International Girls Versus International Boys: Constructions of Gendered Worlds in Cross-Cultural Settings

Abstract

This paper focuses on a group of children, aged 8-13, from a range of national backgrounds, who attend a large International School. It is based on research grounded in New Literacies scholarship. A surprising finding was the degree to which the children’s concerns about gender figured into the data. While the children were somewhat distanced from the discourses of their nation-states, each was immersed in culturally-shaped understandings of gender as they were played out within their home and their school. A further environment, the digital worlds of the Internet the children played in, also figured into these constructions of gendered worlds.