he role of language skills in perceived pro social it yin kindergarten boys and girls

The role of language skills in perceived prosociality

in kindergarten boys and girls

Caroline BouchardUniversite du Quebec a Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Richard CloutierUniversite Laval, Quebec, Canada

France GravelUniversite du Quebec a Rimouski, Levis, Quebec, Canada

Ann SuttonUniversite de Montreal, Quebec, Canada

The main goal of this study is to clarify the role of language in perceivedprosociality according to the gender of the child by using a sample of 209French-speaking children (93 girls and 116 boys) attending kindergarten(M¼ 66.8 months, SD¼ 3.7). In keeping with many studies on this subject,our results showed significant gender differences with respect to theprosociality of kindergarten children as perceived by their teachers. Inparallel with gender differences in prosociality, hierarchical regressionanalyses revealed that the relation between language skills and assessmentsof prosociality by kindergarten teachers varies according to the genderof the child: language has an explanatory role in perceived prosocialityfor boys, but not for girls. Implications of these findings concerning thesocial role of sexes in education and avenues for future research arepresented.

Correspondence should be addressed to Caroline Bouchard, Departement d’education et

pedagogie, Universite du Quebec a Montreal, CP 8888, Succursale Centre-Ville, Montreal

(Quebec), Canada, H3C 3P8. E-mail: [email protected]

This study was supported by grants awarded by the Fondation de l’Universite Laval and the

Fonds de la recherche sur la societe et la culture (FQRSC).

The authors would like to thank Ann Sutton, professor in the Ecole d’orthophonie et

d’audiologie at the University of Montreal, and researcher at Sainte-Justine Hospital in

Montreal, for her precious contribution in revising this article.

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY2008, 5 (3), 338 – 357

� 2007 Psychology Press, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business

http://www.psypress.com/edp DOI: 10.1080/17405620600823744

Several studies have demonstrated a clear difference between boys’ and girls’prosociality1 depending on who is evaluating. In their meta-analysis ofchildren’s prosociality, Eisenberg and Fabes (1998) compiled more than 200studies that showed that the gender differences that favour girls are affectedby the source of prosociality evaluations. In particular, the results that comefrom self-reports by children or reports by others indicate that girls are moreprosocial than boys (M¼ 7.9 years of age). This trend is much lesspronounced in data drawn from systematic observation of children’s actualbehaviour. Moreover, there is a disparity between respondents when theyare asked to identify prosociality among children, that is, evaluations byteachers, by parents, or by peers, and those of children themselves (Bernzweig,Eisenberg, & Fabes, 1993; Bouchard, Gravel, & Cloutier, 2006; Phillipsen,Bridges, McLemore, & Saponaro, 1999; Shigetomi, Hartmann, & Gelfand,1981). With respect to prosociality, children’s own behaviour can differ fromthe perceptions of teachers, most of whom are women.2

At the beginning of the 20th century, Hartschorne, May, and Maller(1929) had already pointed out the gap, based on the sources of prosocialityevaluations, between girls and boys. In their study, even though theprosociality expressed by girls was only slightly higher than that of boys,teachers’ evaluations were much more favourable towards girls. This findingled the authors to conclude that a certain prejudice existed. Over fifty yearslater, Shigetomi et al. (1981) replicated the same research scenario tocorroborate their predecessors’ results. In their conclusion, they proposedthat there were other explanatory factors at work that influenced teachers’perceptions, such as girls’ superior language skills. More recently, Bouchard,Gravel, and Cloutier (2006) also obtained results indicating that kindergar-ten teachers (n¼ 19) perceive girls to be more prosocial than boys. Incontrast, a difference in favour of girls was found for only one of sevenmeasures of prosociality demonstrated by the children themselves (n¼ 209).All in all, there is clearly a discrepancy in the data between children’sevaluations of their own prosociality and teachers’ perceptions of these samechildren. Why is this so? This is the question that we will attempt to answer.

One possible hypothesis would be that the prosocial image projected bychildren in an academic context is evaluated on the basis of their

1Based on Bowen’s (1990) ideas, prosociality consists of observable social behaviours that are

meant to help others or the sharing of costs and benefits with others. These clusters of

behaviours may be composed of various spheres, including giving, sharing, exchanging,

cooperating, rendering a service, helping, supporting, reassuring, etc. (see Bouchard, Cloutier, &

Gravel, in press).2At the preschool level, women accounted for 98.4% of the staff in 1997 in the Province of

Quebec, while the average rate for the OCDE countries was 95% in 1996 (Conseil superieur de

l’education, 1999). The use of the term ‘‘teacher’’ in this article is therefore considered to imply

primarily female teachers.

PROSOCIALITY AND LANGUAGE 339

communication with others, that is, the way that they develop relationshipsand interact with others. Linguistic behaviour is considered to be at thecore of communication. It is the channel through which prosociality ismade possible and which allows the assessment of children’s socialrepresentations. Children’s social interactions with others, which arebased on language, allow a teacher to evaluate their degree of prosociality.In light of Vygotski’s work (see Vygotski, 1997), it is reasonable to assert thata social domain such as prosociality cannot be dissociated from languagebecause it is a socio-cultural sign and the ultimate communication tool.

Nonetheless, only a few empirical studies have explicitly examined therelationship between prosociality and children’s language. Consequently,the study presented here focused primarily on exploring whether languageskills influence teachers’ perceptions of prosociality among kindergarten-aged children, and, if so, how these perceptions vary according to the genderof the child. Note that this work is a corollary to the study by Bouchard,Gravel, and Cloutier (2006) in which other possible explanations werefound, such as children’s expression of externalized behaviour for teachers’evaluations of prosociality favouring girls, a trend that is not immediatelyapparent in studies of prosociality as observed in children’s behaviour. Inher study dealing with the social cognition of children assessed usinghypothetical situations, Porath (2001) concluded by strongly recommendingthat the influence of language skills be evaluated as a possible explanation ofdifferences in attribution that often put girls in a favourable light.

Perceived prosociality and language

It has been shown that children with lower verbal capabilities are less sociallycompetent and more aggressive towards others (Cole, 2001; Stowe, Arnold, &Ortiz, 2000). As Dionne (2005) emphasized, verbal difficulties are oftenassociated with behaviour problems during childhood. Several studies haveshown how some children use aversive strategies to compensate for theirlinguistic weaknesses (Brinton & Fujiki, 1993; Dionne, Boivin, Tremblay,Laplante, & Perusse, 2003). Moreover, children displaying verbal difficultiesare perceived more negatively by adults (Wood & Valdez-Manchaca, 1996).These children may be considered less friendly as well as less academically able(Fujiki, Brinton, Morgan, & Hart, 1999; Lindsay, Dockrell, Letchford, &Mackie, 2002; Sagebart DeThorne &Watkins, 2001), or may even be rejectedby adults (Cohen, 2001). This tendency is explained by the fact that childrenwith language difficulties construct less elaborate sentences in terms ofmorphosyntax, thus expressing less coherent and precise ideas. If there is sucha correlation between language skills and adult perceptions, it is logicallypossible to find one in the area of prosociality.

Built and maintained via the language, the social relations that the childmaintains with others are one of the possible ways offered to teachers to

340 BOUCHARD ET AL.

evaluate perceived prosociality of girls and boys. Language and thoughtsassociated with words within the cultural universe represent a means ofinterpreting our environment. They are an instrument of mediatization,which exerts an influence on the experiment of the child (Vygotski, 1997).Accordingly, one can posit that language forms an integral part ofprosociality, which is itself related to the child’s comprehension of socialreality, built by means of language. The association between prosocialityand language is therefore not fortuitous.

There is now a consensus concerning young girls’ superior linguisticabilities in early childhood (Bornstein, Painter, & Park, 2002; Bouchard,Trudeau, Sutton, Boudreault, & Cabirol, 2005; Fenson, Dale, Reznick, &Bates, 1994; Galsworthy, Dionne, Philip, & Plomin, 2000). Before the age ofthree, girls’ language skills are already more developed than those of boys,which gives them greater access to the surrounding social world (Maccoby,1998). Though the work of Fenson et al. (1994) shows that the sex of thechild explains only 2 to 4% of the variance associated with languagebetween the ages of 8 and 30 months, girls are usually recognized for theirbetter handling of grammatical rules and their greater lexical comprehensionthan boys (Hyde & Linn, 1988; Maccoby & Jacklin, 1974). However, thistendency seems to decrease beyond the age of three.

Based on a review by Maccoby and Jacklin (1974), Coates (1993) statedthat right from the first years of school, the verbal difference between boysand girls disappears, and only reappears around the age of ten or eleven. Ineducational circles, it is acknowledged that girls of that age are better thanboys at French, particularly in terms of vocabulary, grammar, spelling, andmastery of a text’s meaning. Girls excel most when they are asked to payattention to the fine points of oral language, and respect the rules of grammar(Conseil superieur de l’education, 1999; Mosconi, 1999). Consequently, veryyoung girls would seem to be better than boys of the same age, but this diff-erence seems to decrease as they approach the end of the preschool period.

Following this logic, the linguistic advantage of girls in early childhoodcould lead to their being perceived more favourably, in terms of prosociality,by kindergarten teachers, despite the fact that empirical data reveal fewdifferences in language development between girls and boys at this age.Further, the girls’ advantage, which reappears around 10 – 11 years of age,may reinforce the gender stereotype of girls being more skilled linguisticallythan boys. As a result, it is plausible to propose that the relationship betweenprosociality and language differs depending on the gender of the child.

As demonstrated by Bem (1981), an observer’s view is coloured by a‘‘gender template’’, which may lead teachers to judge the behaviour ofgirls and boys to conform with the gender stereotypes of their culture.Duru-Bellat (1995) added that interpretation of children’s behaviours is alsoinfluenced by dominant gender stereotypes. She cites as an example the factthat girls are perceived as talking too much in mixed classes, even though


they talk up to three times less than boys. She attributes this finding to thepervasiveness of the perception that women are talkative. It is a matter ofwidely shared conceptions of what constitutes masculinity and femininity(Conseil superieur de l’education, 1999).

Thus, this study deals with the role of language in perceived prosocialityin kindergarten boys and girls. Initially, the presence of gender differences inchildren’s prosociality as perceived by their teachers will be verified. Threedimensions of language were chosen for analysis: (1) quantitative syntacticcomplexity; (2) qualitative syntactic complexity; and (3) pragmatics.

METHOD

Participants

The sample, which is part of a larger quasi-experimental study (see Page &Gravel, 1998), was composed of 209 French-speaking children (93 girls and116 boys) aged 66.8 months on average, 66.3 months (SD¼ 3.4) for the girlsand 67.3 months for the boys (SD¼ 3.8). These children were from 19kindergartens in five schools in the Quebec City area (Quebec, Canada),who voluntarily agreed to take part in the study after their school gave itsapproval. Most of the children lived in intact family structures (twobiological or two adoptive parents; 80.5%) and had on average one sibling(SD¼ 0.8). More specifically, 25.6% were only children, 29.3% were theeldest, and 36.1% were the middle child. Parents of 77.4% of the sampleheld full- or part-time jobs. Family incomes were between $40,000 and$59,999 for 27.9% and above $60,000 for 36.4%. Some parents hadelementary or secondary school diplomas (25.6%), others had universitydegrees (18.8%) or college diplomas (30.8%). In all of these variables, onlyone major gender difference stood out: the girls came from significantlylarger sibling groups (M¼ 1.15, SD¼ 0.81) than the boys (M¼ 0.88,SD¼ 0.69), F(1, 133)¼ 4.37, p¼ .04. This factor was not explored furtherin the analyses because there was not enough information to do soadequately (n¼ 133). Finally, it should be noted that the information wasobtained from three categories of respondents: (1) the children (linguisticdata); (2) the children’s parents (sociodemographic and ecological profiles),particularly the mothers in most cases (92.5%), the average age of whomwas 34.6 years of age (SD¼ 5.3); and (3) the kindergarten teachers (n¼ 19female; perceived prosociality).

Material

Questionnaire on the child’s sociodemographic and ecological profile(Page & Gravel, 1998). This tool was completed by the responding parent

342 BOUCHARD ET AL.

and provided data about the age and gender of both the child and the parent,the family structure (intact—biological or adoptive; and non intact—single-parent, reconstituted or foster family), annual family income (less than$19,999, $20,000 to $39,999, $40,000 to $59,000, and $60,000 and over),3

employment status (employed or unemployed), level of education of the parent(elementary, secondary, professional, collegial, bachelor, master’s and/ordoctorate), number of siblings, and the position of the child within the family.

Perceived prosociality

California Child Q-Short (CCQS; Block & Block, 1980). Adaptationand validation by Gravel, Page, Bouchard, and Cloutier (2002) based onprevious studies (Page, 1995; Page & Gravel, 1998). Completed by teachers,the ‘‘prosociality’’ scale of this tool, which assesses the child’s prosocialcharacteristics, gave access to kindergarten teachers’ perception ofprosociality. This 5-point Likert-style scale consists of elements fromatypical to typical (1¼ atypical of the child, 2¼ a bit like the child, 3¼ a littlemore like the child, 4¼ fairly typical, 5¼more typical, 6¼ very typical,7¼ absolutely typical of the child): (a) tends to give, lend, and share; (b) getsalong well with other children; (c) protects others; (d) is admired by otherchildren and attracts them; (e) is aware of others’ emotions. The internalcoherence of this scale is .86.

Certain items (e.g., b and d) in this test might seem to deal with a broaderconception of prosociality than was previously outlined in this article.However, empirical findings mean giving way to a certain symmetry,however relative, between degrees of prosociality and these items related toconcepts of popularity and harmony. Several studies show that a positivecorrelation exists between those concepts and prosociality (Pakaslahti,Karjalainen & Keltikangas-Jaervinen, 2002; Strayer & Santos, 1996).Following these findings, we can consider that these items describe children’sprosociality as it is perceived by kindergarten teachers. What is more, itshould be specified that perceived prosociality has been measured here byusing a system adapted to a population of francophone children, and thissystem is therefore thought to be representative for the prosociality of thispopulation (Bouchard, Gravel, & Cloutier, 2006).

Language

The linguistic data were obtained through verbatim transcription of thechildren’s responses to two questionnaires: (1) Problem-solving with Peers

3As an indication, one Canadian dollar was equivalent to approximately 0.712947 Euros on

April 19, 2006 (see http://www.xe.com/ucc).


and Mothers (Page & Gravel, 1998); (2) Social Perception (Page, 1995).These questionnaires were administered and responses were recorded byexperimenters who had received 15 hours of training prior to the study.

Problem-solving with Peers and Mothers (Spivack and Shure,1974). Preschool Interpersonal Problem-Solving (PIPS) was translatedand adapted by Page and Gravel (1998) based on previous studies (Page,1995; Strayer, Noel, Tessier, & Puentes-Neuman, 1989). This test usesillustrations and standardized questions to measure children’s ability togenerate various socio-cognitive strategies when facing two types ofproblems: (1) getting a toy with which another child is playing; (2) defusingtheir mother’s temper after breaking one of her favourite objects. Five toys(a truck or a doll, a lion, a swing, a drum, and a boat) and five damagedobjects (a broken flower pot, a scratched table, a torn dress, a rippedbook, and a broken window) were presented to the children in order forthem to find a strategy to resolve the situation. The linguistic data weredrawn from the answers to the question: ‘‘What can s/he say/do to get thetoy or to stop the mother from being angry?’’ (See Bouchard, Gravel, &Cloutier, 2006).

Social Perception (Page, 1995). Other linguistic data were obtainedfrom the children’s reactions to the ‘‘Social Perception’’ test. The childrenwere shown video sequences illustrating three transactional contexts thatvaried among children of the same age: (1) affiliative (a girl and a boy bothriding their bikes, the boy runs into the girl and then gives her a hug); (2)ambiguous (a girl stealthily pinches another girl on the back, and when theteacher looks in their direction, the first girl quickly starts to hug andcomfort the hurt child); and (3) agonist (a girl tries to take a paintbrushaway from a boy making something; see Bouchard, Gravel, & Cloutier,2006). The children’s specific task was to answer the following question,‘‘What would you have done if you had been in this (target) child’s place?’’.

Procedure

The children’s responses on the ‘‘Problem-solving with Peers and Mothers’’and ‘‘Social Perception’’ questionnaires were transcribed from videotape bystudents of psychology or early childhood education. Linguistic aspectswere coded along three dimensions: (1) quantitative syntactic complexity(mean length of utterances in words); (2) qualitative syntactic complexity(syntactic score, average number of conjunctions, subordinators, verbs,prepositions, adjectives and adverbs); and (3) pragmatics (average numberof verbal strategies, non-verbal strategies, verbal reactions, and non-verbalreactions).

344 BOUCHARD ET AL.

Coding procedures for linguistic data

Dimension 1: Quantitative syntactic complexity. The mean length ofutterances in words was calculated from the children’s spontaneousresponses to the first question on the protocol from the interpersonalproblem test: ‘‘What can the child do to get the toy or to stop the motherfrom being angry?’’ The mean length of utterances in words is the averagenumber of words produced in the first spontaneous answer given by thechild for all the sentences about interpersonal problem solving withpeers (5) and with mothers (5). Several studies have demonstrated meanlength of utterances in words to be an efficient measure of preschoolchildren’s linguistic maturity, but Kail (2000) suggests that quantitativeaspects of linguistic development can no longer be used to distinguishbetween children above a certain age, that is when their repertoire ofvocabulary is sufficiently large. Nonetheless, Bates, Dale, and Thal (1995)have demonstrated the relevance and even the necessity of using bothqualitative and quantitative linguistic aspects to assess developmentalvariations among children.

Dimension 2: Qualitative syntactic complexity. Qualitative syntacticcomplexity was assessed using categories developed by Lentin (1975)for French-speaking preschool children. The taxonomy was applied tochildren’s utterances in the context of problem-solving with peers (5) andwith mothers (5). It includes five categories: (1) a single word (score of one);(2) a simple sentence (score of two); (3) multiple simple sentences (score ofthree); (4) complex sentences (score of four); and (5) an utterance containingseveral complex sentences (score of five). One of Lentin’s categories wasexcluded because it did not apply to the data obtained in this study(‘‘extraction’’, e.g., ‘‘It’s my book that’s on the table’’). The category ‘‘singleword’’ was added to account for responses such as, ‘‘Wait’’ and, ‘‘Please’’, towhich a score of one (1) was attributed.

In this taxonomy, simple sentences were short or long clauses of varioustypes (noun, verb, complement) made up of at least two words, includingone verb. Clauses such as ‘‘Ask him’’ or ‘‘She apologizes’’ are examples thatwould receive a score of two (2). Simple multiple sentences were made up oftwo juxtaposed or co-ordinated simple clauses, but not subordinate clauses(in traditional French grammar, they are called independent clauses). Forinstance, responses such as ‘‘She takes something [drum stick], the othertakes the other thing’’ (In French, ‘‘A prend un affaire [baguette dutambour], l’autre prend l’autre affaire’’) or ‘‘He goes to their place and he’sgonna play with the doll’’ (In French, ‘‘Y va chez eux pis y va jouer avec lapoupee’’), would receive a score of three (3) for the syntactic complexitydimension.


Complex sentences refer to simple sentences used along with one or moresubordinators (in traditional French grammar, a main clause followed by asubordinate clause). The sentence ‘‘She could ask him to let others take theirturn please ’cos he used it a long time’’ (In French, ‘‘A pourrait lui demandertasse-toi s’il vous plaıt parce que ca fait longtemps’’) fell into this categoryand was given a score of four (4). According to Chartrand, Aubin, Blain,and Simard (1999), a subordinator is a word introducing a subordinateclause that indicates the connection of the two clauses. Around the age offour or five, the syntactic ability to link two clauses by using a conjunctionor a subordinate marks the beginning of complex sentences in francophonechildren’s linguistic development (Lentin, 1975).

The last category in this taxonomy was utterances that combined orcontained several complex sentences (score of five; 5). This type of sentencerepresented a higher level of syntax, closer to that of written communication(Lentin, 1975). The following example was typical of this level: ‘‘I wasplaying with the ball and I thought it would hit a tree, but it broke awindow. It was a plastic tree for him to play with, so he thought the ballwould hit it since it went very fast and he couldn’t see it broke the window’’.4

Finally, the average number (AN) of verbs, subordinators, conjunctions,prepositions, adverbs, and adjectives in the children’s sentences were alsocalculated as part of the qualitative syntactic complexity dimension.

Dimension 3: Pragmatics. The pragmatics dimension included the typeof solutions that the children proposed on the measure ‘‘Problem-solvingwith Peers and Mothers’’. Responses were coded as verbal if the child’ssolution involved talking (e.g., ‘‘Ask him’’) or non-verbal if the responsecontained an action verb (e.g., ‘‘Help him find his lunch’’). The samecategorization was used for responses on the ‘‘Social Perception’’ test. Forinstance, the sentence ‘‘I would have told the teacher’’ is a verbal reaction,while the sentence ‘‘I would have given him a hug’’ is a non-verbal reaction.

Reliability

For all of the linguistic variables, three judges coded and analysed thechildren’s responses. Interrater agreement was calculated for 20% of thesample. More specifically, the degree of overall agreement among judges was1.00 (Pearson correlation) for quantitative syntactic complexity (meanlength of utterances in words). For data associated with the qualitative

4This context is the English equivalent of the following French expression: ‘‘Jouais avec ma

balle pis j’croyais que j’allais viser sur un arbre mais j’ai vise la fenetre. Un arbre en plastique

pour qui joue avec sa balle pis y croyait qu’allait frapper sur son arbre tellement qu’la balle allait

vite y’a pas pu voir que a casse la vitre’’.

346 BOUCHARD ET AL.

syntactic complexity, mean interrater agreement was .94 (ranging from .85to 1.00), while for pragmatics it was .93 (ranging from .89 to .97).

Since correlation coefficients are satisfactory, note that linguistic datawere obtained from the interpersonal problem-solving situations with peersand with mothers. Thus, values represent an average per utterance based on10 responses given by the child (5 answers6 2 interpersonal problem-solving contexts). In order to verify a possible relationship betweenperceived prosociality and children’s language, two groups were createdbased on the split-half method (see Vautier & Jmel, 2003). The first groupwas composed of children whose linguistic scores were below the mean,while the second group consisted of children whose linguistic scores wereabove the mean.

RESULTS

The results are presented in two sections. The first section deals with resultsconcerning the differences in the teachers’ perception of prosociality ofkindergarten boys and girls, while the second section gives the results ofprosociality – language relationship. In this latter section, recall thatthree linguistic dimensions of analysis are highlighted: (1) quantitativesyntactic complexity (mean length of utterances in words); (2) qualitativesyntactic complexity (syntactic score, average number of conjunctions,subordinators, verbs, prepositions, adjectives and adverbs; and (3) prag-matics (average number of verbal strategies, non-verbal strategies,verbal reactions, and non-verbal reactions). Also note that variance andcovariance analyses were carried out in order to evaluate the potentialinfluence of sociodemographic characteristics (particularly, the age ofthe child, family income, and parents’ education) on language skills.The presence of these covariables has not proven to have any effect onthose skills.

Section 1: Teachers’ perception of prosociality

A univariate analysis of variance [ANOVA] was conducted betweenkindergarten teachers’ perceptions of prosociality and children’s gender.As expected, results revealed a significant effect of gender: girls’ averagescores were higher (M¼ 5, SD¼ 1.0) than those of boys (M¼ 4.5, SD¼ 1.3),F(1, 208)¼ 10.49, p¼ .001. In order to ensure the comparability ofinformation given by teachers, a Z score for perceived prosociality wascreated by group and by normalizing raw scores. Results still revealed agender difference in favour of girls (M¼ 0.2, SD¼ 0.8) over boys(M¼70.2, SD¼ 1), F(1, 208)¼ 9.32, p¼ .003. These results showed thatgirls had a higher degree of prosociality, based on teachers’ assessments.


Section 2: Relationship between perceived prosocialityand children’s language

Dimension 1: Quantitative syntactic complexity. The data obtained forprosociality in relation to the child’s quantitative syntactic complexity(mean length of utterances in words) showed that average scores inperceived prosociality do not vary from one linguistic group to another(below average and above average groups). Indeed, the ANOVA resultsrevealed no significant differences between perceived prosociality and meanlength of utterances in words, F(1, 208)¼ 0.00, p¼ .95. Contrary toexpectations, children whose mean length of utterances in words wereabove the mean were not perceived as significantly more prosocial (M¼ 4.7,SD¼ 1.2), than those whose mean length of utterances in words was belowthe mean (M¼ 4.7, SD¼ 1.2).

Dimension 2: Qualitative syntactic complexity. With regard to qualitativesyntactic complexity, a series of ANOVAs found no significant differ-ences between perceived prosociality and each linguistic area (inferiorgroups compared to superior groups): syntactic score F(1, 208)¼ 0.14,p¼ .71; average number of conjunctions F(1, 208)¼ 1.94, p¼ .17; subordi-nators F(1, 208)¼ 0.33, p¼ .57; verbs F(1, 208)¼ 0.05, p¼ .82; prepositionsF(1, 208)¼ 0.07, p¼ .79; adjectives F(1, 208)¼ 0.01, p¼ .94; and adverbsF(1, 208)¼ 0.16, p¼ .69. Thus, teachers did not evaluate children presentingabove-average qualitative syntactic complexity as more prosocial than thosewhose score was below average.

Dimension 3: Pragmatics. ANOVAs carried out for the type of strategiesused on the ‘‘Problem-solving with Peers and Mothers’’ measure show nosignificant difference between perceived prosociality and average numberof verbal strategies, F(1, 208)¼ 0.40, p¼ .53. In addition, no significantdifferences were observed between perceived prosociality and averagenumber of non-verbal strategies, F(1, 208)¼ 0.21, p¼ .65. Examination ofaverage number of verbal and non-verbal strategies reveals that above-average children are not perceived as more prosocial than below-averagechildren.

With regard to the type of reactions (‘‘Social Perception’’ measure), nosignificant difference was observed between perceived prosociality and thechildren’s average number of verbal reactions, F(1, 208)¼ 1.94, p¼ .17.Thus, perceived prosociality for children whose average number of verbalreactions is above average does not differ from that of children whoseaverage number of verbal reactions is below average. However, as for non-verbal reactions, an ANOVA revealed a significant difference concerningperceived prosociality, F(1, 208)¼ 5.91, p¼ .02. Children who used fewer

348 BOUCHARD ET AL.

non-verbal reactions than the group average are identified as moreprosocial, according to their teacher’s ratings (M¼ 4.9, SD¼ 1.1), thanthose who use more non-verbal reactions than average (M¼ 4.5, SD¼ 1.3).

In order to establish more precisely the link between linguistic variablesand perceived prosociality according to the sex of the child, a hierarchicalregression analysis was carried out following the analytic procedure outlinedby Baron and Kenny (1986) for testing moderating effects. The variable‘‘gender’’ was entered in the first block, and the language variables wereentered in the second block. The third block included the interactions ofgender with each of the selected language variables. Some language variables(mean length of utterances in words, average number of subordinates,average number of verbal strategies and verbal reactions) were excludedfrom the regression analysis because of a multicolinearity problem(Tabachnick & Fidell, 2001).5 Correlations between .03 and .72 were ob-served for the other language variables included in the hierarchicalregression analysis. The results of the hierarchical regression analysis arefound in Table 1. The upper part of the table shows the results for the firstblock of variables. Gender makes a significant contribution to prosocialityperceived by teachers, and explains 4.8% of this variance, F(1, 208)¼ 10.49,p¼ .001. The b coefficient associated with gender suggests that being a boy islinked with a negative evaluation of prosociality from the kindergartenteacher (b¼7.22, p¼ .001). This finding is consistent with earlier results.

In the second block of variables (see the middle part of Table 1), itcan be observed that language is also a contributing variable in perceivedprosociality, F(9, 208)¼ 3.69, p¼ .000, adding on 9.5% to the variancealready accounted for by gender. Here again examination of the b coefficientssuggests an order of importance of the language variables making asignificant contribution individually to the explanation of perceived pro-sociality: (a) average number of prepositions (b¼7.26, p¼ .006);(b) average number of non-verbal reactions (b¼7.24, p¼ .001). Note thata negative correlation with perceived prosociality was observed for these twoaspects. Thus, speech containing more prepositions and non-verbal reactionsput children at a disadvantage when evaluated by their teachers forprosociality.

The results for the third block of factors show that a significant portion ofperceived prosociality (8.1%) can be explained by the interactions betweengender and the language variables taken together, F(17, 208)¼ 3.24, p¼ .000(see lower part of Table 1). Above and beyond the main effects, two typesof interaction each made a significant contribution to the evaluation of

5Composite scores were calculated, but none of the resulting factors explained the perceived

prosociality of the girls and boys in kindergarten. Raw scores were therefore used in the

hierarchical regression analyses.


perceived prosociality: (a) an interaction of gender6 average number ofconjunctions (qualitative syntactic complexity) (b¼7.22, p¼ .04); (b) aninteraction of gender6 average number of non-verbal reactions (prag-matics) (b¼ .17, p¼ .01). Figure 1 shows that, for girls, the evaluation ofprosociality by their teachers did not vary regardless of their use ofconjunctions (above or below the mean frequency of use). On the otherhand, boys who used more conjunctions than the group mean wereevaluated as being more prosocial than were those who used fewerconjunctions. Similarly, Figure 2 illustrates that, for girls, evaluation of

TABLE 1Summary of hierarchical regression analysis for variables predicting perceived

prosociality in kindergarten boys and girls (n¼209)

Variables B SE B b sr2(unique)

Step 1

Child’s gender 7.54 .17 7.22*** .05

Step 2

Child’s gender 7.38 .17 7.16* .02

Syntactic complexity 7.08 .13 7.07 .00

AN conjunctions .02 .13 .01 .00

AN verbs .25 .25 .21 .01

AN adjectives .17 .17 .14 .01

AN adverbs .02 .10 .001 .00

AN prepositions 7.31 .11 7.26** .03

AN non-verbal strategies .16 .09 .13 .01

AN non-verbal reactions 7.29 .08 7.24*** .05

Step 3

Child’s gender 7.38 .17 7.16 .02

Syntactic complexity 7.07 .13 7.06 .00

AN conjunctions .02 .13 .01 .00

AN verbs .23 .14 .19 .01

AN adjectives .06 .10 .05 .00

AN adverbs .02 .10 .02 .00

AN prepositions 7.28 .12 7.23 .02

AN non-verbal strategies .17 .09 .14 .02

AN non-verbal reactions 7.27 .08 7.22 .04

Gender6 syntactic complexity .11 .13 .09 .00

Gender6 conjunctions 7.27 .13 7.22* .02

Gender6 verbs 7.06 .14 7.05 .00

Gender6 adjectives 716 .10 7.13 .00

Gender6 adverbs 7.07 .10 706 .00

Gender6 prepositions .15 .12 .12 .00

Gender6 non-verbal strategies 7.04 .09 7.03 .00

Gender6 non-verbal reactions .21 .08 .17** .03

Note: R2¼ .048 (p¼ .001) for step 1; �R2¼ .095 (p¼ .000) for step 2; and DR2¼ .081 (p¼ .000)

for step 3. *p5 .05; **p5 .01; ***p5 .001.

350 BOUCHARD ET AL.

perceived prosociality did not vary as a function of use of non-verbalreactions (above or below the mean frequency), while boys who used fewernon-verbal reactions than their peers were perceived as more prosocial bytheir teachers. Thus, these results seem to indicate that the relationshipbetween prosociality and language is moderated by children’s gender.

DISCUSSION

The objective of this study was to examine the role of language skills inperceived prosociality in kindergarten boys and girls (5.6 years of age). Amajor effort was made to investigate language skills as a precursor to thegender gap in prosociality, which has frequently been studied. In keepingwith previous research in this field (Bernzweig et al., 1993; Bouchard,Gravel, & Cloutier, 2006; Eisenberg & Fabes, 1998; Phillipsen et al., 1999;Shigetomi et al., 1981), our results suggest that teachers perceived girls asbeing more prosocial than boys.

Figure 1. The relation of perceived prosociality to the use of conjunctions in language as a

function of child’s gender.

Note: The group ‘‘low conjunctions’’ is composed up of children whose linguistic scores were

below the mean, while the group ‘‘high conjunctions’’ consists of children whose linguistic

scores were above the mean.


With regard to the primary subject of interest, the relationship betweenprosociality and language, the results of the hierarchical regression analysessupported the idea that there is a significant link between teachers’ perceivedprosociality and children’s language skills in kindergarten. The results of thesecond block of variables in the hierarchical regression analyses show thatlanguage explains 9.5% of perceived prosociality: the less children useprepositions and non-verbal reactions to express themselves, the more likelythey are to be identified as prosocial by their teachers. Although arelationship may exist between children’s prosociality and language, theresults of the third block of variables demonstrate that this relationshipis moderated by gender. Language has an explanatory role in perceivedprosociality for boys, but not for girls. Thus, boys who used moreconjunctions (qualitative syntactic complexity) and fewer non-verbalreactions (pragmatics) than average were identified as more prosocial bytheir kindergarten teachers. It is therefore plausible to state that themoderating role of language in the relationship of perceived prosociality andgender is primarily observed among boys.

Figure 2. The relation of perceived prosociality to the use of non-verbal reactions in language as

a function of child’s gender.

Note: The group ‘‘low conjunctions’’ is composed up of children whose linguistic scores were

below the mean, while the group ‘‘high conjunctions’’ consists of children whose linguistic

scores were above the mean.

352 BOUCHARD ET AL.

With regard to these results, Bouchard, Gravel, and Cloutier (2006)confirmed, among other things, that children’s externalized problems, whenevaluated by their teachers, influence the teachers’ assessment of perceivedprosociality. Many studies state that the more active and outgoing thatchildren are, the more they disrupt their classroom environment (Cloutier,2003; Conseil superieur de l’education, 1999). It is therefore not so sur-prising that the more children favour non-verbal reactions, that is, action-based reactions, the more negative the teachers’ evaluation of prosociality is.Furthermore, the presence of conjunctions is an indicator of sentencecomplexity and fluency; the more conjunctions there are in the child’ssentence, the more likely he or she is to produce refined and complexsentences in terms of morphosyntax (Clark, 2003; Golder, Brassart, &Gaonac’h, 1995). This linguistic feature may ensure the accuracy andcohesion of the child’s speech and may also influence teachers’ assessment ofthe child’s prosociality.

In the same way, children who use more prepositions than their peersmay be perceived more negatively by their kindergarten teachers. Becausethey prolong their sentences and risk diverging from the main idea as aconsequence (i.e., obtaining the other child’s toy, or avoiding the mother’sanger), they may be judged as having less skill in expressing themselves.In this sense, the use of prepositions may be an indicator of pragmaticcompetence (Herskovits, 1985), and thus may be a factor in perceivedprosociality by the teacher. This notion requires direct study in futureresearch.

In sum, this study uncovered a new empirical path between linguisticskills and perceived prosociality according to the gender of the child. Forgirls, prosociality perceived by teachers appears to be independent oflinguistic skills, that is, it varies without any correlation to language skills. Ifa link exists between girls’ perceived prosociality and their linguisticcapacities, it was not evident in our data. There are two possibilities: first,the link per se may not exist or, second, the link does exist but is influencedby other elements that are not taken into account in this study. The questionremains: Why does this phenomenon apply only to boys? The answer maybe found in the perceptual biases that are associated with the social roles ofthe two sexes. The teachers’ selective perception that is mainly based onboys’ use of conjunctions and non-verbal reactions would help createexpectations associated with social roles of sexes that would then influencethe teachers’ assessment of perceived prosociality (Bouchard, Cloutier, &Gravel, in press). The results of this study demonstrate the magnitude of theeffect of gender-related social roles in the education of children.

School is an environment where gender stereotypes develop (Conseilsuperieur de l’education, 1999). This is a socialization and cultural learningissue that poses important questions when the teacher’s evaluation and


predictions do not correspond to the child’s reality. In addition to thedocumented linguistic advantage of girls in early childhood, it is alsorecognized that they more readily take on the role of student anddemonstrate a higher level of academic competence than do boys. Thus,girls’ advantages constitute a perceived reality that becomes an integral partof teachers’ conceptions of what it means to be a boy or a girl. Once thisperception takes hold, it becomes a cumulative process that, over the years,widens the perceived gap between girls and boys.

Further research is needed to compare prosociality as perceived by maleand female kindergarten teachers. Conclusions concerning prosociality asperceived by male teachers cannot be drawn based on the results of this studyalone. Similarly, the relationship between teachers’ perception of prosocialityand their perceptions of boys’ and girls’ language skills requires furtherstudy. Other studies are also needed in order to further analyse the notion ofa link between prosociality, a social concept, and linguistic pragmatics usedin social contexts by preschoolers. Language is the primary tool forcommunication as well as for social interactions. It serves as the intermediaryin interpersonal relations, and plays a central role in establishing children’ssocial constructs (Vygotski, 1997). Within the framework of pragmatics,language is not simply about grammar, but includes a whole range ofstrategies that children use in order to structure their social actions and tocontrol and accomplish communicative activities (Bernicot & Trognon,2002). The classroom environment provides a situational context in whichchildren solve interpersonal problems. The solutions they choose thereforeinfluence the teachers’ evaluation of perceived prosociality.

The question of how children construct the meaning of an utterance in aspecific context is a theme to pursue. In terms of research objectives,language should be studied not only from a grammatical point of view butalso as a means of carrying out social behaviour, by assessing the linkbetween a linguistic form and its social function (Ninio & Snow, 1996).Examining the social function of language is important for research, butalso for its everyday applications, in particular as it relates to children’sinterpersonal problem-solving (Bernicot & Trognon, 2002). Other studiesshould also expand the range of pragmatic skills beyond those evaluatedhere so that gender differences, if any, can be identified.

A final promising avenue of research could be to refine morphosyntacticmeasures in order to assess the subtleties of kindergarten children’slanguage. Few resources are available for assessing language in very youngFrench-speaking children, which limits researchers’ and clinicians’ work.Until recently, linguistic scales used for research have often been adaptedfrom English, which differs from French in many respects. Studies that aimto normalize and validate the Quebec version of MacArthur CommunicativeDevelopment Inventories (MCDI) with 1200 children from 8 to 30 months

354 BOUCHARD ET AL.

of age will help address this need (Trudeau, Boudreault, Marsolais, Rioux,& Tousignant, 2005). Future studies should also focus on linguistic growthtowards the end of the preschool period, given that language skills arenecessary for social, academic, economic, and personal success.

Manuscript received 14 November 2005

Revised manuscript accepted 24 May 2006

First published online 11 September 2007

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