Identity in context: gender, race, ethnicity and sexuality

Transcript

SoheeA preschool teacher overhears two four-year-olds. One points at a classmate who just got a short haircut and says, very seriously, she's a boy now. The other nods. Case closed.

RyanAnd neither of them is being unkind. They're showing us exactly where they are in a developmental sequence. A sequence that runs alongside another one, about race and ethnicity, that starts just as early.

SoheeWelcome to EPPP Prep, the podcast. I'm Sohee.

RyanI'm Ryan. Today's knowledge area is the influence of diverse identities on development. We'll cover gender, race and ethnicity, and sexual orientation, and what helps young people thrive in each.

SoheeLet's get the vocabulary right first, because exam stems use it precisely. Lifespan Development says sex is assigned at birth based on biological anatomy and physiology, such as chromosomes. People may be assigned female, male, or intersex.

RyanGender describes society's ideas about the roles, attitudes, and behaviors associated with someone's sex assignment. Gender identity is a person's psychological sense of their gender. And sexual orientation is about the sex of those to whom we are sexually, emotionally, or romantically attracted.

SoheeSo four different things. Mixing them up is a classic trap.

RyanOne more distinction the textbook draws. Race and ethnicity aren't the same either. There's no genetic basis for race, so it's a socially constructed concept. Ethnicity describes shared cultural or social elements like heritage, religion, language, or national origin.

RyanNow development. According to gender schema theory, young children are constantly watching the world to understand gender roles and expectations. And there are three milestones.

SoheeFirst, by about age three, most children can label their gender. Second, around age four, gender stability, understanding that, for most people, girls grow up to be women and boys grow up to be men.

RyanBut at that age, children commonly assume that temporary changes in appearance or activity can change someone's gender. A girl with short hair is now a boy. A boy who practices ballet has become a girl. That's our preschool scene.

SoheeThird, by about age six, gender constancy, the understanding that gender holds across situations and isn't changed by surface things like hairstyles or clothing.

RyanPause and think. A five-year-old knows he'll grow up to be a man, but insists that if he wore a dress, he'd turn into a girl. Which milestone does he have, and which is he missing?

SoheeHe has gender stability, the over-time piece. He's missing gender constancy, the understanding that gender doesn't change with superficial features. That usually arrives around six.

RyanAnd Lifespan Development makes a point I want everyone to hear. Preschoolers are often strict enforcers of gender rules. That's not malice. It's their developing cognition. They treat gender like the rules of a game. Once constancy arrives around six, that rigidity starts to ease.

SoheeWhere do children learn the rules? Family first. The textbook says children are often treated differently by parents based on perceived gender. Girls are rewarded for being more cooperative and empathetic, boys for being more assertive and brave. And fathers are more likely than mothers to enforce gender stereotypes.

RyanThen peers. The textbook's example is three-year-old Maggie, who loved superheroes like her big brother, until two weeks into preschool, when her new friends loved ponies, and so did she. And then there's media, from color-coded toy aisles to exaggerated body types in cartoons.

SoheeNow race and ethnicity. Lifespan Development describes a parallel set of early milestones. First, ethnic labeling, assigning labels to yourself and others. The labels depend on the culture around you.

RyanSecond, ethnic knowledge, learning and comparing information about groups. That can be food and holidays, or as complex as prejudice and discrimination. And third, around age six, ethnic constancy.

SoheeJust like gender constancy, it's understanding that racial and ethnic identity is stable, and doesn't change with clothing, food, or situation. The textbook's example: attending a Lunar New Year celebration at a Chinese community hall doesn't make a child Chinese.

RyanThe textbook also uses the term racialized for groups that have historically been marginalized or given little power or resources. Children in racialized groups tend to be more aware of stereotypes and discrimination. For example, Black children tend to be more aware of racial stereotypes than White children.

SoheeAnd here's a major protective process: parental racial-ethnic socialization. Lifespan Development describes two main themes. One is pride and heritage. Cooking together, music, language, stories, museums, grandparents.

RyanThat kind of socialization is typically positive and connected with better social skills, academic outcomes, and mental health. The second theme is teaching about bias and discrimination, including how to stay safe.

SoheeThe textbook also explains why teaching colorblindness is problematic. Research has shown it tends to make people from privileged backgrounds blind to their privilege and to the discrimination others face.

RyanIn adolescence, Lifespan Development describes how the new reasoning of formal operations, plus a richer social world, can spark an awakening of social and political consciousness. Its example is Asian American youth. Lifespan Development cites a review finding that for African American youth, a positive ethnic identity leads to higher self-esteem, higher academic achievement and engagement, and fewer depressive symptoms.

SoheeAnd it notes that across several models, the push to develop an ethnic identity often comes from a negative encounter with the dominant ethnic group.

SoheeFor biracial teens, Poston's model describes first feeling a need to choose one heritage over the other, sometimes followed by guilt and re-exploration, and often ending in a growing appreciation of having multiple ethnic identities.

RyanHistory is part of the exam too. The psychology textbook describes Kenneth and Mamie Clark's doll studies. African American children more often chose a White doll over a Black doll, and the Clarks theorized the children lacked a healthy self-concept. Their work was the first psychological study used in a Supreme Court case, supporting the plaintiffs in Brown versus Board of Education.

SoheeAnd a contrasting finding, from the 1930s. Inez Beverly Prosser studied African American children in segregated and integrated schools in Cincinnati, and found self-concept was more positive at the segregated schools, partly because of teachers' low expectations in the integrated ones.

SoheeLater researchers suggested doll choice wasn't actually an indication of self-esteem. And the textbook introduces a framework built for youth of color: Margaret Beale Spencer's Phenomenological Variant of Ecological Systems Theory, or PVEST.

RyanIt merges phenomenology, how a person makes meaning of their experiences, with Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems. So it's not just which environments a teen is in. It's what those experiences mean to them.

SoheeNow gender identity in adolescence. The psychology textbook says research seems to show that transgender and gender-nonconforming youth who are supported in their identity don't have significantly higher depression or anxiety symptoms than control groups, while those who aren't supported show more symptoms and risk factors. It also cautions that this is a recent area of study.

RyanSupport is the variable that matters. Lifespan Development adds that early support and knowledge of gender identity development lead to improved quality of life.

SoheeAnd sexual orientation. Early research tried to lay out a sequence of stages. One leading model of coming out, from Cass, has six stages, starting with identity confusion and moving toward acceptance, pride, and integrating sexual identity into the self-concept.

RyanBut the textbook stresses it's not a blueprint. Later research describes milestones instead of a fixed process, like first awareness of same-sex attraction, self-identifying, and coming out to others. People explore at their own pace.

SoheeAnd identities intersect. The textbook notes that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer, or LGBTQ+, people of color may face rejection from both their ethnic community and the LGBTQ+ community. Meanwhile, a positive environment reduces stigma and helps sexual identity development look more like everyone else's.

RyanHow does the exam test this? Expect vignettes about a child's age and what they understand. Labeling around three, stability around four, constancy around six, for gender, and labeling, knowledge, and constancy for ethnicity.

SoheeAnd expect questions on what protects. Pride and heritage socialization, a positive ethnic identity, and support for gender and sexual identity show up again and again as protective. Watch for answers that treat the identity itself as the risk, when the sources point to stigma and lack of support.

RyanRecap. Sex, gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation are distinct. Gender milestones: labeling, stability, constancy. Ethnic milestones: labeling, knowledge, constancy.

SoheePride and heritage socialization is linked with better outcomes, and colorblindness has real limits. PVEST adds meaning-making to Bronfenbrenner's model. Support for transgender youth matters, and coming out models are guides, not blueprints.

RyanThis topic is personal for a lot of listeners, and for a lot of your future clients. Learning it well is part of becoming the kind of psychologist people feel safe with.

SoheeAnd that's exactly the kind of psychologist you're becoming. Thanks for listening to EPPP Prep.

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