Individuals are always in interaction with other individuals outside, as well as in the group and with the group itself. This is why the social sciences emphasize the importance of group dynamics. After the 1990's, with the globalization, digitalization, changing political systems, goal or result-oriented approaches in many western countries, new…

An annual undergraduate project called Mission Impossible is designed to reduce issues of power and status that hinder the effectiveness of cross-cultural teams. Domestic students often think they must compensate for international teammates, and international students understand that they are seen as a burden by domestic teammates. To prevent…

In this article Raymond Benton, Jr. describes how he implemented a variation on Eliot Aronson's (Aronson et al. 1978) "jigsaw classroom" activity. While there are similarities between Aronson's jigsaw classroom and what is described here, there are differences as well. In Aronson's system, the classroom was divided into subgroups. Each…

Supporting interethnic and interracial friendships in schools among children and adolescents is an important part of a progressive educational agenda informed in equity, social justice frameworks, and critical multicultural education that leads to a reduction in racial prejudice. Positive intergroup contact is a necessary condition in prejudice…

Peer nominations are used widely in psychological and sociological research to examine intergroup dynamics, even though this assessment tool suffers from thorny methodological problems: Gender, ethnic, age, and trait compositions vary across subsamples, subjects differ in the number of nominations they make, and the issue of sampling without…

Conflict intervention employs an outside party to influence the outcome of a conflict by applying negotiation, conciliation, mediation, and arbitration. Originally used in labor-management disputes, these techniques have been applied in family and neighborhood disputes, in provider-consumer disputes, and in environmental and international…

Describes the Race Challenge, an exercise requiring business students to participate on cross-functional teams and compare collaborative and competitive behavior. Presents issues addressed, materials required, variations, discussion questions, and debriefing instructions. (SK)

Friends Forever brings together teenagers from hostile factions in divided countries such as Northern Ireland or Israel. Among other activities, the program sponsors three-week adventure experiences for the teenagers at the University of New Hampshire's Brown Center. The experiences of one group of Israeli and Arab youth are described. (SV)

The contact hypothesis proposes that interaction between members of different groups reduces intergroup prejudice if--and only if--certain optimal conditions are present. For over 50 years, research using this framework has explored the boundary conditions for ideal contact and has guided interventions to promote desegregation. Although supporting…

Multicultural group work represents a powerful tool for helping and healing in the context of human diversity. This article summarizes multicultural group work, including task, psychoeducational, counseling, and psychotherapy groups, and describes a group work model for multicultural assessment, diagnosis, and treatment planning. Group work…

Contemporary social psychology takes a simplistic approach to the conceptualization and measurement of intergroup attitudes. Most definitions involve only the affective component of attitudes, and most measurement devices are restricted self-report, paper and pencil questionnaires. A broader and more flexible approach is required to adequately…

Describes a British outdoor program in which 11- and 12-year-old students were placed in mixed groups containing several ethnic groups and hearing and deaf children. Includes children's comments on outdoor activities, their relationships with other children, and communication problems and their resolution. An adjacent page illustrates 12 British…

This paper describes four cases of intervention in the relations between groups of widely differing social status and power. "Dialogs" between high corporate executives and social activities from urban poverty areas in three cities were supported by a foundation interested in promoting long term cooperation between the groups on social projects of…

Apart from the conflict between Arabs and Jews, two types of inter-group relations are the foci of social strain within the Jewish community of Israel: (1) inter-ethnic relations between Ashkenazim and Sephardim, and (2) relations between the religious and the nonreligious. Since 1967, the continuing survey of the Guttman Institute has been…

An urban high school English/journalism class used the production of a community-focused newspaper as a strategy for the self-determination of young African Americans. The intervention emphasized social relations--focusing on specific verbal and social skills which young people can use in determining and reaching a variety of communication goals…