AO3 Kohlberg

Question 1

strength research support

Answer 1

• researcher told children a story about a boy who liked to play with dolls and asked them to comment on it
• 4 year olds said it’s fine for him to but 6 year olds said it was wrong
• this went beyond their understanding of what boys and girls do and developed into gender stereotypes
• strength bc there is definite differences between stages, suggests that a child’s idea of gender matures HOWEVER, another researcher found they children have rigid stereotypes which is a limitation of Kohlberg as it supports gender schema theory, therefore contradictory evidence and more research should be conducted

Question 2

limitation methodological issues

Answer 2

-used structured interviews with 2 year olds, they can’t understand question properly, lack language ability to speak as well as elaborating, can’t accurately determine if children understand gender from this flawed methodology of structured interviews, therefore we can’t rely on inaccurate and unreliable data

Question 3

limitation- nature nurture

Answer 3

• too much emphasis on nature from Kohlberg, he fails to account for the socialisation process in the early stages of development as researchers claim that social processes of observation, imitation and identification of role models play a more influential role in gender development
• limitation as it suggests nurture plays a role and it is more important that Kohlberg originally thought, adopt interventionist approach