re: group construing

W Ramsay ( w.ramsay@Strath.ac.uk )
Thu, 16 May 1996 16:16:31 +0100

Devi,

You write:

>Said to myself "I must stop being boring by sticking my oar in every
>night's postings to this newsgroup, but Bill Ramsay's latest on group
>construing was irresistable. Sorry!

First time 'irresistible' and I have been in anywhere near close contact.
Thanks!! I was afraid my penchant for reminiscence was becoming boring.

>Dunno about :"the sense that's being discussed" or validity; but it strikes
>me that the value of what Bill's group did lies in the negotiation in which
>they engaged in order to arrive at entries in the "single group grid". They
>would have had to debate & argue, being able to resolve differences in only
>two ways: a) learning about each other's construction systems by trying
>them on for size (sociality)
>and
>b) agreeing to differ and _not_ making an entry into the group grid for
>those particular issues.
>
>Given that the social constructs would be explicable by the participants by
>definition (just ask them!) what would be particularly interesting would be
>rather to explore with them the occasions on which they had to agree to
>differ: why? Fascinating!

Just what I needed. It makes a lot of sense to me now to think of it in
this way. I suspect it could be rather difficult to replicate, but you've
convinced me it's worth a try. It could be a useful tool in, say, clinical
case meetings for a variety of professions, I imagine. Must try it on my
speech therapists.

Cheers,

Bill.

Bill Ramsay,
Dept. of Educational Studies,
University of Strathclyde,
Jordanhill Campus,
GLASGOW,
G13 1PP,
Scotland.

'phone: +44 (0)141 950 3364
'fax: +44 (0)141 950 3367
e-mail: w.ramsay@strath.ac.uk

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