Investigaciones sobre desarrollo de la noción de género: relevamiento bibliográfico

The main aim of this paper, is to submit the results of the first bibliographic trace carried out within the framework of the investigation project “Children's knowledge about society: case study on representations about gender differences in children from 10 to 11 years old” (2019-2020), approved by the Secretary of Science and Technology (National University of La Plata, Argentina). The project, which principal theme is in the field of children’s development about knowledge related to the social world, intends to inquire children's knowledge about gender differences, identifying in the answer of the interviewed children the presence or absence of gender stereotypes. These subjects have taken serious value in the current context, specifically in Argentina, from recent social, cultural and legislative changes (For example, the National Program of Comprehensive Sexual Education, Law 26150, sanctioned in October 2006; the Law 26618 for Equal Marriage; and the Gender Identity Law, sanctioned in May 2012 under the number 26743). The methodology of this work is based on a case study design, with in-depth clinical interviews about the subject, to 5 boys and 5 girls, ages from 10 to 11 years old, in a medium sociocultural level. We present here the results of the first bibliographic tracking made, where we found a very few studies that explore the child's point of view, its arguments and justifications on the subject, from development psychology. In those results, we’ve been able to collect theoretical and empirical studies on social representations about gender (Lloyd & Duveen, 2003); representations about authority and moral reasoning in children according to gender (Leeman & Duveen, 1999; Palomares-Lopez & Cervera-Delgado, 2015); gender identity and games in the boys and girls interactions with fathers and mothers (Woloski, Silver, Laplacette, Vardy, & Schejtman, 2016); conceptual route about the gender identity development  and explicative models (Rocha-Sanchez, 2009; Garcia-Leiva, 2005); gender perspective in young boys and girls (Ortega-Vargas, Rubio-Guzman, & Torres-Briseno, 2005); identity and gender roles on middle school students (Cortez-Ramirez, 2011). Likewise, in an article published in the Sex Roles Magazine (Zosuls, Miller, Ruble, Martin, & Fabes, 2011), the authors analyze and classify the researches that have been published in that magazine over the past 30 years, according to 3 criteria: research methodology, age groups where the researches are focalized, and investigation subjects. Regarding to the research methodology, they found that the surveys are the most used methods, while experimental and observational methods are the least used ones, a very few studies are based on a lengthwise design that allows to compare between ages and test development hypotheses. Regarding to the age groups studied, the adolescence is the most studied age group, followed by the middle childhood, and the least studied age groups, are those composed by little boys, girls and babies. Finally, regarding to the investigation subjects, the most prevalent categories are gender differences, gender socialization and peer socialization (including studies related to bullying and harassment between peers); then we found gender stereotypes, gender identity and attitudes of boys and girls towards gender roles; and less frequently, body image themes. As a general closure for this bibliographic tracking, we can appreciate that the studies about the development of the understanding of the notion of gender, remain insufficient, which is why we consider that this research may offer valuable information about the children's point of view on gender issues from the development psychology, considering the topic relevance in the actual context.