>In my own research on the socially mediated negotiation of writing tasks in
>graduate seminars and research teams, I've found similar complexity and
>heterogeneity. Which leads back to the earlier question in this thread of
>how, given the diverse ways that multiple histories come to fuse in an
>interaction, to intentionally design joint or collaborative work so that it
>facilitates particular processes and outcomes. Addressing that challenge
>seems to involve aligning life histories and designing institutions as well
>as setting task parameters.
Is it possible/useful to carry this analysis on past small groups to larger
collectives? In the institutional order (as opposed to the interaction
level, to borrow Goffman's terms for the macro-micro dichotomy), there
exist many ways of "aligning life histories," which institutions have been
designed to accomplish--"to facilitate particular processes and outcomes."
Selectional mechanisms/traditions sort people into "joint or collaborative
work," broadly understood, called courses, majors, etc. Historically, these
selectional mechanisms/traditions have often sorted by age, race, social
class, expressed intrest/motive, etc. to acheive homogeneous (or, less
often, heterogenious) groups/collectives.
This is manifest at the micro-level in messy ways, but ways that may have
implications for teasing out the intersections of the macro and micro
levels, of institutional and interaction orders--such as sites of
assessment/sorting--that seem to me to have a lot of potential for
understanding institutional design options and more equitable/fruitful
means of aligning life histories.
David R. Russell
English Department
Iowa State University
Ames, IA 50011
USA (515) 294-4724,fax 294-6814
drrussel who-is-at iastate.edu