Women as Emergent Leaders in Student Collaborative Writing Groups.

Abstract

For well over forty years, researchers in small group processes have studied the roles women play in work groups. We have learned about' differences between female and male speech patterns, about the stereotypes that influ ence perceptions about male and female roles in small groups, and, specifi cally relevant for this study, about leadership emergence of females in small groups. This research in small groups has focused on oral interaction among group members where the group task is carried out primarily in speech. In this article, I examine female leadership emergence in small groups whose primary task is a written one. I show how perceptions of leadership in writing groups depend on both oral and written enactments and point out the relationship between the primary task, writing, and the role of the leader in collaborative writing groups. Leadership emergence of women in small groups is fascinating?and troublesome: the small group becomes a microcosm of the larger society and the roles that men and women play out resemble those they play out in life.,, In society, women are often not recognized as leaders; often men assume or are assigned the role of leader arbitrarily as a function of their sex. This creates at least three problems in groups as well as in the society. First, the leadership of women may go unrecognized: they get little credit for that role. Second (and this is a consequence of the first problem), women may have little authority as leaders. Finally, the group, or society, may dysfunc tion because the real leader, in effect, cannot lead. These problems can create groups that do not perform well or, at least, not as well as they might. I address these problems in this essay as I discuss three areas. First, I acquaint you with some of the research that has been conducted in gender and leadership in the literature of small group communication. Although the review in this article is by no means exhaustive, it does provide a basis for understanding the role of women in collaborative writing groups. Second, I present the findings of two research projects I conducted in which I examined women as emergent leaders in collaborative writing groups. Writing is a special type of task for a group, and while research in small group communi cation provides a framework for understanding how small groups work, it