Topic: Gender

For this assignment you will be watching videos of children that focus on gender. Just to be clear YOU WILL BE MAKING OBSERVATIONS ON VIDEOS. You do NOT need to look up readings about the topic, only look watch videos.
A formal write-up takes the key terms from the reading and summary of each topic, looks for examples in the video reservoir. Please note the video name, state the term of behavior is an example of, UNDERLINE OR BOLD SAID TERM and then describe the example of the behavior. If you run out of examples you may discuss the discussion question, but the expectation is that for most topics you will have 1-1.5 pages of observations.

I WILL BE PROVIDING YOU WITH ALL OF THE SOURCES FOR THE ASSIGNMENT.
I HAVE ALSO PROVIDED AN EXAMPLE OF WHAT THE FORMAL WRITE UP SHOULD LOOK LIKE.

Teacher’s Prompt:
the two sides of gender, one public and one private. On the public side we will be considering gender stereotypes. These are the widely held beliefs about what is appropriate for males and females. (This is called the “public” side, because gender stereotypes largely reflect social norms.) Please read pages 390-390 (early childhood) and 503-505 (middle childhood) to learn about how children use gender stereotypes in different ways, depending on their stage of development.

On the “private” side of gender, we will be looking at gender identity. Gender identity is your own conception of yourself (as opposed to society) as relatively feminine, masculine, or androgynous (a mix of both masculine and feminine traits). Please read pages 395-397 (early childhood) and 505-506 (middle childhood) to learn more about this topic.

After you have read these pages, please watch the video linked on the main page for the course for this week. Then you will be ready to create basic observations. BTW, remember this week you have to be very thoughtful of observer bias. For instance, when you see a child wearing a pink shirt, if she is female you may be tempted to conclude it is evidence of gender stereotypes impacting her behavior–which we call gender typed behavior. But is it? Maybe it’s the stereotypes in YOUR head that influence this, and she wore the shirt because her mom made her, or because it’s just what she had clean that morning.

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