cycles, and shared-document collaboration was studied during the
final paper. Each participant's traits of connection (feminine) and status (masculine) were
noted in both spoken and written collaboration throughout the writing process. The female
instructor used more connection traits than status ones during collaborative time, but her
total traits declined across each paper cycle as she attempted to increase the students'
senses of writing authority while decreasing her own sociocultural authority as teacher.
The female instructor and female student tended to use more masculine traits of status in
their written feedback to the male group members. The two male students displayed more feminine
traits during the spoken collaboration than masculine ones, downplaying traditional displays of
sociocultural authority attributed to males. The male student for whom English was a second
language asked more questions (a feminine trait) than any one else.
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