Gender differences in the age-changing relationship between instrumentality and family contact in emerging adulthood.

Data from the Children in the Community Transitions Study were used to examine gender differences in the impact of family contact on the development of finance and romance instrumentality from ages 17 to 27 years. Family contact decreased among both men and women across emerging adulthood, although it decreased more rapidly in men than in women. Both finance and romance instrumentality increased for men and women across emerging adulthood. The growth rate did not differ between men and women in either domain, although men tended to be characterized by higher levels of instrumentality than women. There were noteworthy gender differences in the impact of family contact on the development of instrumentality. At age 17, family contact was negatively associated with instrumentality for both men and women; at age 27, the impact of family contact on instrumentality was less negative for women and was positive for men.

Strengthening healthy resistance and courage in children: a gender-based strategy for preventing youth violence.

Beginning with the distinction between core consciousness or a core sense of self and a self that is wedded to a story about itself, this paper suggests that we have collectively been wedded to a false story about ourselves, a story that the core self resists. The gender disparity with respect to times in development when children's resilience is at heightened risk highlights the costs of an initiation that occurs for boys in early childhood and for girls at adolescence. Because of this difference in the timing, girls can become informants about a process of psychic splitting and dissociation that impedes the relational capacities of children and opens the way to violence. The articulateness of girls' resistance to losses that are psychologically and socially consequential illuminates a resistance in boys that may otherwise be overlooked. Evidence drawn from studies of girls' development leads to the suggestion that by joining a healthy resistance in children, we can act to prevent youth violence. The paper ends with a case study of a suicidal adolescent girl to illustrate how a relational framework shifts the interpretation of violent behavior and informs a strategy of response.