Understanding Gender: Social Construction in Social Sciences Essay

This essay provides a comprehensive overview of the social construction of gender, examining its influence on society and individual identities. It begins by defining academic writing styles and their importance, then explores the theory of social construction of gender, highlighting how societal norms and cultural contexts shape gender roles and behaviors. The essay analyzes both positivistic (quantitative) and interpretative (qualitative) research articles, discussing their methodologies and findings related to gender attitudes, sexual response, and the impact of social constructs. The discussion section synthesizes the research, emphasizing how social norms, family, and peers affect gender development and contribute to gender inequalities. The conclusion underscores the significance of understanding social constructions in shaping individual perceptions and societal structures, emphasizing the need for further research to address gender-based disparities. This essay highlights the importance of academic writing skills and their role in effectively communicating complex social science concepts.

SKILLS FOR THE SOCIAL SCIENCES

TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART 1(a)........................................................................................................................................2
What are the key academic writing styles and why are they important?.....................................2
PART 1 (b)......................................................................................................................................2
Topic............................................................................................................................................2
PART 2-Section 1............................................................................................................................3
Positivistic (quantitative) articles................................................................................................3
PART 2-Section 2............................................................................................................................4
Interpretative (anti-positivism/qualitative) articles......................................................................4
PART 2- Section 3...........................................................................................................................5
Discussion....................................................................................................................................5
Section 4-Conclusion.......................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8
1

PART 1(a)
What are the key academic writing styles and why are they important?
Academic writing is a clear, structured type of writing. Main purpose of academic writing
is to help readers to understand the content written. Academic writing is written formally but too
long sentences are avoided in order to reduce the complexity of the project. It is mostly used in
Schools, colleges or universities (McCulloch, 2017). Main focus on academic writing is on the
answers of the questions in order to demonstrate clear understanding of the subject. It is written
is a structured manner or in a logical order So that all the related and important materials can be
pointed out. It helps in providing evidence to the users so that related knowledge of the subject
can be demonstrated to the readers and can also provide with their opinions in a proper manner.
It can also be said that the main purpose of academic writing is to communicate one’s knowledge
or thinking or opinions to the readers. Academic writing is extremely important especially for the
students so that they can reflect their window thought so it is important for the students to learn
academic writing so that they can convince their readers and make them understand one’s own
thinking and knowledge about which they are talking about. Academic writing plays a vital role
a student’s understanding of the subject. There are four main types of academic writing and each
type has its own importance (Sarwar, Ahmad and Hyder, 2017). First type is descriptive in which
mainly used to provide information or facts. This type of writing is important for students in
summarizing a topic, generating a report etc. Another type is analytical academic writing. This
type of writing is important for students to reorganize their facts and information’s in order to
categorize or group any kind of information. Third type of academic writing is persuasive, it is
mostly used for research studies or writing a research article and last type of academic writing is
critical is mostly used by undergraduate, post graduate students when they want to write their
own point of view.
PART 1 (b)
Topic
Topic chosen for this assignment is “Social construction of gender”
Introduction: Social Construction of gender is a kind of theory in sociology about gender
differences in society a various kind of operations of gender. As per this theory culture or society
creates gender roles. These roles are defined in such a manner that they seem appropriate and
idle for a particular person of that specific gender (Schwarzkopf, 2018). Few supporters of this
2

theory says that differences in behaviour of women and men completely depend upon social
convections whereas people who do not support this theory says that behaviour of humans is
mostly influenced by biological factors of various degree of social convection. These gender
differences are mostly because of an individual’s gender identity and because of already
constructed social norms regarding power distribution, labour distribution, rights, responsibilities
etc. However these differences are at minimal when similarities of both the gender is compared.
PART 2-Section 1
Positivistic (quantitative) articles
Article one: Unraveling the Mystery of “The Specificity of Women’s Sexual Response and Its
Relationship with Sexual Orientations”: The Social Construction of Sex and Sexual Identities
It is purely a positivistic type of article which focuses on examining Women’s perception
and experience and their orientation towards same or the gender (Ussher, 2017). This article uses
Positivism and statistical and other quantitative methods for analysis. Experimental measurement
provided an insight of women’s perception and experience towards sexual response and meaning
of their identity and concludes that responses of heterosexual women were not specific.
Article two: The Common Denominator: The Reception and Impact of Berger and Luckmann’s
The Social Construction of Reality
It is a mixed type of article in which both positivistic type and anti-positivistic type have
been used. of research in which researcher discusses about impact of Berger and Luckmann’s
social construction of reality (Knoblauch and Wilke, 2016). This article has first of addressed
Berger and Luckmann’s themselves as well as their approach. This article has helped in
clarifying various kinds of misconceptions associated with the theory and has concluded that
concept of Berger and Luckmann consist of common denominator of social constructivist
approach.
Article three: From positivism to critical theory: school-community relations toward community
equity literacy
It is a positivistic type of research in which focuses on relations in urban school community
that contributes in community equality literacy. It mostly focuses issues of unequal and equal
power. For this positivist approach has been used and other than this various kind of scholar
articles have been reviewed (Green, 2017). It helps in providing a framework for various kinds
3

of theories, approaches etc. This article also provides a grou8nding purpose to educational
leaders so that they can develop community equality literacy and concludes with various kinds of
implications for future research.
PART 2-Section 2
Interpretative (anti-positivism/qualitative) articles
Article one: Understanding Factors that Shape Gender Attitudes in Early Adolescence Globally:
A Mixed-Methods Systematic Review
It is an anti-positivism type of research paper that focuses on f actors that shape gender
attitudes in early adolescence across different cultural settings globally. Mixed methods were
used for this article such as thematic analysis for qualitative data and quantitative data and a
systematic review was conducted on 12 databases from 1984 to 2014 (Kagesten and et.al., 2016).
As per the result of this study young adolescents’ and peer are the primary influence on young
adolescents. Researcher has concluded that parents helps in shaping attitude of young
adolescents.
Article two: Understanding gender norms, nutrition, and physical activity in adolescent girls: a
scoping review
It is also an anti-positivism type of article which mainly focuses on gender norms are
understood in relation to health behaviour and nutrition of young girls. For this article overall 28
documents were reviewed and were interpreted using narrative approach. Using this approach
various kinds of charts of study characteristics were done (Spencer, Rehman and Kirk, 2015). It
has been concluded that social norms highly influence girls, their nutrition. It has been concluded
that feminist idea of women is affected through perception, negotiation, social influence etc.
Article three: Applying the Master Narrative Framework to Gender Identity Development in
Emerging Adulthood
It is a mixed type of article in which one study is done through qualitative and another study
is done though quantitative method. In this article researcher have focused on powerful cultural
stores of people that negotiate construction of personal identity. In this mixed design method
have need used where three main approaches were identified such as: discursive, status and
narrative (McLean, Shucard and Syed, 2017). As per this study there was a strong connection
between personal identify and changing masters. It has been concluded that gender interacts with
4

various aspects of a person such as race, social class etc. these factors helps a person to
understand their role and ways in which they position themselves
PART 2- Section 3
Discussion
The contribution of research to the topic area is quite much. Various kinds of researches have
been done in this area which helps in understanding all kinds of factors that affect, influence an
individual’s thinking, choices, perception, experience, physical and mental development,
variation in attitude. Most of the research has been done or has been focused on young
adolescent or young boys and girls. And the way family, peer, education or environment affects
or influence their development of their behaviour, perception and thinking. According to the
view of (Kagesten and et.al., 2016), gender norms plays a vital role in affecting nutrition,
physical activities of young girls. These gender norms help in defining gender roles and affects
or influence self-esteem, health or satisfaction level within young girls. Society norms, rules or
regulations plays a vital role in strengthening gender stereotyping. Because of the thinking of
society or involvement of an individual in society affects people and their thinking towards
various activities, roles and responsibilities. For example: mostly boys are seen engaging
themselves in games like football but girls are not seen engaging themselves in such activities.
Most of the physical work or activity in which strength is included is seen as men work or
responsibility whereas beauty is seen as main perception of women. This is mainly because of
socially constructed attributes for both male and female. Due to these social values both the
gender people are not treated quality there are various kinds of differences that have been created
among both the gender people because of which various kinds of differences are created among
both the genders. Research done in this field has helped in understanding social norms, mentality
and thinking of society which affects the overall behaviour, attitude and thinking of the people.
Not only this, researches done in this field has also helped in understanding various other aspects
that are affected due to socially constructed norms such as nutritional diet of boys as well as
girls. Many research articles clearly explain that nutritional diet of girls is much different as
compared to boys which has further influences eating habits or attitude of girls.
Research done in this field is mostly used for social enquiry so that this problem can be
focused on and social nature such as human behaviour, social arrangements and many more can
be understood. All the researchers who have contributed in this area of research has helped in
5

understanding the way social contracts adopted by a society or individual affect an object or
event or behaviour of an individual. Most commonly these social constructs have only created
gender differences. Many researchers have helped in explaining that biological differences
among men and women are minimal when similarities are compared but these differences
magnify when ideology of gender differences comes into picture. This ideology contributes in
creating gender differences where both men and women are treated in a different manner ().
According to a researcher (Spencer, Rehman and Kirk, 2015) these social norms or values or
ideology shape gender attitudes in early adolescents. Social constructions or stereotyping norms
plays a vital role in manipulating or influencing thinking of people and enhance gender
inequalities. These norms affect both physical and mental health of adolescents and influence
their personal attitude. The researcher also explains that these differences in gender is mostly due
to socialization process and pressure on individuals and in order to get accepted within the
society changes within the behaviour occurs. Freedom, power, policies etc. are completely
different for boys and girls. Many times, due to these differences’ girls appear to be less
powerful as compared to boys as they live in such stereotypical society where Social
construction education promote male dominance more as compared to female dominance.
Further researches have been carried out in this field where change in women preferences as well
as experience and their attraction towards other same gender have also been explained and the
main reason behind this is social construction of sex and sexual identities (Ussher, 2017). So it
can be said that contribution of research is this area is quite high as these research papers helped
us in understanding these social constructs.
Section 4-Conclusion
From the above assignment it has been concluded that academic writing is extremely
important for the students to be known and learned as it helps them in explaining their
knowledge, thought process, their personal point of view and their understanding for a particular
subject or a topic. It helps them to make other understand what their knowledge about the topic
is. Above discussion also helped in understand what social constructions of gender is and how it
gives rise to gender inequality. social constructs, society norms, rules, regulations etc affect or
give rise to gender inequality. It has also been analysed that social constructs affects an
individual’s thinking, attitude, behaviour of an individual and not only this it also affects
development or growth of adolescents which further affects their nature and behaviour. It has
6

also been analysed that peer and family members are one of the primary sources that give rise to
social constructs and create gender inequality.
7

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Green, T.L., 2017. From positivism to critical theory: School-community relations toward
community equity literacy. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education.
30(4). pp.370-387.
Kagesten, A., and et.al., 2016. Understanding factors that shape gender attitudes in early
adolescence globally: A mixed-methods systematic review. PloS one. 11(6). p.e0157805.
Knoblauch, H. and Wilke, R., 2016. The common denominator: The reception and impact of
Berger and Luckmann’s The Social Construction of Reality. Human Studies. 39(1).
pp.51-69.
McCulloch, S., 2017. The importance of being REF-able: academic writing under pressure from
a culture of counting. Impact of Social Sciences Blog.
McLean, K.C., Shucard, H. and Syed, M., 2017. Applying the master narrative framework to
gender identity development in emerging adulthood. Emerging Adulthood. 5(2). pp.93-
105.
Sarwar, S., Ahmad, N. and Hyder, S., 2017, November. Academic writing deficiencies of
business management students: causes, effects and solutions. In Proceedings of
ICERI2017 Conference, 16th-18th November.
Schwarzkopf, J., 2018. Unpicking gender: the social construction of gender in the Lancashire
cotton weaving industry, 1880-1914. Routledge.
Spencer, R.A., Rehman, L. and Kirk, S.F., 2015. Understanding gender norms, nutrition, and
physical activity in adolescent girls: a scoping review. International Journal of
Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity. 12(1). p.6.
Ussher, J.M., 2017. Unraveling the Mystery of “The Specificity of Women’s Sexual Response
and Its Relationship with Sexual Orientations”: The Social Construction of Sex and
Sexual Identities. Archives of sexual behavior. 46(5). pp.1207-1211.
8