This project is a "Scholars Award in Methodological Training for Cultural Anthropologists". The researcher will receive advanced statistical training to learn techniques appropriate for the analysis and interpretation of two large datasets. One is concerned with the development of sex typing among 192 children aged 3-9 in four agrarian societies. The second consists of cross-cultural ratings on the couvade, a custom in primitive societies where a father's behavior imitates some aspect of a mother's pregnancy/child-birth experience. Both datasets are related to the expression of sex typing, particularly among males, and will analyze factors that dampen or heighten the degree of behavior and sociocultural differentiation between the sexes. The grant will allow extensive statistical tutelage by faculty at the University of California-Irvine. This project is important because it increases the quantitative expertise of a productive socio-cultural anthropologist. Cultural anthropology has not been known for quantitative methods, and the National Science Foundation instituted this funding opportunity to allow scholars to increase their research abilities.
