Communication, instruments to observation and gender in class participation

Abstract

The last year I carried out a research for the "Instituto de la Mujer" about gender influence in secondary schools classrooms. My interest was awakened by the empirical awareness that male students, in my Group Dynamics classes, participate much more thant the female ones -in spite of the fact that women are more than 80 % of the total- and that men act much more often as representatives of syndicatcs. To undertake this research I have used several techniques: direct observation of student groups, interwiews of natural groups of students and teachers, and the analysis of the processes of experimental groups of teachers. In order to observe the groups I created a special grid derived of the E. M. P. (Existential Mapping Process) by professor L. J. HOROWJTZI, Ph. D. , whose theoretical fundamentation I explain in this paper. My goals are: a) to divulge the works about communication of the researchers who have inspired the E. M. P. ; b) to explain the E. M. P. and the special grid of observation of communicational processes derived from it. My aim is to provide elements of reflection and analysis to teachers and professors: those dedicated to teach pupils in schools and those who work in "in training services", because this instrument provides a type of information doubly useful: it helps thinking about communicational processes and makes change easier.