This interview focuses on children's strong sense of gender identity and gender role expectations. Most children by the age of two already know with most certainty whether they are male or female, and by the age of four or five have began to develop strong opinions on what they believe is appropriate male and female behavior. These children were asked elementary questions about their sex and their answers unfortunately did not surprise me.
Children learn very early what it means to be a boy or a girl in our society. Through a lot of activities, opportunities, encouragements, behaviors, suggestions, and different forms of guidance, children go through the process of gender role socialization. It is difficult for a child to grow up without experiencing some form of gender bias or stereotyping, whether it be the expectation that boys are better than girls or that only females can care for children. As children grow and develop, gender stereotypes that they are exposed to at home are reinforced by other things in their environment.
The information that surrounds the child and is retained so easily comes from parental role modeling, reinforcement for desired behaviors, and approval or disapproval. As children are introduced to a world of friends and school, many of their ideas are reinforced by the people around them. Through all of these socializations, children learn to stereotype gender behaviors.
The ability to keep a non sex-typed environment for adolescents is a difficult task to maintain. In fact, preschool children whose mothers work outside the home experience the world with a sense that everyone in the family gets to become a member of the outside world, and their sense of self includes the knowledge that they have the ability to make choices which are not hindered by gender (Davies & Banks, 1992).
Growing up with siblings of the same or opposite sex also affects gender stereotyping. In all-girl and all-boy families, children are more likely to be assigned "cross-gender" chores because no "gender-appropriate" child is available to do the job (Berk, 2000). Siblings gender choices many times depends on birth order and family size. For example, when 9-year-olds were videotaped playing with toys, their preference for non gender toys was more common with the children who had brothers and sisters. And children with same-sex siblings seem to be less interested in non sex toys and more interested in stereotypical boy and girl activities.
Children learn very early what it means to be a boy or a girl in our society. Through a lot of activities, opportunities, encouragements, behaviors, suggestions, and different forms of guidance, children go through the process of gender role socialization. It is difficult for a child to grow up without experiencing some form of gender bias or stereotyping, whether it be the expectation that boys are better than girls or that only females can care for children. As children grow and develop, gender stereotypes that they are exposed to at home are reinforced by other things in their environment.
The information that surrounds the child and is retained so easily comes from parental role modeling, reinforcement for desired behaviors, and approval or disapproval. As children are introduced to a world of friends and school, many of their ideas are reinforced by the people around them. Through all of these socializations, children learn to stereotype gender behaviors.
The ability to keep a non sex-typed environment for adolescents is a difficult task to maintain. In fact, preschool children whose mothers work outside the home experience the world with a sense that everyone in the family gets to become a member of the outside world, and their sense of self includes the knowledge that they have the ability to make choices which are not hindered by gender (Davies & Banks, 1992).
Growing up with siblings of the same or opposite sex also affects gender stereotyping. In all-girl and all-boy families, children are more likely to be assigned "cross-gender" chores because no "gender-appropriate" child is available to do the job (Berk, 2000). Siblings gender choices many times depends on birth order and family size. For example, when 9-year-olds were videotaped playing with toys, their preference for non gender toys was more common with the children who had brothers and sisters. And children with same-sex siblings seem to be less interested in non sex toys and more interested in stereotypical boy and girl activities.