Graduate Research Papers
Availability
Open Access Graduate Research Paper
Abstract
Gender differences exist among different aspects of children's development (such as social, cognitive, and emotional). Children's narratives have been used as a common assessment tool (Libby & Aries, 1989; Wang & Leichtman, 2000) to learn more about gender differences. Knowledge of existing differences enables educators to individualize their teaching for boys and girls in order to benefit their development. The present study focused on gender differences in the following areas of American children's oral narratives: characters, emotional tone, structure, content, and language. The participants of the study were 14 kindergarteners and first-graders (7 boys and 7 girls) between ages 6 - 6.5, recruited from a university laboratory school and public elementary school in the Midwest. Each subject was presented four oral story starters during two individual interviews (two story starters each day). Findings of the study indicated that boys tended to tell significantly more stories that reflected a threatening atmosphere, while girls told significantly more stories that involved an aggressive mood. Among other findings of this study, which were not found significant, were boys' tendencies to tell more imaginary stories and girls' tendencies to tell more stories with stronger links to reality. In terms of structure, girls' narratives were found to be longer and included more simple sentences.
Year of Submission
2006
Degree Name
Master of Arts in Education
Department
Department of Curriculum and Instruction
Department
Division of Early Childhood Education
First Advisor
Rebecca K. Edmiaston
Second Advisor
Penny L. Beed
Date Original
2006
Object Description
1 PDF file (v, 67 leaves)
Copyright
©2006 Nadezda M. Zemova
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Zernova, Nadezda M., "Gender Differences in American Children's Oral Narratives" (2006). Graduate Research Papers. 1569.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/grp/1569
Comments
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