Dr. Leslie A. Baxter is an American scholar and teacher in
communication studies
Communication studies or communication science is an academic discipline that deals with processes of human communication and behavior, patterns of communication in interpersonal relationships, social interactions and communication in differen ...
, best known for her research on family and relational communication. Her work is focused on relationships: romantic, marital, and friendly. She is best known for her
Relational Dialectics
Relational dialectics is an interpersonal communication theory about close personal ties and relationships that highlights the tensions, struggles and interplay between contrary tendencies. The theory, proposed respectively by Leslie Baxter and Ba ...
theory. She is a professor emeritus at
The University of Iowa
The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is org ...
's department of Communication Studies.
Background
Baxter stayed in Portland during her college years and attended
Lewis & Clark College
Lewis & Clark College is a private liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon. Originally chartered in 1867 as the Albany Collegiate Institute in Albany, Oregon, the college was relocated to Portland in 1938 and in 1942 adopted the name Lewis & Cl ...
, where she studied communications. She received a bachelor's degree in 1971 and continued her studies with Speech-Communication at the
University of Oregon
The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the institution is well known for its strong ties to the sports apparel and marketing firm Nike, Inc, and its co-founder, billion ...
, where she received her master's degree in 1972. In 1975, Baxter received a Ph.D. from the
University of Oregon
The University of Oregon (UO, U of O or Oregon) is a public research university in Eugene, Oregon. Founded in 1876, the institution is well known for its strong ties to the sports apparel and marketing firm Nike, Inc, and its co-founder, billion ...
in Speech-Communication.
Baxter started her work as a professor at the
University of Montana
The University of Montana (UM) is a public research university in Missoula, Montana. UM is a flagship institution of the Montana University System and its second largest campus. UM reported 10,962 undergraduate and graduate students in the fal ...
and served her time there from 1975 to 1976. From 1976 to 1989, she was a faculty member in the Communications Department at Lewis & Clark College, where she had received her undergraduate degree. During the last two years at Lewis & Clark, she was the Associate Provost. Baxter then moved to California where, from 1989 to 1994, she taught in the Rhetoric and Communication Department as well as the Human Development Graduate Group at the
University of California-Davis
The University of California, Davis (UC Davis, UCD, or Davis) is a public land-grant research university near Davis, California. Named a Public Ivy, it is the northernmost of the ten campuses of the University of California system. The institut ...
. In 1994, she moved to Iowa where she started her career as a Communication Studies professor at the University of Iowa. From 2000 to 2010, she was the F. Wendell Miller Professor, where she held the maximum period of professorship. In 2004, Baxter was the secondary appointment in the College of Public Health, Department of Community & Behavioral Health at the University of Iowa. In 2012, she became a Collegiate Fellow in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
Scholarly work
Baxter's work focuses on researching family and relational communication. Relational Dialectics Theory, which was created by Baxter and Barbara Montgomery, has been mentioned in books and scholarly journals and received awards. Relational Dialectics Theory is recognizing that all communication is the interplay of differences.
In one of her published articles, "Problematizing the Problem in Communication: A Dialogic Perspective," Baxter discusses the problems within dialogue. She compares her thoughts on dialogue to
Mikhail Bakhtin
Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin ( ; rus, Михаи́л Миха́йлович Бахти́н, , mʲɪxɐˈil mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ bɐxˈtʲin; – 7 March 1975) was a Russian philosopher, literary critic and scholar who worked on literary theor ...
’s dialogism. She also compares her ideas with relational dialectics with an interview conducted by Em Griffin, an author of ''A First Look at Communication Theory''. She believes that differences in relationships are what give it a wholeness, where as Bakhtin’s reference to dialogue isn’t used in "the sense of a happy, pleasant experience".
For Baxter's study on family communication, "Topic Expansiveness and Family Communication Patterns" discovers individual's binary decision in engaging disclosure or avoidance within communication. The study used 122 parents and their children to find communication patterns of avoidance, like sexual issues and topics of drinking/drugs, money, and educational progress. The topics were relative to friendships and everyday activities that would change the dialogue. The four topics of adolescent dating, family relationship rules, family relationship concerns, and traditions were the final grouped topics. "Parental Rule Socialization for Preventive Health and Adolescent Rule Compliance" looked into family rules rather than their communication pattern. Rules like nutrition, exercise, and sun protection in 164 families were examined. The outcome of this study showed that parents reported higher rule articulation than their children within the three topics. In 2014, another study was published about family communication. The study "Discursive Constructions of the Meaning of "Family" in Online Narratives of Foster Adoptive Parents" examined normativity of families, seeing if shared genetics established as a legitimate family. The study showed that it was the importance of dialogue of families that defined a "family", rather than how the family is constructed.
Further reading
Anderson, R., Baxter, L.A., & Cissna, K. N. (Eds.). (2004). ''Dialogue: Theorizing difference in communication studies.'' Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Baxter, L.A., & Montgomery, B.M. (1996). ''Relating: Dialogues and dialectics.'' New York: The Guilford Press
inner of the 1997 G.R. Miller Book Award, NCA
See also
*
Relational dialectics
Relational dialectics is an interpersonal communication theory about close personal ties and relationships that highlights the tensions, struggles and interplay between contrary tendencies. The theory, proposed respectively by Leslie Baxter and Ba ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baxter, Leslie A.
1949 births
Living people
Communication scholars
Educators from Portland, Oregon
Lewis & Clark College alumni
Lewis & Clark College faculty
University of California, Davis faculty
University of Iowa faculty
University of Oregon alumni
American women academics
21st-century American women
Leodis V. McDaniel High School alumni