Gender Differences in Intelligence - Term Paper Example

Is there a gender difference in intelligence Discuss in relation to early years of education Introduction In general, developmental theories reflectthe proportional extent to which nature and nurture are perceived to control the outcomes and course of development during the early years of life (Alloway, 1997). Contemporary theories consider the influences of heredity and maturation indicate the nature viewpoint, and influences of environmental and behavioural factors would designate the nurture position. A third group of proponents, however, emphasizes that there are interactions among innate characteristics of a child, circumstances in which caregivers are, and variables within the community as societal factors (Arnot, 2002). It is now established that only heredity or only the environment does not control child development. Therefore, these theoretical orientations emphasize that over time, different sets of conditions may influence the changes in children's behaviour in different stages of development (Piaget, 1952). Both the maturational and psychoanalytic theories highlight the influence of these internal variables in development of intellectual acumen and behaviour of children in relation to age. From that perspective, early childhood development can be considered to be expression of inborn predispositions primarily, which is an invariant innate process. According to these theories, a child's learning and intellectual development proceed according to a prefixed biologically dictated plan, which could have been determined by the specifics of genetics at the moment of conception. Therefore individual variations in intelligence and cognitive abilities can be reflections of differences in genetic traits. These theories which emphasize the dominant and determining role of innate and internal biological factors as primary driving forces of early development can be categorized traditionally as nature side of developmental explanations. There is, however, considerable similarity among young children in the early part of their development when learning and education begin. These are best understood by maturational theories. It can be argued that if changes in children's behaviours and intelligence are conceived to be originating from inborn traits primarily, the role of adults would be to just provide appropriate conditions based on appropriate interpretations (Alloway, 1997). However, theories of education in early childhood are based on the belief that parenting and teaching can have considerable impact on the course of young children's development, both educational and intellectual (Jones Diaz and Robinson, 2000). Gender is a significantly important equity issue to be addressed with young children's' development and has consequently been incorporated into educational programmes in early childhood. Over time, research in this area has increased understanding and awareness of the ways gender operating in young children's lives, at least in the early phase of development. Years over, researchers have proposed that spatial and mathematical abilities domains point at gender differences in cognitive abilities since they were known to yield marked differences favouring the males (Ingraham, 1994). Other studies have revealed that throughout elementary school, girls clock better grades in mathematics and other subjects in comparison to the boys. Some researchers have shown that boys' advantage in mathematics is not prominent until secondary school. Current research throwing a close look at children's performance on specific intelligence and cognitive ability test items reveals that both genders are equal in basic knowledge in mathematics with girls doing better in skills of computation. Despite controversies, boys' advantage appears in reasoning involving geometry and complex word problems. If mathematics or being good at mathematics is a measure of intelligence in early childhood, therefore, girls are no less than the boys (Katz, 1982). In comparison to past paradigms, there have been major theoretical shifts in the perception of contribution of gender in intelligence. Consequently, there is a comparative shift in the role that education is perceived to play in the process of gender formation. As a result, the educators have employed different approaches to counteract gender discrimination in schooling. The manifestations of intelligence take different forms in early childhood. Spatial skill is one of them. It has believed by some experts that gender difference in intellectual abilities is rooted in boys' superior ability to reason. The essentialist and biological points of views regarding gender and gender formation have shifted now to views that perceive gender as a socio-cultural process, constructed socially (Lundeberg, 1997). Gender differences in spatial skills are present in elementary school and are persistent throughout life. It has also been observed that children good at spatial reasoning can solve complex mathematics problems better. It has been proposed that androgens in males may be responsible for this. However, concrete evidence supporting this concept is inconsistent. Heredity may indeed contribute to male superiority in spatial reasoning; there is an undeniable role of socio-cultural experiences in discerning the difference. Support of this view comes from the observation that children engaging in spatial manipulative activities fair better on tasks involving spatial reasoning, which may be interpreted as manifestations of superior intelligence (MacNaughton, 1993). Examples may be taken from playing video games. These require rapid mental rotation of visual images. In this area, spatial test scores of boys and girls are identical despite the fact that culturally, boys spend more time in these pursuits in comparison to the girls (Arnold et al., 1994). Earlier, many researchers believed that abilities in spatial, mathematical, and verbal skills were the areas where gender differences in terms of cognitive attributes occurred. Recent research, however, indicates that another area of difference in intelligence exists in terms of gender differences (Bai and Bertenthal, 1992). This area leans in favour of girls in terms of intelligent tasks requiring memory for the location of objects which boys lack. These have been classified into different types of tasks involving intelligence, namely spatial memory. These are object identity memory and conventional object location memory. Although riddled with questions about methodological soundness of these researches, the point to note is that these studies offered evolutionary explanations of cognitive gender differences, where superiority of girls were established in conventional object location memory activities. From the evolutionary points of views, it had been suggested that specific brain structures and related specific intellectual abilities might have had a sex-specific evolution. This could have resulted in significant differences in intellect between boys and girls. However, it is to be recognised that although a plausible explanation of all human behaviour and cognitive abilities is possible through evolutionary psychology paradigm, there is also a considerable role played by the process of adaptation, which is known to take place continuously at the population, societal, and individual levels. Experiential factors must be considered in interpretation of findings (Voyer et al., 2007). Empirical evidence points to the role early experiences play in development of intelligence. It has been proposed by many researchers that human intelligence environmental product largely. Based on animal and other studies Hunt proposed the possibility of promotion of "faster rate of intellectual growth in children" which could be manifested through enhancement of infant IQ, by "governing the encounters that children have with their environments, particularly during the early years of their development" (Hunt, 1961). Recently, perspectives on feminist poststructuralist paradigms have examined the perceptions of the process of gender construction at closer quarters. These views contend that gender is constituted discursively, and social power relations between males and females are perpetuated and continued through the cultural male/female binary rules that underpin common-sense thinking around masculinity and femininity, which essentially are oppositional. In this way, children play as active agents in the framing of gendered identities of their own. It is not difficult to conceive that there are theoretical shifts in conceptualisation of gender identity formations. Unfortunately, despite these changes, many early childhood educators think that children in their early years would assume the sex roles that they are directed to take on as boys and girls (Campbell et al., 2002). These are the perspectives which are reflected in strategies on early years learning through incorporation of pedagogical and curriculum programmes that deal with equity issues in early childhood education involving gender. It appears that there is a time for change based on evidence, and this seems appropriate from the views of Clarke and Clarke (1977) who state During the last twenty-five years the impact of new biological and social knowledge has caused revision or reformulation of many theories about the development of behavioral processes. In particular, the complexity of the interactions and transactions between nature and nurture are now more fully appreciated. There remains, however, one theory which is particularly resistant to change: that the environment in the early years exert a disproportionate and irreversible effect on a rapidly developing organism, compared with the potential for later environmental influences [Clarke and Clarke 1977, 4]. Research has indicated that the institution specifically in the early childhood years operates largely in order to constitute, regulate, and normalise some discourses maintained in the power relationships prevailing in the society in the broader gender senses. Research also demonstrates schooling practices, perceptions and pedagogies prevailing in the teachers, the structure of the curriculum, and the functions of the school management and organisation structures all operate in their respective areas to construct identities which are essentially gendered and without equities (Provence, 1989). Thus far research focused on elementary schooling in the early years indicates many significant details in favour of this. Children's attitudes towards mathematics and belief in individual ability to do well affect mathematics achievement, which can be regarded as an intelligent pursuit. Even when grades are poorer than girls, boys feel confident about their intelligent ability. Even in the early years of education, children are allowed to regard mathematics as a boy subject (Ramey and Ramey, 1998). As evident, this is a stereotype which promotes the girls to like mathematics less than the boys do, not only in terms of perception, but also in terms of prediction. It is quite possible that this gender stereotype is derived from the social surroundings. They build their concepts from the teachers and the parents and from examples in the community (Ramey and Ramey, 1999). Early childhood education and educators have important roles to play in this whole process of gender construction in children's of young age group, which is not surprising to see in educations in early years. From this, it can be derived that early childhood educators may play paramount roles in the process of gender construction in early childhood. This may be both in the perpetuation or disruption of discourses of gender in their early education. It is thus imperative that early childhood educators become reflexive on their personal understandings, perceptions, and beliefs about gender and their impacts on daily practices and interactions with children (Ramey et al., 1984). Gendering is an integral part of everyday life routines. Societal norms and cultural life encountered in the schools, families, and community construct gender in a systematic process beginning from birth and shaping it throughout life, depending on the phenotypic sex of the newborn. Certain gender qualities are associated with maleness and femaleness, and the competence of boys and girls as gendered human beings is based on demonstration of these predetermined qualities (Ankney, 1992). At a very young age, usually in the early childhood, the norms as boys or girls are learnt through differing experiences. Institutional forces do play important roles in constructing maleness or femaleness, due mainly to the need for ready identification through the characteristics of a particular gender. Moreover, human brain differs according to sex (Flashman et al., 1996). A 2006 study (Witelson et al., 2006) attempted to explore the neural basis of human intelligence since this was not well delineated before. These researchers acknowledged that combination of genetic and environmental factors contribute to intelligence, but they hypothesised that variation of intelligence may also, at least, be partly contributed by the neural substrate of the brain. They reported that as early as 1907, it was contemplated that greater intellectual ability of an individual could be associated with greater weight of the brain. Methodological flaws in these studies lead to severe criticisms of these propositions. Current technological advance has made it possible to experiment on the relationship between brain size and intelligence, which research has shown to be statistically significant. It is also known that the weight of human brain decreases with age, and numerous MRI studies have documented this. This phenomenon has been correlated with intelligence in that visuospatial skills reflected in the WAIS scale decreases with advancing age. Findings from current literature have added fire to the gender-brain debate by demonstrating that mean brain size is 9 to 12% larger in men than women. Further, it has been suggested that brain size may be a manifestation of interactions of effects of sex and age. Findings from other research have also indicated that the expression of genetic factors influencing the size of the brain and its functional organisations manifested through intelligence could also be modified by some nongenetic factors such as chance environmental events (Witelson et al., 2006). Relationships between these differences between genders in brain volume and expressed measures of intelligence can be of major importance in early childhood education. It has been argued based on this that the whole phenomenon of gender construction has been initiated and informed by the perspectives from feminist poststructuralism. This contends that individual identification as boys or girls occur essentially through various cultural discourses. From that point of view gender is a social construct and is hence a dynamic process that builds the concept of masculine and feminine traits through cultural inscriptions. Although biology can determine and explain these traits, from that angle gender and related concepts are physical, determined, and fixed. The feminist view does not agree to this, and they propose that gender differentiation as boys or girls are social categories despite biological differences, and these concepts are contested and unstable in that their representations and meanings are susceptible to change across cultures over time (Tong, 1989). This becomes particularly significant and meaningful for children. They learn what society considers appropriate and correct and express them within the existing order of the society. Current understandings about the process of gender influences in children's lives propose that gender construction dominates in early childhood education (Tobin, 2000). Robinson (2005) argues, the construction of children's gendered identities can only be understood fully with acknowledgement of the dominant discourses of masculinity and femininity and the process of heteronormalization in children's lives, which also include their experiences in the educational settings. The heterosexual matrix and performativity are useful concepts in the current understandings of the process of early childhood education and its relationship with gender construction (Robinson, 2005). It is often considered that gendered social practices are normal and natural. By the terms, normal and natural, there is obviously a tendency to overrule the concept of gender being a social construct and reiterate that gender is an effect of biology and nature. The opposition tended to neglect the biological differences and wanted to point at the differing dynamic social contexts that modify the abilities and definitions of gender. Taking the case of young children, these socially constructed boundaries of gender are closely maintained and monitored by the children themselves and also by their educators (MacNaughton, 1995). Family members and media also play important roles. The psychology of child development has yielded a new approach to understand young children and gendering. If gendering is nothing but another way of stereotyping of sex-role, then it tends to reinforce the biological concepts of gendering. From that perspective deviation from the established norms of behaviour would initiate questions and would often be treated with suspicion by family, society, teachers, and peers (MacNaughton, 1996). This can have devastating effects on young children, particularly in the institutional settings. All children including the young ones eventually learn to adopt different gender identities for strategic advantages (MacNaughton, 1997). The opposing views in this debate need to be considered and examined. Those who accept biological gender differences to be acceptable, they yield to nature and in their view, the learner is a model of conforming to nature. This has been associated with two contradictory concepts about diversity, both abnormal and natural. From these ideas, an educator may seek to create equity between genders. Normal patterns of child development seek to propose that children who do not conform to established patterns are abnormal and deviant. Gender differences can be considered also as developmental diversity that can be corrected. This concept of equity adheres to an approach of assimilation, where an equitable social world is possible to be created through amelioration of developmental, social, and cultural diversity (MacNaughton, 1998). An early childhood educator who believes in this approach would just support every child to become normal as per societal and cultural norms. This attempts to create equity out of developmental diversity through obliteration of distinctions created by nature and would encourage the children to adapt to these prefixed norms. In early childhood programmes, there is thus the implementation of equity through development of new set of norms for behaviour with active work on the part of the educator to common culture of which everyone is a part irrespective of gender background. This would translate into encouraging all children to achieve the same goals, putting emphasis on similarities, and ensuring normal ways of thinking and acting (MacNaughton, 2000). Nature determines biological development. Therefore, differences between children's gender being are natural differences. Differences in boys' and girls' behaviours indicate natural differences between the genders. As discussed earlier, numerous studies indicated different gender norms in boys and girls. It has been also the fact that boys consistently appear more competent in visuo-spatial abilities than girls. This may indicate gender difference in intelligence. In school years boys consistently outperform girls in science and mathematics may be indicative of gender differences. It has been argued that if these competence differences indicate biological differences between genders, trying to equate these competences could be futile and unnatural. Instead of being proponents of equity, then early childhood educators merely need to accept gender differences in children as natural and inevitable. This has been called business as usual approach to equity dismissing the differences as normal and natural phenomenon. When an educator accepts differences between performances just as natural, the approach can prove, however, to be problematic. It can be problematic since the differences in competence or performance can be result of discrimination or disadvantage, which the educator is supposed to ameliorate (Sayers, 1987). Recent research indicates enormous advances in the understanding of human development, specially in the early childhood and cognitive development. It is now an established fact that intelligence is not a fixed entity at birth, as suggested by the volume of the developing brain. Rather, intelligence is largely constructed by environmental influences of the early childhood formative years. To start with, it develops very rapidly and then, the pace of development is slower. It is also known that much of the intellectual and cognitive development happens in the first four years. It has also been learned that "environment has its greatest impact on the development of intelligence when that development is proceeding most rapidly-that is, in those earliest years" (Moynihan 1975, 940). Current research on neurology accepts that heredity play an important role in development, but functional research on neurocognitive research also indicates that in the very early part of neurodevelopment, the brain, the seat of intelligence, is extremely receptive to environmental influences absorbing all available information. Moreover, research has also indicated that experience shape brain both physically and functionally. Children are born with sensory and perceptual skills that clearly enable them to learn from environment through interactions. As indicated in Chen and Siegler (2000), Piaget's work on explanation of development contends that intelligence is a "biological adaptation of a complex organism to a complex environment" (Chen and Siegler, 2000). Piaget, in his theory of cognitive growth demonstrated the enormous role of environment in every stage of human development through active engagement in knowledge acquisition and consistent exploration of the surroundings to understand it. Therefore, it can be stated that naturally human development is nothing but organisation of experiences in order to adapt to them, and through these processes, the infants and children progress through different stages of development (Johnson, 1999). Conclusion From the discussion above, it can be concluded that gender differences is a biological phenomenon, but despite being natural, genetic, and hereditary, the early childhood development of intellect is largely influenced by the social and cultural environment which yields to experiences to the children of both genders. Despite some studies indicating difference in volume of the brain tissues between genders, recent research has indicated that difference in physical properties of brain and hence intelligence can be determined and influenced by adaptation to experiences by a developing child in a gendered society, which also includes the institutions. Early childhood educators must deploy the principles of equity in order to create a new social norm where all children are exposed to equal opportunities of learning in that environment of equity. It is highly possible despite criticisms that gender inequalities in intelligence and structural correlation to them are the results of environmental and social inhibitory experiences in case of girls, and new proofs will be necessary to refute them other than just saying this proposition to be a feminist constructivism. Educators in early childhood years including society and parents have important roles to play in promoting equity in education, where the basic concept is that brain and intelligence can be developed in any gender through insurance of appropriate environmental experiences in early childhood when the brain is slow to develop grasping all information through nurture. The best way to explore the intelligence in both genders could be getting rid of a engendered societal norms. Reference List Alloway, N., (1997). Early childhood education encounters the postmodern: what do we know What can we count as 'true' Journal of Early Childhood Education, 22(2): 1-5. Ankney, CD., (1992). Sex differences in relative brain size: the mismeasure of woman, too Intelligence; 16: 329-36. Arnold, DH., Lonigan, CJ., Whitehurst, GJ., and Epstein, JN., (1994). Accelerating language development through picture book reading: Replication and extension to a videotape training format. 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