Gender and Development

Patrick Leman, Harriet Tenenbaum, Patrick Leman, Harriet Tenenbaum

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781317973997
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Children are born into a world infused with gendered information. An understanding of what it is to be a boy or girl can be critical in forming social relationships, social identities, and learning how to think and behave. Gender and Development is an important new volume that charts how children practice these gendered identities at different ages and in different social contexts

Taking a socio-cognitive approach, and integrating both theoretical and applied perspectives, the book looks at a range of contexts in which gender affects development and socialisation, from the child's place in the family unit and their interaction with parents and siblings, to the influence of communication with peers over the internet. Throughout the chapters an age-old issue is addressed through a contemporary, empirically focused perspective – namely the nature and extent of equality between the genders, and how difficult it is for attitudes, perceptions and stereotypes to change. Key social issues are covered, including pro-social behaviour, career choice and academic competencies.

Gender and Development brings together some of the latest research in this important and enduring field of study. It is a timely and invaluable collection, and will be essential reading for all students and research in developmental psychology, social psychology and gender studies.

1 Gender in parent–child relationships

Harriet R. Tenenbaum and Dionna May

Parent–child relationships contribute to children's appropriation of gender-differentiated behaviours and future activities. When parents engage girls and boys differently, they provide children with gendered ways to act in social inter-actions. From a young age, children practise future gendered behaviours and activities with their parents. Children become more skilled and comfortable enacting behaviours that they frequently practice. For example, parents may encourage interactions involving interpersonal closeness more in daughters than sons, whereas they may engage sons more than daughters in interactions promoting autonomy (Leaper et al., 1998). Of course the exact behaviours children enact as appropriate for girls and boys differ based on the developmental stage of the children and do not exactly mirror the gendered behaviours enacted by adults (see Leman & Tenenbaum, 2011, for a review). Nonetheless, such practices likely make a substantial contribution to future gender differences in women's and men's everyday behaviours.

Engagement in such everyday interactions contributes to children's interpretation of complex messages about gender. Similar to many domains (Karmiloff-Smith, 1995), children's understanding of gendered behaviour is implicit at first. Through continued interactions with important others, children negotiate a more explicit understanding of gender. These beliefs about gender become incorporated into children's gender schemas (Berenbaum et al., 2008). However, children conform to gendered patterns before their understanding becomes explicit.

As emphasized by social-cognitive, sociocultural and eco-cultural theoretical frameworks, development occurs within children's daily lived experiences with important people. According to eco-cultural and sociocultural theories, children develop or are ‘apprenticed’ into activities appropriate for their cultural context (Rogoff, 2003). Parents prepare children to be successful based on their microsystem and the larger macrosystem (Ogbu, 1981). For example, parents raising children in inner-city neighbourhoods may teach children to be able to defend themselves; parents living a mile away in a more affluent neighbourhood may not teach such a skill. Of course, what may be deemed successful may well be different for girls and boys.

Generally speaking, most Western cultures expect girls and women to become affiliative and connected to others, whereas boys are expected to become assertive and autonomous (DiDonato et al., this volume; Fabes et al., 2003; Leaper & Smith, 2004). Not surprisingly, a comprehensive meta-analysis found that mothers were more affiliative with daughters than sons (Leaper et al., 1998). Mirroring this pattern, girls use more affiliative language than do boys with both parents and peers, whereas boys use more assertive language than do girls (Leaper & Smith, 2004). Moreover, girls tend to use more emotion words, a sign of connection and responsiveness, with peers than do boys (Tenenbaum et al., 2011). Thus, there is evidence in the literature that this expectation is upheld in children's everyday interactions with important others. What is unknown are some of the processes through which these expectations are communicated and enacted in parent–child interactions.

The present chapter examines two ways in which parents may contribute to children's future behaviours and activities. This first study is an interview study with parents of 11- and 13-year-old children to examine whether parents believe that girls and boys should pursue different academic domains. Parents’ reasoning about whether their children should pursue science and foreign languages were examined. Science as a discipline tends to be viewed as orderly and rational, characteristics that are more masculine-stereotyped than feminine-stereotyped (Kahle, 1988; Sjøberg & Imsen, 1988). Moreover, in a comprehensive meta-analysis, Lytton and Romney (1991) found that parents encouraged gender-stereotyped activities in children. Whereas science is stereotyped as an important cultural task for men and boys (Kahle, 1988), emotions are stereotyped as appropriate for girls and women (Brody, 1985). The second study focuses on gender differences in how parents and children converse about interpersonal topics. Although these studies differ in their focus, they give wide insight into how parents’ beliefs as well as parent–child talk may differ for girls and boys. These topics – science and interpersonal negotiation – are imbued with gendered connotations. Thus, we would expect that parents would encourage daughters and sons differently in these domains. Both studies contribute to a larger picture of how everyday interactions with parents give children opportunities for practising gendered behaviours and engaging in gendered activities. These studies, thus, highlight ways in which parents communicate their values about different activities to daughters and sons.

Study 1

As previously mentioned, parents may believe that science is a more appropriate endeavour for boys than for girls. Indeed, in the US, men are almost three times more likely to be employed in the science workforce than are women (National Science Foundation, 2004). Similarly, in the UK, more males than females study science and engineering (Smith, 2011). Moreover, scientists are viewed as logical, intelligent, determined and objective, traits stereotyped as masculine (Kahle, 1988). A combination of gender differences in laboural participation and gender stereotypes may influence parents to encourage sons more than daughters to pursue scientific interest.

Reflecting such gender differences, research suggests that parents hold gendered beliefs about children's competencies in mathematics and science. Beginning in fourth grade, parents of sons rated their children as having more science ability than did parents of daughters (Andre et al., 1999). Additionally, parents also reported science as being more important for sons than daughters. This bias continues into the eighth grade with parents continuing to rate sons as better at science and more interested in science than daughters (Tenenbaum & Leaper, 2003).

Such beliefs may be implicit, but are frequently communicated in everyday conversations. Indeed, parents do not engage sons and daughters similarly in explanatory conversations about science. For example, while visiting science and technology exhibits in a children's museum parents explained to boys in 29 per cent of their interactions, whereas parents explained to girls in 9 per cent of their interactions (Crowley et al., 2001). This effect was more pronounced among fathers than among mothers. Contrary to the explanation that parents simply follow boys’ greater interest in science, parents did not explain to boys more than girls because boys asked more questions. Before given an explanation, 15 per cent of boys and 13 per cent of girls asked a question. This difference was not statistically significant. Moreover, there was no difference in the degree of involvement girls and boys displayed at the exhibits as measured by approaching or manipulating the exhibit, or the amount of time children interacted with exhibits.

Additional support for differential parental socialization was found in two additional studies. Tenenbaum and colleagues (Tenenbaum & Leaper, 2003; Tenenbaum et al., 2005) found that parents are especially likely to explain science more to daughters than to sons whilst engaged in physical science. Indeed, fathers used more explanation when explaining a physical task to sons than to daughters, but used a similar amount when engaging in a biological science task (Tenenbaum & Leaper, 2003). Playing with magnets with their 5- and 9-year-old children, low-income mothers provided scientific explanations to sons more than to daughters; such talk was related to science literacy at age 11. Thus, it seems that parents engage sons more than daughters in everyday, informal science.

Another way that parents' beliefs are conveyed is through gender-differentiated encouragement of course selections. In parent–child conversations, parent–son dyads select more science and mathematics than foreign language courses (Tenenbaum, 2009). In contrast, parent–daughter dyads select more mathematics and language arts than science or foreign language courses. Generally speaking, compared to other courses, science courses have a different level of importance for parents of daughters and sons. Importantly, as Eccles (1994) argues, course selections need to be examined in context because decisions to pursue certain courses come at the expense of other courses.

The present study examined whether parents believed that daughters and sons should take different courses when reaching high school. In addition, through interviews, parents’ reasoning was examined qualitatively. Science was selected as a domain which is masculine-stereotyped. As a comparison, foreign languages were selected because they tend to be feminine-stereotyped. It was expected that parents would be more likely to suggest science courses when discussing course choices for their sons than their daughters. Conversely, it was expected that parents would be more likely to suggest foreign language courses when discussing course selections for their daughters than their sons.

Method

Participants

CHILDREN

The sample consisted of mothers and fathers of 20 daughters (M = 11; 6 months, SD = 1.40) and 21 sons (11; 7 months, SD = 1.39). Families were recruited from schools, after-school activities, and summer camps from three metropolitan areas in the US (Boston, New York and San Francisco).

MOTHERS

Mothers ranged from 32 to 58 years (M = 45.49 years, SD = 5.23). The majority of mothers were of European-American descent. Mothers’ education ranged from having completed the eleventh grade to professional school degrees.

FATHERS

Fathers ranged from 32 to 62 years (M = 48.00 years, SD = 6.08). The majority of fathers were of European-American descent. Fathers’ educational background ranged from having completed high school to graduate and professional school.

Procedure

Two researchers visited families in their homes. Families were told that the researchers were interested in how ‘parents contribute to children's course selections’. Mothers and fathers participated separately. Parents and children completed course selection forms and discussed them; these data have been reported elsewhere (Tenenbaum, 2009) and are not the focus of the present investigation. A subset of parents from the total sample was interviewed separately about their course selections. The questionnaires asked parents to report children's school grades. Letter grades were converted to a 12-point scale with an A scored as 12, an A- scored as 11, etc., ending with an F scored as a 0. In this repeated-measures design, the task was repeated for the other parent–child dyad during the same session. Children received a US$10 voucher to thank them for participation.

Transcription and coding

The interviews with parents were transcribed and verified. For the quantitative study, the question, ‘were there any courses that you thought your child should take?’ was coded. Parents’ answers to the courses that children should take were coded as science (e.g. ‘biology’, ‘physics’, ‘science’), foreign language (e.g. ‘spanish’, ‘French’) or other (e.g. ‘maths’, ‘design’). A second coder coded ten transcripts (12 per cent of the transcripts) and perfect reliability was achieved (Κ = 1.00).

Results

Analysis plan

Quantitative and qualitative data are provided below. The qualitative data is provided to give a more developed sense of parents' reasoning. For the quantitative analyses, whether science or a foreign language was mentioned in each interview was coded as occurring or not because the data were highly skewed. Thus, if a parent offered three types of science courses that he...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Current Issues in Developmental Psychology
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Introduction
• 1 Gender in parent—child relationships
• 2 Gendered interactions and their consequences
• 3 Teasing, threats and texts
• 4 Is having an older sister or older brother related to younger siblings' gender typing? A meta-analysis
• 5 The developing relationshipbetween gender and pro-social behaviour
• 6 The gendered self-concept
• 7 Developmental social cognition about gender roles in the family and societal context
• Index