Brilliant or Bad

The Gendered Social Construction of Exceptionalism in Early Adolescence

Dados Bibliográficos

ID4522720
AutoresMichela Musto (0000-0003-0911-5907, Stanford University, autor correspondente)
Ano2019
Volume84
Fascículo3
Páginas369-393
Data de publicação2019-06-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoAmerican Sociological Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0003-1224 • E-ISSN: 1939-8271
EditoraSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/0003122419837567
OpenAlexW2941644463
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas85
Referências citadas72

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