Gender Draft for Final Paper

Diversity is defined as the range of differences that include gender, age, ethnicity and race that exist. The world has a very rich cultural diversity that should be its collective strength. Gender diversity therefore includes differences that exist between men and women in association to social stratification and family roles.  Gender equity of any country will determine to a large extent how education, employment and family roles are shared. The paper will investigate the gender diversity and performance in student groups. The aim of the study will be to make theoretical and methodological contributions to research on gender diversity. 

Gender diversity

Gender diversity has been found to have positive influence on several outcomes. It is crucial that gender diversity is studied due to a high number of women entering higher learning institutions and places of work which has been found to have a positive influence on group processes. Team process, Watson et al. (1998), showed that gender diversity tends to affect behavior, communication and individual experiences within groups but does not affect group performance (Kimbe, et al. 1981). Experiments have shown that balanced gender groups could have more positive interactions like conflict reduction and communication unlike a group of predominantly men or female participants. Stringer, (1995) showed that gender balanced group are more consensus seeking reducing conflict than a predominant same sex group.

But in their view of demographic heterogeneity, Williams et al, (1989) found that gender diversity led to decreased performance. A meta-analysis on group outcomes on gender diversity by Wood (1987) showed that homogenous gender groups performed poorly as compared to mixed gender groups. Thus, gender diversity in learning teams has a positive influence on a group .   

Method

The sample will consist of 102 participants; 57 males and 45 females from 16 different nationalities.

Discussion

The aim of the paper is to enquire into gender diversity and group process and outcomes. The paper will attempt to measure culture in terms of gender diversity problem resolution. It has been shown that gender diversity is in line with other previous studies; has positive influence on group performance.