Re: A replication of Lever

Paul Dillon (dillonph who-is-at northcoast.com)
Sat, 28 Aug 1999 17:23:06 -0700

Mike,

It does seem that this issue might well still be open.

I wonder what the significance of a definite finding one way or the other
might be. If in fact boys games are shown to have more complex rules than
girls games, or vice versa, what does that allow one to infer beyond: boys
and girls (don't) play games of equal complexity.

I don't see how anyone could infer very much more than that without some
larger encompassing framework for interpreting the differfence. But given
the conflicting data and interpretations, it doesn't seem that such a
framework is as yet emerging from the phenomena being described. Perhaps
playground games are just one form of a more basic phenomena whose
description would account for the differences in fact and interpretation
that are reported.

Paul H. Dillon

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Cole <mcole who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu>
To: xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Saturday, August 28, 1999 2:55 PM
Subject: A replication of Lever

>
>Ran across the following which I found interesting in light of my
>reading of Thorne, Goodwin, and others on Lever. More evidence of
>disciplinary lenses defining reality?
> But if so, B&K are at least sampling the entire group of children.
>Hmmmmm
>mike
>-----
> Borman, Kathryn M.; Kurdek, Lawrence A.
> Grade and gender differences in and the stability and correlates of
the
> structural complexity of children's playground games.
> International Journal of Behavioral Development, 1987 Jun, v10
(n2):241-251.
>
>Abstract: 25 2nd graders' (12 males, 13 females) and 24 5th graders' (10
males,
> 14 females) playground activities during school recess were studied
with a
> 1-yr follow-up. At the 2nd time of assessment, measures were also
taken of
> logical reasoning, interpersonal understanding, and understanding game
> rules. Both grade and gender differences were found in the complexity
of
> Subjects' activities. Generally, older Subjects participated in more
> complex activities than younger Subjects, and boys participated in
more
> complex activities than girls. The complexity of children's
activitiesincreased over
> the 1-yr period, especially for boys. The correlates of
> game complexity differed for boys and girls. For boys, game complexity
was
> negatively related to interpersonal understanding and positively
related
> to understanding game rules. For girls, game complexity was positively
> related to interpersonal understanding
>