Student Name: Sami Semmar Title: How are parenting roles of men and women depicted in the media? Course Code: SOC101Y University of Toronto Date of Submission: 31st March 2016 Instructor: Professor Christian Caron Teaching Assistant: Amny Athamny Introduction In today’s gendered society, the Canadian media plays a central role in the representation of men and women, and issues of gender stereotypes are embodied in every aspect of life. In this project, I will examine “How are parenting roles of men and women depicted in the media?” The findings of this paper show that men neglect their children; whereas, women are more active parents. This paper begins by providing a literature review on the topic of gender and parenting style. It then explicitly explains the research question of the project. The operationalization section will present the tools that I used to answer the question in a form of coding schemes, which will be presented in a cross-tabulation. Then, I will elaborate and reflect on the findings and the research process based on the quantitative data. Literature Review Parents are the pillars of the composition of families, and the parenting roles affecting child development highly impact the structure of a society. In fact, parents are the first agents of socialization for young children, especially in the initial stages of development when the child is helpless and in need of emotional and physical affection (Caron & Brym, 2014, p. 118). In her analysis in Effects of Authoritative Parental Control on Child Behavior, Baumrind (1966) discusses the influence of parents towards their children by providing three models of parenting control consisting of authoritative, authoritarian, and permissive styles. According to Baumrind (1966), a permissive parent is acceptant and affirmative toward the child’s impulses; an authoritarian parent requires an unquestionable obedience from the child, while an authoritative parent regulates child’s attitudes in a rational-oriented manner. The authoritative style demands high expectations 1 from the child, and at the same time, the parents offer emotional support and nurture (Baumrind, 1966). In order to explore the question of parenting role and gender, it is crucial to specify that the concept of gender is different from the notion of biological sex. In their article, West and Zimmerman (1987) recognize the independence between the concepts of sex, sex category, and gender. Gender is the social construction of how a person with an assigned sex should behave, and the behavior is culturally associated in either a feminine or masculine manner. A study conducted by Craig (2006) showed that mothers are more involved in physical tasks, that they spend more time with their children, and that they have more general responsibility and care than fathers. The study also showed women provide care even when they work full-time. Research question This project aims to answer the following research question: “How are parenting roles of men and women depicted in the media?” This research question is worthy of analysis because it can be analyzed within the specified timeline – September 2015 to March 2016 –. The question also appears not to have been answered before. More importantly, the research question doesn’t imply causality, and it exhibits operationalized variables; that is, the variables are measurable, and neither variable has an impact over the other. In today’s tech-oriented society, the media is one of the central sources of the socialization process, a process that is speeded up by the online articles that are accessible on a daily basis. Therefore, analyzing the depiction of parenting roles in newspapers certainly provides insight into the norms around gender stereotypes that are consistently internalized by consumers. 2 Operationalization/Unit of Observation/Coding Scheme In order to answer the research question, an operationalization of variables is essential to establish a map that guides the entire analysis process. Two variables arises in the stated research question: the gender of the parent and the depiction of the parenting role. By parenting role, I mean any activity or course of action taken by parents in bringing up their children. The measurement of these variables is articulated through a coding scheme established for each variable. In other words, the coding scheme helps to determine the identification of potential items that answer the question. Throughout the project, units of analysis and units of observations are the same, which comprise fact- based stories. The coding scheme for the gender variable is communicated in the following table: Gender Definition Examples Non-Examples Man Any person declared as or Referring to Referring to the identifies themselves as being a the person person as a woman. man. Identified themselves with as a man. the social construct and Using the words: socialization of being a man. To Using the - She, Her, Wife, identify if the person being words: Ms., Mrs., Miss., described in the news story is a -He, His, Lady… man, pronouns which are Him, commonly used to describe men Husband, will be used. This does not include Father Mr., any persons whose gender is Sir, Guy… unknown or not specified. Woman Any person declared as or Referring to Referring to the identifies themselves as being a the person person as a man. woman. It is a person who has as a woman. identified themselves with the Using the words: social construct and socialization Using the of being a woman. To identify if words: -He, His, Him, the person being described in the Husband Mr., Sir, news story is a woman, pronouns - She, Her, Guy… which are commonly used to Wife, Mother, describe women will be used. This Ms., Mrs., 3 does not include any persons Miss., whose gender is unknown or not Lady… specified. Transgender Any person who has declared A person -Man or Woman themselves as being a who is transgendered individual. transgender. Other any gender which does not fit into the above categories The coding scheme for media depictions: Media Definition Examples Non-Examples depiction Active Parents who have an Using words that Using words like active role in the imply their parenting ‘could not do anything children’s lives, by style as active, such about it’, or ‘was too nurturing them as giving advice, late to act’. emotionally and listening, playing with physically. children. Passive Parents are rather more Using words like The child suffers from responsive. The role ‘could not do anything injuries as a result. depicted is one of about it’, or ‘was too disconnection and lack late to act’. of interest. Neglect The role depicted is one The child suffers from Using words that imply of not giving proper care injuries as a result. their parenting style as or attention, hence active, such as giving harming the child. advice, listening, playing with children. Other Anything that does not fit in the other categories provided. Therefore, in the codification process, keywords are important to decide where each item fits into the relevant category. For instance, in the article presented in appendix 4, the item depicts the extent to which a mother was tolerant and even supportive to her transgender son. In this case, the parent is a woman marked by “mother”, while the 4 parenting role was active as the article reveals it by “supportive”. In fact, the support was symbolically underlined by a tattoo of the mother. Therefore, this item matches with the Women/Active cell of the cross-tabulation. In the appendix 6, the court hears about how a father was torturing his son with a harsh and hostile manner. This article will be codified in the Man/Neglect cell of the crosstab because the gender of the parent is underlined by “dad”, and the parenting style was stressed by “terrorize”. In the appendix 7, the article portrays how a father is interacting with his son when he wanted to wear a dress, a costume that is stereotypically designed for girls. The gender of the parent was clearly highlighted in the article by the word “father”, and the parenting style was active since the boy was satisfied with the positive action of his father. Hence, this item corresponds with the Man/Active intersection of the crosstab. Data Gathering/Sampling In the data gathering process, non-probability convenience sampling has been chosen to select articles, and a total of 50 items were gathered to give an answer to the research question. Non-probability sampling means that units are selected based on the subjective deduction of the researcher. The timeline from which articles were identified was from September 2015 to March 2016. All articles were selected online, during this process, as it offers the opportunity to find potential stories through entering specific keywords related to the research question. The keywords used in this project are: parent, father, mother, dad, mom, son, daughter, child, and kid. In addition to pinpointing keywords, a careful read of the whole story all items is essential to decide whether the parenting style was explicitly mentioned in each of the 50 articles. 5 Findings/Crosstab After gathering all the articles from the newspapers, a crosstab is constructed to provide a quantitative answer to the research question: Media Depiction Active Passive Neglect Other Total Gender Man Count 5 4 15 0 24 % within Gender 20.8% 16.7% 62.5% 0% 100% % within Media 26.3% 66.7% 68.2% 0% 48% Depictions Woman Count 12 2 6 0 20 % within Gender 60% 10% 30% 0% 100% % within Media 63.1% 33.3% 27.3% 0% 40% Depictions Transgender Count 1 0 0 0 1 % within Gender 100% 0% 0% 0% 100% % within Media 5.3% 0% 0% 0% 2% Depictions Other Count 1 0 1 3 5 % within Gender 20% 0% 20% 60% 100% % within Media 5.3% 0% 4.5% 100% 10% Depictions Total Count 19 6 22 3 50 % within Gender 38% 12% 44% 6% 100% % within Media 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% Depictions According to the main paradigm of the crosstab, the variable gender was depicted into different proportions.