Poster #187 - Are Blocks Just for Boys? Parental Assessment Reveals Gender Stereotypes Rather Than Actual Skill

• In Event: 2-055 - Poster Session 06
  In Poster Session: PS 06 Section - Sex, Gender

Integrative Statement

Block construction is a complex spatial task that appears early in development and predicts later spatial and mathematical skills. There is debate as to whether the spatial skills that underlie block construction have early emerging gender differences which advantage males. For example, some literature shows strong gender differences on spatial tasks such as mental rotation even in infants (i.e. Quinn & Liben, 2008), whereas other literature shows little or no difference in underlying spatial ability based on gender, but rather differences based on childhood play experiences (i.e. Caldera, Culp, O’Brien, Tuglio, Alvarez, & Huston, 1999). In addition, parents in western cultures may perpetuate gender stereotypes about childhood activities such as building with blocks by encouraging boys to play with spatial toys more than girls (i.e. Caldera, Huston, & O’Brien, 1989).

In this study, we investigated relationships among children’s performance on a complex spatial task, parental ratings of their own children’s block skill, and gender of the child. Thirty children, aged 4-8 years, were asked to copy several configurations of large Lego blocks (see figure 1). We measured performance as the number of steps children took to complete their copy constructions, controlling for the number of blocks present in each of the constructions. Independent of the block construction task, we asked parents to rate their child’s block building abilities, specifically in comparison to other children of similar age. This rating question was part of a larger survey on their child’s typical play activities.

We found that children’s performance varied significantly as a function of age such that younger children executed more errors and backtracking in order to complete their copies F(1,139) = 14.77, p < .001. Gender, on the other hand, was not a significant predictor of the children’s performance on the block construction task, F(1,26) = 0.42, p = .522. Critically, parent ratings were not related to differences in the children’s actual performance, F(1,137) = 0.18, p = .671, but they were predicted by the child’s gender F(1,28) = 25.73, p < .001 (see figure 2). Despite the lack of differences in children’s actual performance, parents of boys tended to rate their child as more adept at block construction compared to same aged peers than did parents of girls. In other words, parents seem to base their judgments about their child’s ability on their gender rather than actual ability. This raises questions about how parents are addressing children’s needs given societal gender stereotypes, and how they might exacerbate or perpetuate these stereotypes, especially in spatial domains.

Authors

• Cathryn Cortesa, Johns Hopkins University
  Presenting Author

• Barbara Landau, Johns Hopkins University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Amy L Shelton, Johns Hopkins University
  Non-Presenting Author