Picturing the Ideal

In our modern day Western Culture it has become a common everyday activity to judge each other. With this knowledge we were asked to create our gender ideal.

For females we chose Kate Middleton deciding she was everything a woman should be, beautiful, classy and a role model for all.

http://www.people.com/people/kate_middleton 

http://www.glamcheck.com/entertainment/2010/11/07/gerald-butler-chips-in-for-a-noble-cause/

For males we decided Gerald Butler because he is athletic, successful and confident.

The fact is that gender isn't as simple as it seems. There is our sex or biological status which is simply whether we are male or female.

There is gender, which is the learned behaviour or sociocultural dimension of sex.

This concept of gender leads to the development of gender roles which outlines the expectations for thinking, acting, or feeling (cognitive, behaviour, affect) that is permitted within society.

In society we learn our cultural schema (cluster ideas), stereotypes and eventually blend them with our own ideas. There are four main views on gender development.

The first and most logical is biological which pertains to the cause of gender in gender make up and is simply the way our brains are individually wired.

The second is social learning which I think is the most important and strongest contributing fact. How a child learns by observation and modelling which teaches them gender depending on how they were/ are socialized.

Third is the cognative development theory which is related to Kohlberg in terms of the development sequence in relation to concepts of gender.

Last but not least, is the gender schema theory is an information processing approach where children also develop concept of gender.

I think gender is a very delicate topic which as teachers we have to be open to discuss. Since children are raised differently with other beliefs and values we have to understand that they are not neccessarily mesh with their classmates like we would like them to.