Who Owns the Group? The Role of Worker Control in the Development of a Group: A Qualitative Research Study of Practice

Abstract

This paper presents an application of the qualitative research methodology of ethnographic content analysis as a means to discover the salient features and nature of a social work group. Observational data from process recordings of a thirty-week group of mothers at a child guidance center are systematically analyzed. This paper addresses a number of issues: (1) the need to explore and further articulate the role of worker vis-à-vis the dynamic of mutual aid in social work groups, particularly in regard to the concept of exercising 'control;' (2) the applicability of qualitative research methodology as a means of conceptualizing aspects of group work practice, thus contributing to our theory base and knowledge and tools for practice; and (3) the wealth of data for such research lying available in the written recordings of every group practitioner, and the natural logic that the development of theory in social work with groups comes most aptly from the practice domain.