The Pedagogical Approach to Sex Differences

Abstract

In the previous chapters we looked at the ways in which psychology, endocrinology and sociology have dealt with sex differences in personality. However, as we discussed in the introduction, this has become the province primarily of pedagogy. The interest of educational theorists in the subject began in the 1960s, as a consequence of the debate on whether a form of sex education was advisable in Soviet schools. Yet although a sizeable trickle of articles and books appeared over the following decade, from the late 1970s this turned into a torrent. A. G. Khripkova and D. V. Kolesov, two of the most prolific of the later writers, implicitly suggest that the earlier material is without value when they remark, in 1979, that, ‘In the available literature of the past 30 to 40 years, we have not encountered any scientific work on this subject’.¹ None the less, though the later writings are generally dressed up in a more academic style, the pedagogical understanding of sex differences in personality has not changed. To make this clear we will begin by looking at some of the earlier writings before turning to the glut of more recent literature.