The Concept of Gender Mentality as a Methodological Basis for a Gender Approach in Socio-Psychological Research

Objective. Identification of the potential, approaches and directions of socio-psychological research based on the concept of gender mentality. Background. The institutionalization and academicization of gender studies in Russian science is combined with methodological discussions and the active development of terminological apparatus. The use of the concept of gender mentality makes it possible to integrate the basic principles of the gender approach into socio-psychological research, highlight its social context, subject content and levels of analysis. Methodology. Concepts of mentality and mentality, the concept of social cognition, social constructivism, methodology of gender studies. Conclusions. Understanding mentality as a specificity of group consciousness of people, determined by socio-cultural and spatio-temporal features of the group's life activity, allows us to determine the content of gender mentality as intersubjective, variable and changing social knowledge based on ideas about male and female in culture and society, to identify the content of cognitive, emotional, semantic and behavioral components, as well as its transformation content at the macro, meso and micro levels, using comparative, structural and normative approaches.