Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This teaching activity reviews key concepts in group processes and introduces students to Expectation States Theory (EST) and Status Characteristics Theory (SCT), two micro-sociological frameworks that explain how inequality of opportunity emerges in task-oriented small groups with consequences for unequal outcomes. The activity is built around a team-building exercise “Lost on the Moon” in which participants rank 15 survival items individually and then in small groups. We adapt this exercise by taking field notes on group interactions and drawing on these notes to facilitate a discussion in which students critically reflect on their interactions with one another. We close the exercise with a discussion of our classroom as a small group and the ways in which instructors and students may inadvertently create and sustain hierarchies of participation, influence, and opportunity.
Institution: University of Connecticut
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7223072923