Educational Psychology
Chapter 5 Gender
Gender: the characteristic of people as male and female.
Gender roles: sets of expectations that prescribe how females or males should
think, act and feel.
Gender typing: the acquisition of a traditional masculine or feminine role.
There are various ways to look at gender development. Some views stress the
influence of biological factors on the behavior of males and females.
Some views emphasize social or cognitive factors. It is acknowledged that girls
and boys are treated differently because of their psychical differences and their
different roles in reproduction. Peers play an important gender-socializing role,
teaching each other what is acceptable and unacceptable gender behavior.
Cognitive factors also contribute to children’s development. Gender schema
theory states that gender typing emerges as children develop gender schemas of
what is gender appropriate and inappropriate in their culture. Children are
motivated to act in ways that conform with these gender schemas.
Gender stereotypes: categories that reflect impressions and beliefs about what
behavior is appropriate for females and males. It refers to an image of what the
typical member of a category is like. Gender stereotyping changes
developmentally, in elementary school children have considerable knowledge
about which activities are linked with being male and female.
Similarities and differences in the brains of males and females could be due to
evolution and heredity as well as social experiences. In physical education class,
boys expend more energy through movement than girls do. In the classroom this
means that boys are more likely than girls to move around and they are less
likely to pay attention. No gender differences appear in overall intellectual ability.
Boys tend to have better visuospatial skills than girls. Girls tend to have better
verbal skills than boys.
There is some gender controversy. Some researchers find the differences and
similarities are exaggerated and others find them are extensive and caused by
the adaptive problems.
Not long ago it was proposed that individuals could have both masculine and
feminine traits, androgyny. It means the presence of positive masculine and
Chapter 5 Gender
Gender: the characteristic of people as male and female.
Gender roles: sets of expectations that prescribe how females or males should
think, act and feel.
Gender typing: the acquisition of a traditional masculine or feminine role.
There are various ways to look at gender development. Some views stress the
influence of biological factors on the behavior of males and females.
Some views emphasize social or cognitive factors. It is acknowledged that girls
and boys are treated differently because of their psychical differences and their
different roles in reproduction. Peers play an important gender-socializing role,
teaching each other what is acceptable and unacceptable gender behavior.
Cognitive factors also contribute to children’s development. Gender schema
theory states that gender typing emerges as children develop gender schemas of
what is gender appropriate and inappropriate in their culture. Children are
motivated to act in ways that conform with these gender schemas.
Gender stereotypes: categories that reflect impressions and beliefs about what
behavior is appropriate for females and males. It refers to an image of what the
typical member of a category is like. Gender stereotyping changes
developmentally, in elementary school children have considerable knowledge
about which activities are linked with being male and female.
Similarities and differences in the brains of males and females could be due to
evolution and heredity as well as social experiences. In physical education class,
boys expend more energy through movement than girls do. In the classroom this
means that boys are more likely than girls to move around and they are less
likely to pay attention. No gender differences appear in overall intellectual ability.
Boys tend to have better visuospatial skills than girls. Girls tend to have better
verbal skills than boys.
There is some gender controversy. Some researchers find the differences and
similarities are exaggerated and others find them are extensive and caused by
the adaptive problems.
Not long ago it was proposed that individuals could have both masculine and
feminine traits, androgyny. It means the presence of positive masculine and
