Girls’ Expression of Their Own Perspectives in the Presence of Varying Numbers of Boys

Abstract

directors of the nursery schools; and all the girls and boys and teachers who allowed us into their classrooms so that we might carry out this project. Finally, special thanks to Beth Landau and Julie Parsons, who served as research assistants at the schools and to Shari Aikins who helped with coding of the videotapes. q 1997 The International Society for the Study of Behavioural DevelopmentThis study was designed to examine the hypothesis that girls' expression of their own perspectives would decrease as the ratio of girls to boys decreased. In each of 12 classes, two target girls were observed in three contexts: with four other girls (all-girls group), with two other girls and two boys (girls-in-majority group), and with four boys (girls-in-min ority group). The number and duration of episodes in which the target girls clearly took a differing perspective from another child were analysed across the three contexts. Results showed a signi cant decrease in duration of episodes of rmly taking a different perspective from the all-girls to the girls-in-major ity contexts. However, there was no difference in duration of episodes of rmly taking a different perspective between the all-girls and the girls-in-mino rity contexts. In contrast to previous literature, ndings strongly suggest that girls' expression of their own perspectives is in uenced by several mechanisms and not simply the ratio of girls to boys.

Gender Differences of Popular Music Production in Secondary Schools

“…As a consequence, there was less talk about play and more communication through play. Conversely, because girls played in smaller groups and played games with less-defined rules like "house," there was more emphasis on talk (Benenson, Del Bianco, Philippoussis, & Apostoleris, 1997).…”