Abstract
Developmental psychologists acknowledge that understanding gender is a key milestone for children and teenagers to accomplish. Broadly, the developmental literature tends to focus on investigating biological differences between males and females or theorizing on how children become gendered and learn gender. The editors of Current Issues in Developmental Psychology: Gender and Development put together a collection of research that moves away from the well-worn debates on gender differences and how gender develops and instead focuses on how children navigate their social worlds by doing gender. By featuring the “best and most original research,” Leman and Tenenbaum aim to “create possibilities for future work” that investigates gender in context (p. xv). Unfortunately, the volume as a whole lacks a coherent focus and the chapters are directed at an audience who is already well versed in this area of research and methodology. Gender and Development attempts to bring cutting-edge research to a new audience; however, greater coherence and a less scholarly presentation might have better achieved that goal.
The editors introduce Gender and Development as centralized around the theme: “children’s active participation with others contributes to the enactment of gendered ways of being” (p. xx). They explicitly state that their introduction is not meant to synthesize the chapters because each approaches the theme of gender in context from a different direction. The introduction is persuasive and takes a strong stand that gender is a key developmental process and that early gender learning may be one of the roots that maintains gender stereotypes in adulthood. Moreover, understanding gender development can lead to clues about when and where social change can be enacted and why equality remains elusive despite the many advances women have made in Western societies.
The final chapter by Sinno, Schuette, and Killen (“Developmental Social Cognition about Gender Roles in the Family and Societal Context”) best addresses and assesses the theme of the book by investigating children’s knowledge and awareness of gender role norms in the family. The context of the family teaches children specific things about gender which in turn affect their ambitions for the future in gender-stereotypical ways. Although the remaining chapters often include gender as a variable, they might be better framed to understand gender in context. For example, Ittel, Azmitia, Pfetsch, and Muller (“Teasing, Threats, and Texts”) investigate empathy and cyberbullying. They compare boys’ and girls’ media usage and cyberbullying behaviors, but there is little about gender in context because they find more overall similarity than difference between boys and girls.
Although the research in the book may not always fit the theme of gender in context, its approachability and readability are even more potentially limiting. Gender and Development is not well geared toward undergraduates, graduate students, or even early career professors and thus limits its likely impact on future researchers. Readers need a sophisticated understanding of developmental psychology and its methods to comprehend the studies presented. Additionally, those well versed in developmental psychology and gender are likely already familiar with the research presented here and they may be frustrated by the need for more coherence across the chapters.
Gender and Development attempts to show how children “operate as gendered social actors” (p. xx), but could do more to reach that goal. A thorough understanding of gender in context is sorely needed because, as the editors note, “gender continues to define behaviors and shape opportunities available to boys and girls in restricting and unfair ways” (p. xxi). Indeed, the most important contribution of Gender and Development may be highlighting why more gender-in-context work is needed in developmental psychology.