Gender peculiarities of social consciousness in early childhood (based on analysis of speech)

Problem and purpose. The development of social consciousness as an integral system of social images is a promising field of psychological research, including gender aspect are discussed. The behavior of adults targeted at children has some special features from the viewpoint of a child's gender formation starting from infant age. In early childhood this leads to gender self-identity of a child: children prefer gender-related toys and characteristics of appearance. There are data on how children perceive gender: by the age of two years, gender-related preferences of photo-images of individuals, voices, knowledge of gender-typical behavior and people,s activity are identified, to a greater extent - in girls. However, most of the research concerning gender characteristics of children is unsystematic: usually only some specific aspects of the problem are investigated. Our goal was to obtain data on gender differences in the systems of social images of children - the emerging social consciousness, represented in the forms of speech and language. Methods and research database. The study uses the method of content analysis in its modification which allows identifying social information that is contained implicitly and explicitly in speech. The method of expert evaluation allowed to create a consensual list of children's social images. Correlation analysis by the method of Ch. Spearman allowed revealing the structure of children's social consciousness in correlation with selected social ideas. Frequency analysis was used to identify the most common social images in the speech of both - boys and girls. Research database includes 320 statements of children aged from 1 to 3 years of age in situations of natural household and game communication, 160 of which belong to boys, 160 to girls. Results. Based on speech and language, a repertoire of social images of boys and girls was defined, their typology was described, including images of themselves, a friend, relationship between communicative partners, parameters of the situation involving a child, third parties and significant objects of reality, levels of comprehension of images of themselves and the other: mental, emotional, intentional, behavioral including speech behavior. Distinctions were found in the structures of social consciousness, central and peripheral areas of social consciousness were identified in gender samples. In boys, 58 central social images form only direct correlations; in girls the system of 58 central social images reveals both direct and inverse correlations, this means that the social consciousness of girls, unlike the one typical of boys, can be characterized by mutually exclusive social images. Thus qualitative peculiarities and structures of social image correlations allow to characterize social consciousness of children as gender-specific. Conclusion. The results of the research based on systematic approach can be instrumental in the further advance of early childhood education technologies and aim at developing gender competence of parents and teachers to improve the quality of communication with children, correcting and developing early social images of their charges.