My research asks two distinct but interrelated questions: (1) What do children's social category representations look like across development? and (2) Which sociocultural factors predict variation in how these representations develop?

What do children's social category representations look like across development?

By the time they reach kindergarten, children already have elaborate knowledge of many social categories, including gender and race. A key feature of children’s social category representations is their prototypes—the category members who they perceive as most central to, or representative of, the overall category. Prototypes are hugely influential, as they dictate who we perceive as most psychologically visible within a category. In my research, I examine children's prototypes of gender categories (e.g., "man," "woman," "boy", and "girl"), as well as broader superordinate categories (e.g., "people", "human"). My collaborators and I adopt an intersectional framework to probe the interactive forces of gender, race, age, and other dimensions on children's social category representations.  

Which sociocultural factors predict variation in how these representations develop? 

The social category representations children form early in life tend to reflect the broad ideologies and belief systems around them. However, substantial variation exists across children in the same context, and this variation can often be traced to more proximal sociocultural influences in children’s environments. My research examines several of these influences. At present, my collaborators and I have explored the role of language (e.g., whether a social category is described in generic vs. specific terms; "Girls like pink" vs. "This girl likes pink") and explanation (e.g., how a social category difference is explained), as well as the ideologies to which children are directly exposed (e.g., parents' self-reported political ideology).