Using directives to construct egalitarian or hierarchical social organization: Turkish middle-class preschool girls’ socialization about gender, affect, and context in peer group conversations

Abstract

Prior research by M. H. Goodwin (1990) found that preadolescent African-American girls socialized one another towards ‘egalitarian’ forms of social organization in task activities, but preferred forms that differentiated group members in other contexts. The present study examines how a friendship group of middle-class Turkish girls followed ethnographically (through videorecording of spontaneous free play conversations in their preschool classroom) socialized one another about gender and affect through directive usage and sanctioning in peer group conversations. The directive use of three group members who participated in different play contexts was examined. Group members explicitly sanctioned one another not to differentiate themselves, and used egalitarian forms of directives (tag questions, joint directives) when engaged in task activities or pretend play with one another. The same girls, however, used imperatives when they enacted the role of mothers, or played with boys. Results suggest that in peer group conversations among young Turkish preschool-aged girls, group members socialize one another that girls should speak in ways that enact egalitarian forms of social organization when with other girls, but they make local, strategic uses of these norms, competently enacting alternative, hierarchical forms of social organization in other contexts.

Mindful storytellers: Emerging pragmatics and theory of mind development

“…A variety of methods have been used previously to study the development of pragmatic abilities in children, such as verbal production in natural (Blum-Kulka, Hamo, & Habib, 2010; Hoff, 2010; Kyratzis & Tarim, 2010) or experimental conditions (O’Neill et al, 2004), comprehension of pragmatic rules in a given social situation (Baroni & Axia, 1989) and conversational practices in group settings (Yifat & Zadunaisky-Ehrlich, 2008). Compared with spontaneous speech samples or conversational narratives, the study of pragmatic competence through storybook elicitation tasks offers some advantages.…”

The development of human female competition: allies and adversaries

“…Similarly, high status more than low status 4-to 5-year-old Turkish girls obtained the best roles during pretend play, then issued more commands and directives to other girls [133]. American 3-year-old girls follow the same strategy: one gains a superior 'pretend' role, then commands others [134].…”

“…Linguistic researchers conclude that 'a girl cannot assert social power or superiority as an individual' ( [60], p. 205) without risking other girls' denigration [133]. By age 3, girls enforce equality.…”

“…By age 3, girls enforce equality. Compared with boys, across diverse cultures girls avoid employing signifiers of high status with same-sex peers, including commands, boasts, provision of information or joke-telling [60,122,133]. Another movie viewer study with same-sex groups of four 3-to 5-yearolds demonstrates girls' dislike of superior girls: those girls who took control and viewed the movies longest were less liked by all their female classmates than those girls who rarely viewed the movies [135].…”

“…Eliminating all uneven resource distributions and status differentials provides an effective counterstrategy. Linguistic researchers conclude that 'a girl cannot assert social power or superiority as an individual' ( [60], p. 205) without risking other girls' denigration [133]. By age 3, girls enforce equality.…”