Receives Gender Development Grant
research on gender development has focused on children 3 years of
age or older, but theory suggests that awareness of one's own sex
and the potential for developing gender stereotypes begins even
earlier in life. The challenge has been validating the theory.
and toddlers do not have the same level of verbal understanding
or cooperation required in previous studies and recent attempts
to establish age-appropriate measures have been thwarted by methodological
problems or inconsistent results.
Sen (Psychology) will
try to make advances in this emerging area of research. She has
received a two-year, $100,000 grant from the National Institutes
of Health to develop and pilot-test measures to analyze gender development
in 6- to 30-month-old children.
will adapt methods used in other areas of research with very young
populations with the goal of designing paradigms that are both age
appropriate and engaging," she said. "Specifically, we
will try to measure children's understanding of what sex they are;
their knowledge of gender stereotypes; and gender salience, or the
attention and importance they attach to gender. The main focus is
determining whether the measures themselves are feasible, but hopefully
we will also obtain some results for this age group in the process."
said there are a variety of ways to measure stereotype knowledge
in older children. One might be showing the subject a doll and asking
whether a girl or boy is most likely to play with it. Another could
be asking the subject to put a toy airplane into the hands of a
female or male doll.
work okay, but they are not ideal activities for younger children,"
she added. "We will test kids 12-30 months old using six different
measures. One is sequential touching – presenting them with a tray
full of toys and observing how they play with them and associate
the toys with each other. It's similar to testing category formation
when kids play with related toys. There is some evidence that children
know the doll and truck distinction at 12 months. They might have
stereotype knowledge at that age, or it could be a case of innate
differences or parents steering them away from other things. At
12 months girls and boys prefer dolls – at 18 they show gender stereotyped
is the director of the gender studies minor at NMU. She said her
interest in the field stems from her feminist upbringing. While
parenting plays a role, she said even children raised in egalitarian
households learn gender stereotypes. Sen is interested in when these
first develop and whether they conceivably can be changed. She is
also intrigued by children who don't conform to stereotypes even
when there's so much societal pressure to do so.
stereotypes is a goal, but not the primary one," she said.
"We want to provide detail for what develops and when so that
hopefully we can use these measures to develop longitudinal studies
of gender development from birth through adulthood. Once a better
theoretical explanation of gender development is in place, it might
be used for interventions that will lead to cultural change."
said the NMU dean of graduate studies office supported her attendance
at a proposal writing institute, which helped her secure the NIH
grant. She will receive help executing the study from four undergraduate
psychology department makes a conscious effort to involve students
as much as possible in our research. They can read or talk about
designing a study, but to actually see and experience the process
is much more valuable and really boosts their resumes. Working with
them also helps me write them solid recommendations for graduate
plans to begin testing young children this month.