In: Social work in health care: the journal of health care social work ; a quarterly journal adopted by the Society for Social Work Leadership in Health Care, Band 15, Heft 3, S. 121-127
A special forum for individuals to respond in detail to material published in the Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness or to raise issues which relate to the specialized field of work with blind and visually handicapped persons. Contributions should be 350–1000 words in length.
This research attempts to directly test Rosabeth Kanter's hypothesis that a numerical minority in an unbalanced sex ratio group will be inhibited in its performance in the group. The staff meetings of counseling agencies with different sex compositions were analyzed in terms of the contributions of male and female members to the group process. Three sex ratio situations were examined: male predominant groups, female predominant groups and sex ratio balanced groups. The results confirm the Kanter hypothesis for both males and females in numerical minority situations. However, the phenomenon appears most pronounced for females in male predominant groups. The author suggests some possible reasons for these results, as well as implications for the participation of women in efforts to increase industrial and economic democracy.