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.