La dimensione etnica nel funzionamento del piccolo gruppo interattivo

This is an evaluation of a short group experience with teenage students at a High School, most of whom are from extra-European families, and all of whom are regarded as problem students both in terms of behaviour and due to learning difficulties. The composition of the group allowed to examine some ways in which the ethnic level works in human groups, and to consider how aside from superficial folkloristic aspects this level is related to deeper communicative phenomena. Furthermore, the group’s adolescent age is a variable that allowed for reflection on how this level is related both intimately and controversially to the fundamentals of individual identity and how it must be considered in dynamic terms, and not as a strictly defined acquisition of the early period of life. Comparison with other group situations demonstrated that such a communicative level, which is always active during interaction, cannot be taken for granted in ethnically homogeneous groups just because they are composed of individuals belonging to the same cultural sphere. This is to refrain from describing communicative phenomena as natural, as they are not, because they are continually passed on, reconfirmed, and modified during the course of interaction within small natural and artificial groups. Key words: group psychotherapy, ethnicity, adolescence.

Angelo Silvestri, Alessia Lucidi, Marinella A. Lena, Emilia Ferruzza, La dimensione etnica nel funzionamento del piccolo gruppo interattivo in "GRUPPI" 3/2007, pp 83-98, DOI: