Topic > Reaction to gender and communication in social work...

The differences in communication between male and female gender influence social work education when the 3 areas are concerned: training students for social work, interaction between staff members and interaction between students and faculty members. Communication is a very significant tool in social work when it comes to teaching and developing relationships. This article explains the gender difference from a cross-cultural perspective. Men listen to act on them, and women listen so they can fill in some missing scenarios and ask more questions than men. Topics of conversation are initiated by women but ultimately concluded by men. According to research, females interrupt more and males generally talk more. There are many biological and psychological theories that explain these differences. These differences could be better understood when intercultural communication occurs. According to Borker and Maltz (1982) American women and men come from different sociolinguistic cultures and have learned the rules of conversation differently. Language rules are taught to children at an early age. Girls work and interact within small, homogeneous groups of boys and girls and make supportive comments, while boys go into larger groups and make challenging comments. When grouped together, these patterns continue, and misunderstandings sometimes occur because of such differences. Women nod to encourage the speaker, while men take it as a gesture of agreement. Men don't nod and women feel they aren't listening. Women tend to use questions to continue or start a conversation and men think this is due to women's less knowledge. Although females give a more affective response, still regarding non-verbal communication... middle of the paper... towards conversations regarding feelings and emotions. According to what I have observed, men are more open when it comes to expressing themselves than women. It is rightly said that women acquire better skills when an interview is conducted than men due to their open-mindedness, empathy, etc. but men can also learn them easily if they make some effort involving proper facial expressions and appropriate general behavior and this is where social work education plays its part. I also felt that it is mainly due to the different contexts in which men and women are analyzed which creates more difference. If some informal situations were considered and a comparison was made between the language and communication style of men and women, there would be only a few small differences and more similarities regarding language and communication..