Brilliant or Bad
The Gendered Social Construction of Exceptionalism in Early Adolescence
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4522720 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Michela Musto (0000-0003-0911-5907, Stanford University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 84 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 369-393 |
| Publication date | 2019-06-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | American Sociological Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0003-1224 • E-ISSN: 1939-8271 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0003122419837567 |
| OpenAlex | W2941644463 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 85 |
| References cited | 72 |
From kindergarten through college, students perceive boys as more intelligent than girls, yet few sociological studies have identified how school processes shape students' gender status beliefs. Drawing on 2.5 years of longitudinal ethnography and 196 interviews conducted at a racially diverse, public middle school in Los Angeles, this article demonstrates how educators' differential regulation of boys' rule-breaking by course level contributed to gender-based differences in students' perceptions of intelligence. In higher-level courses-where affluent, White, and Asian American students were overrepresented-educators tolerated 6th-grade boys' rule-breaking, such that boys challenged girls' opinions and monopolized classroom conversations. By 8th grade, students perceived higher-level boys as more exceptionally intelligent than girls. However, in lower-level courses-where non-affluent Latinx students were overrepresented-educators penalized 6th-grade boys' rule-breaking, such that boys disengaged from classroom conversations. By 8th grade, lower-level students perceived girls as smarter than boys, but not exceptional. This article also demonstrates how race intersected with gender when shaping students' perceptions of intelligence, with students associating the most superlatives with affluent White boys' capabilities. Through this analysis, I develop a new theoretical understanding of how school processes contribute to the gendered social construction of exceptionalism and reproduce social inequalities in early adolescence
Developmental psychology · Ethnography · Inequality · Pedagogy · Perception · Social inequality · Sociology · Sociology of Education · White (mutation · Critical Race Theory in Education · Early Childhood Education and Development · Gender Roles and Identity Studies · Gender Studies · Psychology · Social Psychology
Linking Education and Criminology Research to Understand the Schooling Experiences of Gang Youth and Adults
Insta-Famous or Invisible
Beyond Static Markers in Disproportionality Research
A phenomenological study of gender stereotyping patterns in preschools in Ghana
“Who’s Better at Math, Boys or Girls?”
“Bright, busy, but Doesn’t go extra mile”
The Popular Guys in the AP Class
Longitudinal associations between Latine parents' support and their adolescents' science motivation and STEM career expectations
Girls and Boys Typically Have Similar Math Value Beliefs
Supporting Black and Latino boys in school
Rigor restricted
Racialized Continuation Schools and Limited Structural Pathways
Midlife Women’s Misaligned Educational Expectations and Serious Mental Illness
Social Characteristics as Predictors of ADHD Labeling across the Life Course
The Under-Utilization of Women’s Talent
It’s Not the Message, It’s The Messenger
A Gendered and Racialized Educational Hierarchy
School, Studying, and Smarts
Multilevel Intersectionality and the Deployment of Disability in Schools
Aspirations and Choice-Making Among Latine Eleventh-Graders in a Charter School Context
Conditional Rewarding
How Social Determinants of Health Shape Parental Concern and Teacher Recognition of Student Speech-Language Needs
Gender Segregation and Decision-Making in Undergraduate Course-Taking
Understanding the Individual in Context
We Should Not Have the Same Restrictions as Everybody Else
High school students’ math and science gender stereotypes
Intersectional income inequality
Undergraduates’ pSTEM identity and motivation in relation to gender- and race-based perceived representation, stereotyped beliefs, and implicit associations
Contextualising Gender Gaps
Reconceptualising transport-related social exclusion in rural China
The living environment and intravillage activity-travel
Parents’ Math Gender Stereotypes and Their Correlates
Adapting, Disrupting, and Resisting
Same major, same economic returns? College selectivity and earnings inequality in young adulthood
Using National Data to Understand the Contextual Factors and Negative Experiences that Explain Racial Differences in the School Misbehavior of Ninth Grade Boys and Girls
A Flawed Policy Metaphor
Big Ideas from Little People
Ability as legitimation of tracking
Educational leaders' reports of conditions for supporting SEL implementation
Developmental Trajectories of Science Identity Beliefs
Capturing the Complexity of Alternative Schools
College Is
Men Don’t Ask for Directions
Is Rejection a More Common Experience for Asian Americans? How Differences in College Application Strategy Affect Admissions Results
Adults and children implicitly associate brilliance with men more than women
Long-Term Consequences of Early Access to Educational Opportunity
Exceptional Spaces
Reckoning with Asian America and the New Culture War on Affirmative Action
The Relationship between Ninth Graders' Perceptions of Teacher Equity and Their Math Identity
Examining High School Students' Gendered Beliefs about Math
Should I Start at Math 101? Content Repetition as an Academic Strategy in Elective Curriculums
School Cultures, Peer Cultures, and Inequality
First-Generation Students, College Majors, and Gendered Pathways
Temporary Removal
Brilliance as gender deviance
Educational Outcomes Of Gender-Diverse Youth
What Do I Need That For
Carcerality and Education
Stratified medicalization of schooling difficulties
The Portfolio Ideal Worker
Inside the Black Box of Organizational Life
Everyone Thinks They're Special
Intersecting the Academic Gender Gap
Le genre en jeu
Constructing What Counts as Human at Work
Accessing Possible Selves With Limited College Knowledge
Brilliant care
Arts Education and Black and Latinx Student Achievement and Attainment
Critical Contradictions
Taking the Glass Escalator Theory to School
Signaled or Suppressed? How Gender Informs Women's Undergraduate Applications in Biology and Engineering
Periods, Penises, and Patriarchy
Surging Ahead But Feeling Stupid
Doing Gender, Undoing Race
School as a Hostile Institution
Paradigms of Sex Research and Women in Stem
Who Speaks and Who Listens
Schools as a Relatively Standardizing Institution
Presumed Competent
Racialized Horizontal Stratification in US Higher Education
Which Cases Do I Need?' Constructing Cases and Observations in Qualitative Research
Looking Smart
Offering safe passage
Examining the Black Gender Gap in Educational Attainment
Inclusion Work
Unraveling the "model minority" stereotype
Asian American women and men
Gender play
Paying for the Party
Just One of the Guys?
Privilege
Academic Profiling
Occupational Ghettos
Bad Boys
Unequal Childhoods
Gender stereotypes about intellectual ability emerge early and influence children’s interests
Women are underrepresented in fields where success is believed to require brilliance
Intersectionality and Beyond
Shades of White
Inequality in the Promised Land
The Politics of Exclusion
Myth of the Model Minority
Black Feminist Thought
Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes
A Teacher Like Me
Racial Formation in the United States
Framed by Gender
Punished
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What good are interviews for thinking about culture? Demystifying interpretive analysis
Portrayals of Male and Female Scientists in Television Programs Popular Among Middle School-Age Children
Recovering the feminine other
Postfeminist education? Girls and the sexual politics of schooling
The Black Gender Gap in Educational Attainment
Explaining the Gender Disparity in Latino Youth’s Education
Discrimination, Women, and Work
The Achievement Gap and the Discipline Gap
The New Jim Crow
Access Without Equity
Smartness as a Cultural Practice in Schools
Gender Achievement Gaps in U.S. School Districts
Discipline and Punish
Becoming a Gendered Body
Suspending Progress
Constraints into Preferences
Coached for the Classroom
School Context and the Gender Gap in Educational Achievement
The Growing Female Advantage in College Completion
"I Need Help!" Social Class and Children's Help-Seeking in Elementary School
The Mark of a Woman's Record
When White Is Just Alright
An Unexpected Minority
The hidden injury of class in Korean-American language brokers' lives
Gender As Social Institution
Dude, You're a Fag
Are Some Emotions Marked 'Whites Only'? Racialized Feeling Rules in Professional Workplaces
"Oil and Water"? Latino-white Relations and Symbolic Integration in a Changing California
Lives at the Center of the Periphery, Lives at the Periphery of the Center
Warrior Narratives in the Kindergarten Classroom
Doing Gender
Athletes in the Pool, Girls and Boys on Deck
Playing, Shopping, and Working as Rock Musicians
Taking Women Professionals Out of the Office
Barbie Girls Versus Sea Monsters
The Female Educational Advantage Among Adolescent Children of Immigrants
Reproducing (and Disrupting) Heteronormativity
Gender, Race, and Justifications for Group Exclusion
Gender Inequalities in Education
STEM Education
Gender differences in mathematics achievement
| Unique citing works | 85 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 12,14 |
| Citation span | 2019 - 2026 (8) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 85 |