Human Relations

The importance and impact of the practice of laboratory training have been increasingly recognized in recent years. However, as with most innovatory techniques of social change, invention and creativeness in practice have far outstripped our systematic knowledge of the internal dynamics of laboratory training and its results. Several general models suggest broad stages of group development or list some conditions of personal learning-although seldom have these models been accompanied by systematic research. However, as several reviews have noted (Stock, 1964; Schein & Bennis, 1965; Lieberman et al, 1969) these general models do not seem to deal adequately with the intrapersonal dynamics of the learning process and the phenomenology of the participant. This research project aimed to examine some fundamental questions: how, more precisely, do people learn in laboratory training; what dynamic mechanisms and specific theory of learning are involved; and what relation does this personal learning process have to the interpersonal context of the group and particularly to the trainers

Investigating the 'culture of poverty' is currently in vogue. Given the recent focus on the poor within the United States, the values, family structure, and behavior of the poor are being examined and re-examined. If nothing else, this activity seems to be uncovering the fact that the poor in the United States are not unlike the poor of many other cultures. Most of the research has been, and is, centered on the adult; in particular, on the discrepancies between the adult poor and the 'Protestant ethic' middle class society as it is reflected, if not in the reality of the middle class itself, at least in the mind of the reseacher.

This paper explores the development and maintenance of the value system associated with the poor by focusing on the concept of scarcity.² Further, it attempts to explain the transmission of these values through child-training activities; that is, to dig beneath the vague concept of socialization. The base for the research reported here is in Peru. Learning theory models are examined, along with more anthropological and sociological perspectives. The essential elements for combining these diverse viewpoints involve the concepts of predictability and control of the environment.