Parents Explain More Often to Boys Than to Girls During Shared Scientific Thinking

Young children's everyday scientific thinking often occurs in the context of parent-child interactions. In a study of naturally occurring family conversation, parents were three times more likely to explain science to boys than to girls while using interactive science exhibits in a museum. This difference in explanation occurred despite the fact that parents were equally likely to talk to their male and female children about how to use the exhibits and about the evidence generated by the exhibits. The findings suggest that parents engaged in informal science activities with their children may be unintentionally contributing to a gender gap in children's scientific literacy well before children encounter formal science instruction in grade school.

[1]  Baruch B. Schwarz,et al.  Seeing the Problem: An Explanation From Pólya , 1997 .

[2]  L. Meek,et al.  American Association of University Women , 1929 .

[3]  H. Wellman,et al.  Knowledge acquisition in foundational domains. , 1998 .

[4]  Christine Y. O'Sullivan.  NAEP 1996 Science Report Card for the Nation and the States. Findings from the National Assessment of Educational Progress. , 1997 .

[5]  J. Falk,et al.  Family behavior and learning in informal science settings: A review of the research , 1994 .

[6]  Kevin Crowley,et al.  Everyday Activity and the Development of Scientific Thinking , 2001 .

[7]  M. G. Jones,et al.  Gender differences in teacher‐student interactions in science classrooms , 1990 .

[8]  Rochel Gelman,et al.  Characterizing supporting environments for cognitive development: Lessons from children in a museum , 1991, Perspectives on socially shared cognition.

[9]  L. Oakes,et al.  Preschoolers' questions and parents' explanations: Causal thinking in everyday activity. , 1992 .

[10]  Barbara Rogoff,et al.  Children’s Categorization With Varying Adult Support , 1998 .

[11]  Cynthia Abbott Cone,et al.  Space, Time, and Family Interaction: Visitor Behavior at the Science Museum of Minnesota , 1978 .

[12]  S. Carey.  Conceptual Change in Childhood , 1985 .

[13]  Jeffrey Bisanz,et al.  What did you learn outside of school today? Using structured interviews to document home and community activities related to science and technology , 1997 .

[14]  Stephanie D. Teasley,et al.  Perspectives on socially shared cognition , 1991 .

[15]  K. Dunbar.  HOW SCIENTISTS REALLY REASON: SCIENTIFIC REASONING IN REAL-WORLD LABORATORIES , 1995 .

[16]  A. Kelly.  Gender differences in teacher–pupil interactions: a meta-analytic review , 1988 .

[17]  S. Andrews,et al.  The effects of theories on children's acquisition of family-resemblance categories. , 1998, Child development.

[18]  J. Jovanovic,et al.  Bias or Responsivity? Sex and Achievement-Level Effects on Teachers' Classroom Questioning Practices , 1998 .

[19]  M. Siegal.  Are sons and daughters treated more differently by fathers than by mothers , 1987 .

[20]  M. Lisi,et al.  Sex differences in parental teaching behaviors. , 1988 .

[21]  J. Gleason,et al.  The Relationship of Play Activity and Gender to Parent and Child Sex-typed Communication , 1996 .

[22]  K. Crowley,et al.  Explanation and generalization in young children's strategy learning. , 1999, Child development.

[23]  Michelene T. H. Chi,et al.  Eliciting Self-Explanations Improves Understanding , 1994, Cogn. Sci..

[24]  R. Siegler,et al.  How Does Change Occur: A Microgenetic Study of Number Conservation , 1995, Cognitive Psychology.

[25]  K. Crowley,et al.  Designing for Science: Implications from Everyday, Classroom, and Professional Settings. , 2001 .

[26]  Judy Diamond,et al.  Sex Differences in Science Museums: A Review , 1994 .

[27]  Herbert A. Simon,et al.  Collaborative Discovery in a Scientific Domain , 1997, Cogn. Sci..

[28]  Hugh Lytton,et al.  Parents' differential socialization of boys and girls: A meta-analysis. , 1991 .