PSYC 262 - Gender-Role Development

Credits: 3
Planned Offering: Fall 2012 and alternate years.

Prerequisites: PSYC 113, PSYC 250 or WGS 120. This course provides the student with an overview of gender-role development: How do children learn to be boys and girls? What role do biological factors play in different behaviors of boys and girls? Does society push boys and girls in different directions? We discuss children’s evolving ideas about gender, and what can be done to change these ideas (or whether they need to be changed at all). Through the examination of these questions and issues, the course introduces students to the major theories of gender-role development, the research methods used to measure children’s gender-role behaviors and attitudes, and the current research in the field. Fulcher.