ABSTRACT
This chapter examines whether and how behaviour is based or determined by biological nature versus cultural context, with its implications considered for gender socialisation and education. It argues that there must be a biological basis for behaviour, although it cannot be directly observed given the clear significance of cultural context. The cultural context is held as intrinsically related to human nature, as humans are conceived in the text as naturally inclined and oriented toward the social and cultural to make meaning in life. The text thus gives a glimpse of the state of theorizing on gender binary at the time of its writing, as it includes a systematic analysis of the nature/nurture debate and gender understandings of its time. The chapter examines the nature/culture controversy in order to locate and deconstruct the gender debate. It explores the dialectic of the nature/culture interaction in the formation of persons and, mutatis mutandis, of men and women.
