Gender stereotypes and middle-school children’s self-perception: a comparison of mothers' and their children's reports

• In Event: Poster session 2

Proposal

Children’s perceptions regarding their competence in various domains of life may play a crucial role for their academic success as well as mental health; and these perceptions differ depending on their gender and gender stereotypes (i.e., a set of generalized beliefs regarding traits and conducts of males, females and other gender categories, Leaper & Spears-Brown, 2017). For instance, there are some findings showing that girls tend to perceive themselves less competent in math and more competent in language and arts than boys even at the first grade, as consistent with the existing gender stereotypes (Jacobs, Lanza, Osgood, Eccles, & Wigfield, 2002). Moreoever, gender-stereotypical beliefs that parents hold might affect the way how they perceive their own children's competence in several domains. Some studies demonstrated that parents of boys believed that their children were better in math compared to parents of girls even when there were no actual differences between the groups in terms of the test scores (Eccles et al.,1990; Eccles & Jacobs, 1990; Jacobs, 1991). In the light of these findings, in this study we expected that children’s perceived competence in different domains (i.e., school performance, social skills, athletic skills, physical appearance and behavioral conduct, the global sense of self-worth) was related to their mothers’ perceptions of their competence; (ii) children’s perceived competence was related to their own academic-related gender stereotypes, (iii) children’s gender stereotypes were related to their mothers’ gender stereotypes. A group of 270 preadolescents (54% female) with a mean age of 11 years (SD =1.35 years) and their mothers participated to the study. Children filled out the Academic-Related Gender Stereotype Questionnaire (developed by the authors) and Harter’s Self-Perception Profile for Children. The mothers reported on the mother forms of the same scales so that information about their gender stereotypes and perceptions about their children’s competence was obtained. A set of hierarchical regression analyses in which the the child’s perceived competence was used as an outcome variable; the mother’s perception of the child’s competence, her and the child’s gender stereotypes were predictors; the child’s age, gender, current school performance (semester point average) and the type of school he/she attended as well as the mother’s education level were control variables. The results showed that (i) the mothers’ perception of their children predicted children’s self-perception in all areas (correlation coefficients ranged from weak to moderate). (ii) The children’s gender stereotypes were related only to their physical appearance beliefs. Furthermore, the interaction term between children’s gender and gender stereotypes was significant for children’s sense of self-worth indicating that the stronger the gender stereotypes, the lower the perceived self-worth whereas holding gender stereotypes did not have such an effect for females’ sense of self-worth. (iii) There was a weak association between the mothers’ and children’s gender stereotypes, which seems to support the Gender Schema Theory stating that children perform as active agents when they build their own gender schemas. The practical implications of these results for caregivers, educators and school counselors will be discussed in detail.

Authors

• Elif Ozen, private practice

• Nihal Yeniad, Asst Prof.

• Bengu Borkan, Bogazici University