Different perspectives on Gender Socialisation

Over the years there has been a lot of debate over the extent to which gender differences is ‘natural’ and the extent to which they are produced environmentally (Williams & Sheehan, 2001).  Theories explaining how gender is constructed fall broadly into biological, social or psychoanalytic categories (Measor & Sykes, 1992). 


Biological Determinism Theories:
Biological determinism theorist believe that gender differences are mostly determined by genetic factors (Williams & Sheehan, 2001).  They would argue that gender identity and differences in cognitive skills and personality are genetically determined (Low & Jose, 2010).  This is the belief that “boys will be boys” which associates with “boyish” behaviours, these are easily identified and are believed to be essential and natural to boys.

Social Constructionism:

Many people would argue that gender is created through society.  Low and Jose (2010) would argue that the environment provides many different cues as to how male and female should behave. This is naturally established at birth and the child will usually grow up to be associated to this gender identity (Williams & Sheehan, 2001).  However, Measor and Sykes (1992) would argue that there is still much unknown about how gender socialisation works so they have divided socialisation into two groups: social learning theories and Cognitive development theories.

Social learning theories:
The social learning theory argues that gender role and identity is learnt from their environment (Sammons, n.d).  Children learn appropriate gender roles through imitation and modelling (Williams & Sheehan, 2001).  This theory stems from the ideas of Bandura and Mischel, where children will observe people that behave in various ways, mostly people that relate to their gender.  They pay attention to what is being observed and then encode these behaviours, then at a later time they may imitate these behaviours (Sammons, n.d). This theory suggests that children have previous knowledge about their sex or understand the connection between themselves and a certain role model before this learning takes place (Beal, 1994).

According to Rudy, Popova and Linz (2010) the social learning theory suggests that people also learn from media just as they learn from real-world models of behaviour. Thorne (1993) would argue that children learn and pick up gender stereotypes through books, songs, advertisement’s, television programmes, clothes, toys and movies.  These different types of social networks constructs and moulds the actions and intentions that society considers “appropriate” for a particular sex or group which impacts the patterns of thinking, feeling and doing (Torres – Crespo, 2009).  These messages if you like, create cultural ideas about what men, women, boys and girls should consider “correct” for their gender or sex (Clark, 1993).  Rudy, Popova and Linz (2010) would argue that such repetition of these messages influence learning from media.  Below is an example of how commercials has encouraged these gender differences over the years and that even though these messages are conveyed in different ways, it is evident that the messages that are being conveyed are socialising children into gender:  

 

What about people that are born with male parts but consider themselves female or vice versa?

UNICEF (2009) argues that gender socialisation is not only dictated by societal beliefs but also by ones values, attitudes and culture.  According to Beal (1994) many other cultures have allowed people more freedom to cross gender role boundaries and to blend both male and female roles.  Take my culture for example, fa’afafine has been a part of Samoan communities for centuries.  Fa’afafine are Samoan biological males that behave in many different feminine gendered ways (Schmidt, 2012).  In Samoa a male that prefers female roles is identified early in life and is then acknowledged and accepted by Samoan society as a fa’afafine (Schmidt, 2012).  Fa’afafine undertake feminine and masculine roles in the family, they often remain in their family homes and take care of their parents (Schmidt, 2012).  However, those that have come over to New Zealand have found it hard to be themselves as the strong traditional western gender system does not easily accept individuals that sit between male and female (Schmidt, 2012).  Those that remain as fa’afafine strongly identify themselves with the gay community. 

Cognitive development theories:
While the social learning theory suggests that boys and girls are treated differently in many ways, it is evident that children have their own ideas about what it means to be a boy or girl and that adults have limited influence (Beal, 1994).  In contrast, cognitive developmental perspectives focuses on the child’s active role in their gender socialisation.  Kohlberg (1966) adds to the social learning theory by suggesting that reinforcement behaviours are also guided by the child’s own need to do things that fits into their concept of the self.  Kohlberg (1969) establishes three stages to his theory these are basic gender identity, gender stability and gender consistency.
Williams and Sheehan (2001) states that Kohlberg has argued that children need to establish gender identity to understand gender role identification and that children are conscious of and imitate gender roles that are important to them because they are actively involved.   

Gender identity is when a child knows he or she is male or female but fails to understand that gender is a constant attribute, this is usually reached by the age of 3 (Kohlberg, 1966). Gender stability is when a child understands that their gender is stable over time, this is when a boy will know that he will grow up to be a man and a girl will know that she will grow up to be a women (Kohlberg, 1966).  Gender consistency is typical around the age of four or five, this is when a child understands that a person’s gender will stay the same, regardless of any changes in the person’s activities and appearance (Kohlberg, 1966).  When children understand this they become highly motivated to make their behaviour consistent with their gender identity (William, 1977).  Children at this stage become extremely intolerant of others who violate traditional standards of masculinity or femininity, this is evident in the following video where children are being interviewed about gender roles:

Psychoanalytic Theories:
This approach to gender construction is very broad and the field of psychoanalytic theory is large. Overall, psychoanalytical theories focus on the early years of life and are heavily concerned about the emotional processes within the child and the feelings and conflicts that impact on the child (William & Sheehan, 2001).  Because this approach contains various theories I will focus only on the feminist poststructuralist theory as this is a new theoretical perspective. 

Feminist Poststructuralist:

Feminist post-structuralism advocates for a more equal society, which seek to understand the complexities of power relations within the structures of society (Williams & Sheehan, 2001). Feminism looks into the important insights into the construction of gender and “sexualised objects”, while post-structuralism highlights the need “to acknowledge the differences and heterogeneity that exists between individuals, groups and subject positions (Robinson & Diaz, 2006, p. 26).  MacNaughton (as cited in Robinson & Diaz, 2006) highlights how individual identities and their meanings such as gender are not biologically determined, but rather are constructed in and through everyday social interactions and relations of power that operate in our daily lives. 

References:

Beal, C. (1994). Boys and girls: The development of gender roles. New York: McGraw Hall.

Clark, M. (1993) The great divide: Gender in the primary school. Brunswick: Impact Printing.

Kohlberg, L. (1996). A cognitive-developmental analysis of children’s sex role concepts and attitudes. In E. E. Maccoby (Ed.), The development of sex differences. (PP. 82-173). Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Kohlberg, L. (1969). Stage and sequence: The cognitive-developmental approach to socialization. In D. A. Goslin (Ed.), Handbook of socialization theory and research. Chicago: Rand McNally.

Low, J., & Jose, P. (2010). Lifespan development: New Zealand perspectives (2nd ed.). North Shore, New Zealand: Pearson. 

Measor, L., & Sykes, P. (1992). Gender and schools. London: Cassell.

Robinson, K., & Diaz, K. (2006). Diversity and difference in early childhood education: Issues for theory and practice. London: Open University Press.

Rudy, R. M., Popova, L., & Linz, D. G. (2010). The context of current content analysis of gender roles: An introduction to a special issue. Sex Roles, 62(11-12), 705-720. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11199-010-9807-1.

Sammon, A. (n.d). Gender: Social learning. Retrieved from www.psychlotron.org.uk/.../developmental.

Schmidt, J. (2012). Gender diversity – faafafine. Retrieved from http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/gender-diversity/page-3.

Thorne, B. (1993). Gender play: Girls and boys in school. Buckingham: Open University Press.

Torres – Crespo, M. (2009). Exploring gender roles through children's play episodes in an early childhood setting, as part of Puerto Rican culture: A qualitative study. Retrieved from: http://udini.proquest.com/view/exploring-gender-roles-through-pqid:1980590941/.



UNICEF, (2009). Early childhood: Early gender socialization. Retrieved from http://www.unicef.org/earlychildhood/index_40749.html.
  William, D. (1977). The social world of the child. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass

Williams, R., & Sheehan, J. (2001).Gender issues in education. In Carpenter, V., Dixon, H., Rata, E., & Rawlinson, C. (Eds.), Theory in practice for educators (1st ed., pp. 211-239). North Shore, New Zealand: Cengage Learning.