Carleton College will present distinguished professor of psychology Dr. Lynn Liben on Tuesday, May 10 from 7 to 8 p.m. in Olin Hall Room 149. Dr. Liben will discuss “Gender Past, Present, and Future: A Developmental Psychologist’s Perspective,” challenging contemporary gender-related claims and recommendations about child-rearing and education. This event is free and open to the public.
How gender is conceptualized and used in the U.S. has changed dramatically over the last century. Or has it? In this talk, Liben will draw from developmental psychology, the popular press, and personal experience to argue that although individuals and society have come a long way toward gender equity, gender continues to constrain human development. Indeed, many contemporary gender-related claims and recommendations about child-rearing and education are surprisingly reminiscent of those made over a century ago. Liben will discuss the ongoing debate about single-sex education to illustrate practical implications of research on gender development, and to suggest the impact of protagonists’ differing concepts of gender, prioritizations of values, and views of what constitutes evidence.
Lynn S. Liben is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at Penn State where she also holds faculty appointments in the College of Health & Human Development and in the College of Education.
One focus of her research is on gender development, gender stereotypes, and, more generally, on the emergence of social-group identities and their effects on intergroup interactions (e.g., prejudice) and personal decisions (e.g., career choice). A second focus is on spatial cognition, its development, and on how individual differences in spatial cognition arise and affect science education in family, museum, and school settings. At the intersection of these foci are projects examining the impact of spatial-skills training on middle-school students’ STEM achievement and interests, and the imbalance between boys’ and girl’s success on the National Geographic Bee.
Liben is immediate Past-President of the Society for Research in Child Development, former President of the Piaget Society and of the Developmental Psychology Division of APA, and past Editor of Child Development and of the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the Eastern Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, and the American Educational Research Association; her research has been funded by NSF, NICHD, NIE, and the National Geographic Society.
This event is sponsored by the Carleton College Distinguished Women Visitors Fund, the Cognitive Science Program, and the Departments of Educational Studies and Psychology. For more information, including disability accommodations, call (507) 222-5875.
