Communicate More Effectively
Understand Communication Elements: The Context in Communication
- Learn to recognize how the environment influences communication.
- Learn to develop awareness of how disciplinary and departmental factors impact the context in which you communicate.
- Learn to consider how your memberships in intersecting contexts can influence how you experience an environment.
“Priority is a function of context.”
—Steven R. Covey
“To know an object is to lead to it through a context which the world provides.”
—William James
Communication theorists often speak about the term “context.” The context of your communication refers to the situational and psychological environment in which you communicate, and the circumstances surrounding your message (Lefringhausen, Spencer-Oatey, & Debray, 2019; Rauthmann et al., 2014). How your message is interpreted can vary, based upon the context in which your message is conveyed.
At the very basic level, the way a communication is framed or interpreted depends on the immediate context. Will you be interacting with the other person alone in an office or in a group setting? Is the discussion taking place in a formal or informal setting? Is the need for the exchange occurring in a meeting or in a passing comment by the water fountain? These momentary aspects of context take on additional importance for women when the nature of the communication involves tension, such as responding to sexist or racist microaggressions (Ganote, Cheung, & Souza, 2016). [See Microaggressions for more.]
Contexts can also be described in environmental terms. Some examples of contextual factors relevant to you may include your department and its norms and expectations, the implicit or tacit knowledge central to your field of study, and any other characteristics of the enveloping environment that influence the communication you have with your advisor, faculty, and colleagues.
Self-test
The context is relevant _________________
- A. only when I notice something unusual about the environment.
- B. only when I am experiencing something negative, like sexism.
- C. at all times.
- D. only when I am directly interacting with someone from my environment.
In higher education, the environmental contexts in which you interact with others range from formal (e.g., a classroom) to informal (e.g., the common area outside of your building), academic (e.g., a research conference) to social (e.g., a party at a professor’s home), or any combination thereof (e.g., your office at any given moment). The extent to which you experience these contexts as supportive or challenging to your sense of belonging, both academically and socially, directly affects your comfort and motivation to continue. Further, if you are an underrepresented minority woman, you might find it even more difficult to feel integrated in the academic or social life of your department.
Your chosen field of study undoubtedly has contextual features that differ from other professional areas (even other STEM disciplines) and these may influence your communication interactions. For example, your graduate experience might differ in ways that include:
- Opportunities for students who are self-financing vs. working for funding (RAs, TAs) vs. granted fellowships
- Availability and provision of office space
- Expectations for your terminal degree to be a master’s or doctoral degree
- Processes for coursework, qualifying exams, or final projects
Additionally, consider the following variables and how they impact the context in which you work:
- Types of data/experimentation considered valuable
- Level or type of collegiality or competition
- Increased feelings of “imposter syndrome” (feeling that you don’t belong with or aren’t as accomplished as others in your program/field—that you somehow got to where you are falsely or by accident, and don’t deserve to be there)
- Degree to which your discipline is considered “nerdy”
- Interdisciplinary preferences in a fiercely uni-disciplinary department
- Emphasis on research when you love teaching
- Preference for certain types of research over others, including:
- Experimental vs. theoretical
- Practical vs. analytical
- Autonomous vs. collaborative
When considering how the context of your discipline or department facilitates your sense of belonging or integration, don’t become discouraged if your sense of belonging is not as strong as you would like. The differences you bring with you expand the discipline and help reshape the context in which you pursue your specific degree. The prevailing norms and climate of your department or discipline, as well as what faculty in your field expect of graduate students, are also important aspects of the context. Recognizing and understanding the elements of the immediate context in which your communication exchange occurs will help you anticipate how others see you and identify barriers in order to optimize your communication.
Every woman experiences graduate school differently based on personal characteristics that she brings into the environment (e.g., age, race, ethnicity, religious affiliation, disability status, gender identity and sexual orientation). [See You.] However, women in STEM fields share the common contextual factors that shape the experience of being a woman and pursuing a graduate degree in a male-dominated discipline.
Given the disproportionate number of women to men in engineering disciplines, you are most likely a numerical minority in your department. If you are also a member of a racial or ethnic group that is underrepresented in your department you may see yourself or be perceived as, that much more unique. At all levels, these memberships and contexts intersect with each other (Crenshaw, 1991) and most likely magnify your presence as a female doctoral student in a male-dominated STEM discipline. The interaction between these personal characteristics and the environment can be a powerful element in how you experience your program and the field as a whole.
CareerWISE Point: "Planning for and carrying out interpersonal communication are best done with the consideration of the immediate context. The where and the when of your interaction contribute to how it will turn out."
Sometimes, how others interact with you in any given situation, or how you respond, may have more to do with how people perceive you as a member of a certain group than with the aspects of your identity that you consider salient -- and the tendency to do this may also vary by context. For example, in a department where recruitment of women is particularly important for funding purposes, your identity as a woman may be more emphasized by those in power due to their own needs and agenda. This may benefit you in that you are valued by the department, but serve against you in that you are valued based on criteria you have no control over and it may be the guiding factor in how others treat you.
Be mindful of the changing expectations of your memberships across different settings. In some settings, your particular membership (e.g., being the only person of a particular ethnicity or the only woman in your lab) may work for you, placing you in a special role, while in others it may isolate you. Memberships and roles are often accompanied by unique expectations. Fusing these memberships may be challenging at times, especially when they involve competing norms or expectations or when one group membership conflicts with another (e.g., being a dedicated spouse/partner while also being a dedicated graduate student/advisee). The various spheres of your life and identities each have implicit, unwritten rules. It is up to you to recognize and understand the “hidden curriculum” that characterizes your field, program or department.
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Crenshaw, K. (1991). Mapping the margins: Intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against women of color. Stanford Law Review, 43(6), 1241-1299. https://doi.org/10.2307/1229039
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Ganote, C., Cheung, F., & Souza, T. (2016). Responding to microaggressions with microresistance: A framework for consideration. https://podnetwork.org/content/uploads/DC-white-paper-2016_Final2.pdf
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An Arizona State University project, supported by the National Science Foundation under grants 0634519, 0910384 and 1761278
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