Does the qualitative vocabulary of boys and girls differ at primary school age?

Findings from developmental psychology indicate that girls and boys develop different interests and prefer different activities. Accordingly, it can be assumed that they also come into contact with different words in their environment, which could result in systematic differences in the quality of their vocabularies.

In a project based at the TU Dortmund with Prof. Nele McElvany, we investigated the assumption that girls would have advantages with words that have a feminine connotation, whereas boys would have advantages with words that have a masculine connotation.

Selected publications:

El-Khechen, W., McElvany, N., Wolter, I. & Kessels, U. (2017). Was heißt „kannibalisch“, „foltern“ und „zerstören“? Geschlechtsspezifischer Wortschatz von Grundschulkindern in Abhängigkeit von der Herkunftssprache [What does "cannibalistic", "to torture" and "to destroy" mean? Gender-specific vocabulary of primary school children depending on language background]. Psychologie in Erziehung und Unterricht, 64, 123-137. http://dx.doi.org/10.2378/peu2017.art06d

McElvany, N., Schwabe, F., El-Khechen, W., & Kessels, U. (2016). Qualitative Wortschatzunterschiede zwischen Mädchen und Jungen im Grundschulalter [Qualitative
differences in vocabulary between boys and girls in elementary school age]. Zeitschrift für Pädagogische Psychologie, 30(1), 45-55. https://doi.org/10.1024/1010-0652/a000167