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With few exceptions, human beings are divided into two sexes, and most children develop a strong sense of belonging to either male or female. At the same time, they have what in developmental psychology is called sexual (gender) identity. But in most cultures, the biological difference between men and women is widely overgrown with a system of beliefs and stereotypes of behavior that permeates literally all spheres of human activity. In various societies, there are both formal and informal norms of behavior for men and women that regulate what roles they are obliged or entitled to fulfill, and even what personal characteristics they “characterize”. In different cultures, socially correct types of behavior, roles and personality characteristics can be defined in different ways, and within one culture all this can change over time — as has been happening in America for the past 25 years. But no matter how roles are defined at the current moment, each culture strives to make an adult masculine or feminine out of a male or female baby (Masculinity and femininity are a set of features that distinguish a man from a woman, respectively, and vice versa (see: Psychological Dictionary. M .: Pedagogy -Press, 1996; article «Paul») — Approx. transl.).
The acquisition of behaviors and qualities that in some culture are considered characteristic of a given sex is called sexual formation. Note that gender identity and gender role are not the same thing. A girl may firmly consider herself a female being and yet not possess those forms of behavior that are considered feminine in her culture, or not avoid behavior that is considered masculine.
But are gender identity and gender role simply a product of cultural prescriptions and expectations, or are they partly a product of «natural» development? Theorists differ on this point. Let’s explore four of them.
Theory of psychoanalysis
The first psychologist to attempt a comprehensive explanation of gender identity and gender role was Sigmund Freud; an integral part of his psychoanalytic theory is the stage concept of psychosexual development (Freud, 1933/1964). The theory of psychoanalysis and its limitations are discussed in more detail in chapter 13; here we will only briefly outline the basic concepts of Freud’s theory of sexual identity and sexual formation.
According to Freud, children begin to pay attention to the genitals at about 3 years of age; he called this the beginning of the phallic stage of psychosexual development. In particular, both sexes are beginning to realize that boys have a penis and girls don’t. At the same stage, they begin to show sexual feelings for the parent of the opposite sex, as well as jealousy and rancor towards the parent of the same sex; Freud called this the oedipal complex. As they further mature, representatives of both sexes gradually resolve this conflict by identifying themselves with the parent of the same sex — imitating his behavior, inclinations and personality traits, trying to be like him. Thus, the process of formation of gender identity and gender-role behavior begins with the child’s discovery of genital differences between the sexes and ends when the child identifies with the parent of the same sex (Freud, 1925/1961).
Psychoanalytic theory has always been controversial, and many dismiss its open challenge that «anatomy is destiny.» This theory assumes that gender role — even its stereotyping — is a universal inevitability and cannot be changed. More importantly, however, empirical evidence has not shown that a child’s recognition of the existence of genital sex differences or self-identification with a parent of the same sex significantly determines its sex role (McConaghy, 1979; Maccoby & Jacklin, 1974; Kohlberg, 1966).
Social learning theory
Unlike psychoanalytic theory, social learning theory offers a more direct explanation of gender role acceptance. It emphasizes the importance of the reinforcement and punishment the child receives, respectively, for appropriate and inappropriate behavior for his sex, and how the child learns his gender role by observing adults (Bandura, 1986; Mischel, 1966). For example, children notice that the behavior of adult males and females is different and hypothesize about what suits them (Perry & Bussey, 1984). Observational learning also allows children to imitate and thereby acquire gender-role behavior by imitating adults of the same sex who are authoritative and admired by them. Like psychoanalytic theory, social learning theory also has its own concept of imitation and identification, but it is based not on internal conflict resolution, but on learning through observation.
It is important to emphasize two more points of social learning theory. First, unlike the theory of psychoanalysis, sex-role behavior is treated in it, like any other learned behavior; there is no need to postulate any special psychological mechanisms or processes to explain how children acquire a sex role. Secondly, if there is nothing special about gender-role behavior, then gender role itself is neither inevitable nor immutable. The child learns gender role because gender is the basis on which his culture chooses what to consider as reinforcement and what as punishment. If the ideology of culture becomes less sexually oriented, then there will also be fewer sex-role signs in the behavior of children.
The explanation of gender role behavior offered by social learning theory finds a lot of evidence. Parents indeed reward and punish sexually appropriate and sexually inappropriate behavior in different ways, and in addition, they serve as the first models of masculine and feminine behavior for children. From infancy, parents dress boys and girls differently and give them different toys (Rheingold & Cook, 1975). As a result of observations conducted in the homes of preschoolers, it turned out that parents encourage their daughters to dress up, dance, play with dolls and simply imitate them, but scold them for manipulating objects, running around, jumping and climbing trees. Boys, on the other hand, are rewarded for playing with blocks but criticized for playing with dolls, asking for help, and even offering to help (Fagot, 1978). Parents demand that boys be more independent and have higher expectations of them; moreover, when boys ask for help, they do not respond immediately and pay less attention to the interpersonal aspects of the task. Finally, boys are more likely to be verbally and physically punished by parents than girls (Maccoby & Jacklin, 1974).
Some believe that by reacting differently to boys and girls, parents may not impose their stereotypes on them, but simply react to real innate differences in the behavior of different sexes (Maccoby, 1980). For example, even in infancy, boys require more attention than girls, and researchers believe that human males from birth; physically more aggressive than females (Maccoby & Jacklin, 1974). Perhaps that is why parents punish boys more often than girls.
There is some truth in this, but it is also clear that adults approach children with stereotypical expectations that cause them to treat boys and girls differently. For example, when parents look at newborns through a hospital window, they are sure they can tell the sex of the babies. If they think this baby is a boy, they will describe him as burly, strong, and large-featured; if they believe that the other, almost indistinguishable, infant is a girl, they will say that it is fragile, fine-featured, and «soft» (Luria & Rubin, 1974). In one study, college students were shown a videotape of a 9-month-old baby showing a strong but ambiguous emotional response to Jack in the Box. When this child was thought to be a boy, the reaction was more often described as «angry» and when the same child was thought to be a girl, the reaction was more often described as «fear» (Condry & Condry, 1976). In another study, when subjects were told the baby’s name was «David», they treated it gee than those who were told it was «Lisa» (Bern, Martyna & Watson, 1976).
Fathers are more concerned with gender-role behavior than mothers, especially with regard to sons. When sons played with “girly” toys, fathers reacted more negatively than mothers — they interfered in the game and expressed dissatisfaction. Fathers are not as concerned when their daughters participate in «male» games, but still they are more dissatisfied with this than mothers (Langlois & Downs, 1980).
But if parents and other adults treat children on the basis of gender stereotypes, then the children themselves are just real “sexists”. Peers enforce sexual stereotypes much more severely than their parents. Indeed, parents who consciously try to raise their children without imposing traditional gender role stereotypes—for example, encouraging the child to participate in a variety of activities without calling them masculine or feminine, or who themselves perform non-traditional functions at home—often simply become discouraged when they see how their efforts are undermined by peer pressure. In particular, boys criticize other boys when they see them doing «girly» activities. If a boy plays with dolls, cries when he hurts, or is sensitive to another upset child, his peers will immediately call him «sissy.» Girls, on the other hand, do not mind if other girls play «boyish» toys or participate in male activities (Langlois & Downs, 1980).
Although social learning theory is very good at explaining such phenomena, there are some observations that are difficult to explain with its help. First, according to this theory, it is believed that the child passively accepts the influence of the environment: society, parents, peers and the media “do it” with the child. But such an idea of the child is contradicted by the observation we noted above — that children themselves create and impose on themselves and their peers their own reinforced version of the rules for the behavior of the sexes in society, and they do this more insistently than most adults in their world.
Secondly, there is an interesting regularity in the development of children’s views on the rules of behavior of the sexes. For example, at 4 and 9 years old, most children believe that there should be no restrictions on the choice of profession based on gender: let women be doctors, and men be nannies, if they so desire. However, between these ages, children’s opinions become more rigid. Thus, about 90% of 6-7-year-old children believe that gender restrictions on the profession should exist (Damon, 1977).
Doesn’t this remind you of anything? That’s right, the views of these children are very similar to the moral realism of children in the pre-operational stage according to Piaget. This is why the psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg developed a cognitive theory of the development of gender-role behavior based directly on Piaget’s theory of cognitive development.
Cognitive theory of development
Although 2-year-olds can tell their gender from their photo, and can generally tell the gender of typically dressed men and women from a photo, they cannot correctly sort photos into “boys” and “girls” or predict which toys another will prefer. child, based on its gender (Thompson, 1975). However, at about 2,5 years, more conceptual knowledge about sex and gender begins to emerge, and this is where cognitive developmental theory comes in handy to explain what happens next. In particular, according to this theory, gender identity plays a decisive role in gender-role behavior. As a result, we have: “I am a boy (girl), so I want to do what boys (girls) do” (Kohlberg, 1966). In other words, the motivation to behave according to gender identity is what motivates the child to behave appropriately for his gender, and not receiving reinforcement from outside. Therefore, he voluntarily accepts the task of forming a gender role — both for himself and for his peers.
In accordance with the principles of the preoperational stage of cognitive development, gender identity itself develops slowly over 2 to 7 years. In particular, the fact that pre-operational children rely too much on visual impressions and are therefore incapable of retaining knowledge of the identity of an object when its appearance changes becomes essential for the emergence of their concept of sex. Thus, 3-year-old children can tell boys from girls in a picture, but many of them cannot tell if they will become a mother or father when they grow up (Thompson, 1975). Understanding that a person’s gender remains the same despite changing age and appearance is called gender constancy — a direct analogue of the principle of conservation of quantity in examples with water, plasticine or checkers.
Psychologists who approach cognitive development from a knowledge-acquisition perspective believe that children often fail at retention tasks simply because they do not have enough knowledge about the relevant area. For example, children coped with the task when transforming «animal to plant», but did not cope with it when transforming «animal to animal». The child will ignore significant changes in appearance — and therefore show conservation knowledge — only when he realizes that some essential characteristics of the item have not changed.
It follows that the constancy of a child’s sex must also depend on his understanding of what is masculine and what is feminine. But what do we, adults, know about sex that children do not know? There is only one answer: the genitals. From all practical points of view, the genitals are an essential characteristic that defines male and female. Can young children, understanding this, cope with the realistic task of gender constancy?
In a study designed to test this possibility, three full-length color photographs of walking children aged 1 to 2 years were used as stimuli (Bern, 1989). As shown in fig. 3.10, the first photograph was of a completely naked child with clearly visible genitals. In another photograph, the same child was shown dressed as a child of the opposite sex (with a wig added to the boy); in the third photo, the child was dressed normally, i.e., according to his gender.
In our culture, child nudity is a delicate thing, so all photos were taken in the child’s own home with at least one parent present. Parents gave written consent to the use of photographs in the research, and the parents of the two children shown in Fig. 3.10, gave, in addition, a written consent to the publication of photographs. Finally, the parents of the children who participated in the study as subjects gave written consent for their child to participate in the study, in which he would be asked questions about images of naked children.
Using these 6 photographs, children aged 3 to 5,5 years were tested for gender constancy. First, the experimenter showed the child a photograph of a naked child who was given a name that did not indicate its gender (for example, «Go»), and then asked him to determine the sex of the child: «Is Gou a boy or a girl?» Next, the experimenter showed a photograph in which the clothes did not match the gender. After making sure that the child understood that this was the same baby who was in the nude in the previous photo, the experimenter explained that the photo was taken on the day when the baby played dressing up and put on clothes of the opposite sex (and if it was a boy, then he put on a girl’s wig). Then the naked photo was removed and the child was asked to determine the gender, looking only at the photo where the clothes did not match the gender: “Who is Gou really — a boy or a girl?” Finally, the child was asked to determine the sex of the same baby from a photograph where the clothes corresponded to the sex. The whole procedure was then repeated with another set of three photographs. The children were also asked to explain their answers. It was believed that a child has sex constancy only if he correctly determined the sex of the baby all six times.
A series of photographs of different babies was used to assess whether children knew that genitals were an important sex marker. Here the children were again asked to identify the sex of the baby in the photo and explain their answer. The easiest part of the test was to tell which of the two naked people was a boy and which was a girl. In the most difficult part of the test, photographs were shown in which the babies were naked below the waist, and dressed above the belt inappropriately for the floor. In order to correctly identify the sex in such photographs, the child not only needed to know that the genitals indicate gender, but also that if the genital sex cue conflicts with culturally determined sex cueing (e.g., clothes, hair, toys), it still takes precedence. Note that the sex constancy task itself is even more difficult, since the child must give priority to the genital trait even when that trait is no longer visible in the photo (as in the second photo of both sets in Figure 3.10).
Rice. 3.10. Sex constancy test. After showing a photograph of a naked, walking toddler, children were asked to identify the gender of the same toddler wearing gender-appropriate or non-gender-appropriate clothing. If children correctly determine gender in all photographs, then they know about the constancy of gender (according to: Bern, 1989, pp. 653-654).
The results showed that in 40% of children aged 3,4 and 5 years, gender constancy is present. This is a much earlier age than that mentioned in Piaget’s or Kohlberg’s cognitive developmental theory. More importantly, exactly 74% of the children who passed the test for knowledge of the genitals had gender constancy, and only 11% (three children) failed to pass the test for knowledge of sex. In addition, children who passed the gender knowledge test were more likely to show gender constancy in relation to themselves: they correctly answered the question: “If you, like Gou, one day decided (a) to play dress-up and put on (a) a wig girls (boy) and clothes of a girl (boy), who would you really be (a) — a boy or a girl?
These results of the study of sex constancy show that, with regard to gender identity and sex-role behavior, Kohlberg’s private theory, like Piaget’s general theory, underestimates the potential level of understanding of the child at the preoperative stage. But Kohlberg’s theories have a more serious flaw: they fail to address the question of why children need to form ideas about themselves, organizing them primarily around their belonging to the male or female sex? Why does gender take precedence over other possible categories of self-definition? It is to address this issue that the next theory was constructed — the theory of the sexual scheme (Bern, 1985).
Sex schema theory
We have already said that from the standpoint of a sociocultural approach to mental development, a child is not just a natural scientist striving for the knowledge of universal truth, but a rookie of a culture who wants to become “one of his own”, having learned to look at social reality through the prism of this culture.
We have also noted that in most cultures, the biological difference between men and women is overgrown with a whole network of beliefs and norms that permeate literally all spheres of human activity. Accordingly, the child needs to learn about many details of this network: what are the norms and rules of this culture related to the adequate behavior of different sexes, their roles and personal characteristics? As we have seen, both social learning theory and cognitive developmental theory offer reasonable explanations for how the developing child might acquire this information.
But culture also teaches the child a much deeper lesson: the division into men and women is so important that it should become something like a set of lenses through which everything else can be seen. Take, for example, a child who comes to kindergarten for the first time and finds many new toys and activities there. Many potential criteria can be used to decide which toys and activities to try. Where will he/she play: indoors or outdoors? What do you prefer: a game that requires artistic creativity, or a game that uses mechanical manipulation? What if the activities have to be done together with other children? Or when you can do it alone? But of all potential criteria, the culture puts one above all others: «First of all, make sure that this or that game or activity is appropriate for your gender.» At every step, the child is encouraged to look at the world through the lens of his gender, a lens Bem calls the sex schema (Bern, 1993, 1985, 1981). Precisely because children learn to evaluate their behaviors through this lens, sex schema theory is a theory of sex-role behavior.
Parents and teachers do not directly tell children about the sexual scheme. The lesson of this schema is imperceptibly embedded in daily cultural practice. Imagine, for example, a teacher who wants to treat children of both sexes equally. To do this, she lines them up at the drinking fountain, alternating through one boy and girl. If on Monday she appoints a boy on duty, then on Tuesday — a girl. An equal number of boys and girls are selected to play in the classroom. This teacher believes she is teaching her students the importance of gender equality. She is right, but without realizing it, she points out to them the important role of gender. Her students learn that no matter how genderless an activity may seem, it is impossible to participate in it without considering the distinction between male and female. Wearing «glasses» of the floor is important even for memorizing the pronouns of the native language: he, she, him, her.
Children learn to look through the «glasses» of gender and at themselves, organizing their self-image around their masculine or feminine identity and linking their self-esteem to the answer to the question «Am I masculine enough?» or “Am I feminine enough?” It is in this sense that the theory of the sex schema is both a theory of gender identity and also a theory of gender-role behavior.
Thus, the theory of the sex schema is the answer to the question that, according to Boehm, Kohlberg’s cognitive theory of the development of gender identity and gender-role behavior cannot cope with: why do children organize their self-image around their masculine or feminine identity in the first place? As in cognitive developmental theory, in sex schema theory, the developing child is viewed as an active person acting in his own social environment. But, like social learning theory, sex schema theory does not consider sex-role behavior to be either inevitable or immutable. Children acquire it because gender has turned out to be the main center around which their culture has decided to build their views of reality. When the ideology of a culture is less oriented towards gender roles, then the behavior of children and their ideas about themselves contain less gender typification.
According to gender schema theory, children are constantly encouraged to view the world in terms of their own gender schema, which requires them to consider whether a particular toy or activity is gender appropriate.
What impact does kindergarten education have?
Kindergarten education is a matter of debate in the United States as many are unsure of the impact nurseries and kindergartens have on young children; many Americans also believe that children should be raised at home by their mothers. However, in a society where the vast majority of mothers work, kindergarten is part of community life; in fact, a larger number of 3-4-year-old children (43%) attend kindergarten than are brought up either in their own home or in other homes (35%). See →
Youth
Adolescence is the transitional period from childhood to adulthood. Its age limits are not strictly defined, but approximately it lasts from 12 to 17-19 years, when physical growth practically ends. During this period, a young man or girl reaches puberty and begins to recognize himself as a person separate from the family. See →