Some girls begin to lose their "voice" or "go underground" with their gifts and abilities as they absorb messages about what it means to be "feminine" in our culture. In response, girls tend to act in, which expresses itself in eating disorders, depression, teen pregnancy, and lowered academic achievement in core academic areas such as higher level math and science. On the other hand, adolescent boys, experiencing pressure to conform to "masculine" stereotypes, often "toughen up" and act aggressively in all facets of their lives. Boys receive messages that it is not all right to be nurturing and caring, to express their feelings. In response, boys tend to act out, which can express itself in disruptive or violent behavior.
Deborah Tannen describes how differences in communication start in the childhood socialization. For girls, oral communication is the basis of their relationships. They tend to talk much amongst each other, often trading secrets and gossips. Boys tend to communicate more physically than orally, by doing things together and creating larger groups. Within these large groups, boys compete with each other in order to not feel of a lower position in the groups.
Unit 2 Assignment D1) Describe the expected stage of social development of children aged 4 years Most children at this age feel more settled. They grow in confidence as they are able to make friends and play with other children. They show social skills, for example turn-taking, sharing and concern for others. Strong emotions are still felt and quarrels and temper tantrums may appear at times. During this year most children will be affectionate towards their family, friends and carers and they also want to play with children but mostly pretend play.
Can parts of gender stereotype be biological? Can we link this to how children develop the ability to communicate and how they use it at a young age? There are many researchers discussing whether language acquisition between men and women are indeed different and many believe that its caused by gender bias among our society. The general concept is that we are not born with gender, but that gender is something we perform or learn to do. However, there is evidence to show that even at a young age, boys and girls that learn how to communicate, will learn at different speeds and will struggle with different aspects of learning how to communicate.
One of the arguments of co-education is the idea that it provides too many distractions for students. Several scholars have argued that these distractions have led to less attention on school work and class participation, due to girls and boys trying to impress each other. Furthermore, it has also been argued that students who are intimidated by the opposite sex may also be affected by low performance and low grades. Many educators believe that single-sex education does not enforce any type of gender-based stereotypes or adolescent subculture. Due to this, single-sex schools have been established to combat these issues.
In a recent study, a group of children were asked to rank instruments in order of preference. 77.1% of the girls preferred a female instrument while 72.9% of the boys preferred a male instrument (Harrison and O’Neill, 2003). This clearly shows that such stereotyping extends to children as well. There are many factors which can influence a child’s instrument preference, and these factors can be classified into “nature factors” and nurture factors”. Nature factors refer to forces that naturally alter a child’s disposition toward certain instruments, while nurture factors refer to external influences which induce children to favour certain instruments.
CON: Male/Female Interaction Promotes Distraction * For children of all ages, interacting with the opposite sex can cause anxiety or self-consciousness. Dating might divert a girl away from her studies, or changing hormones could cause a boy to become less involved in school. Teasing often involves two children of the opposite sex. All of these scenarios could produce negative effects such as fear
They would rather sit and talk and be quiet, versus loud and obnoxious. They are more secretive with each other and bond through that. “It’s the telling of secrets, the fact and the way that they talk to each other, that makes them best friends” (315). Women are simpler with their conversational styles, and do not take hierarchy as serious as men do. When young girls play together they play games that consist of their future, typically house, or forms of it, and share secrets consistently with those they trust the most.
Parents tend to spend less time reading with their sons, and the mother is usually the reader which makes boys think that reading is feminine. Boys tend to form anti-school subcultures, which means they adopt the norms and values of traditional masculinity. Messing around helps their status within the group. Francis says that
That is the relationship between the two genders, and the relationship between gender and society. Girls and boys are encouraged to adopt female and male characteristics that are determined by society. Their behaviour is reinforced by praise or reward for being appropriately masculine or feminine. (Buckingham-Hatfield, 2000). Freud’s psychodynamic theory implies that a child’s gender identity is absent before the age of around three and that it is not fully formed