The authors discuss that because children spend long periods of time at school interacting with their peers, schools are a major setting for gender socialization can affect gender differentiation through two sources; teachers and peers. The authors discuss that teachers and peers are also sources of learning about gender. Schools are characterized by gender segregation; the authors argued that children tend to select same sex playmates, which affects their play experiences, leading to spending more time in stereotypical play. The authors noted that teacher’s gender stereotypes and prejudices can shape their classroom behavior in at least three ways; (a) teachers often model gender stereotypic behavior; (b) teachers often exhibit different expectations for males and females; and (c) teachers facilitate gender biases by making gender as important by using it to label and organize students. The authors noted that peers also teach their classmates stereotypes by punishing them verbally or physically for failing to conform to their
Through play children can understand each other and make sense of the world around them. Therefore, when children learn from play, it teaches them social skills such as taking turns, sharing, tolerance and self-discipline from others. Children likes to play as there is no right way or wrong way, they can use their imagination to develop games and interact with each other without being in an adult-led environment. Play is a very emotive word which means different things to different people and has been defined in many ways. The meaning of play has been debated by philosophers and academics for centuries and was recognised as far as Plato who is quoted as saying ‘avoid compulsion and let your child play’!
As children mature, their physical play becomes running, climbing, and hopping. This can be rough and tumble play, for instance, wrestling or chasing, it may take place when there is no disagreement. A child needs to understand the limits. During active play, children use their bodies and minds in play by interacting with the environment, materials, and other people. Physical play involves children developing, practising and refining bodily movements and control.
Males and females have biological differences, it is life experience that reinforces or contradicts those differences, however, they are not really as different as most perceive them to be, this fact lies in differential socialization, which claims that males and females are taught and influenced different appropriate behaviours for their gender by their first teacher and caregiver, their parents (Burn, Aboud, & Moyles 2000). At a young age, boys and girls spend most of their time in their home with their families and look up to their parents for guidance. Through observation of particular parental behaviors in the context of their family, children learn that certain actions may be drawn on as symbolic markers of gender (Cunningham, 2001). The parents are also the one that provides children with their first lessons about gender, one way that parents influence children’s gender development is through the role modeling and encouragement of different behaviors and activities in sons and daughters (Leaper, 2013). According to Bussey and Bandura (1999), parents also play an active role in setting the course of their children 's gender development by structuring, channeling, modeling, labeling, and reacting evaluatively to gender-linked conduct.
Over a period of six months, the children in the intervention group were exposed to four different pretend play themes such as doll play, transport, construction and home corner whereas children in the comparison group were not given any form of intervention. Baseline and follow-up data for all participants were collected before and after the interventions took place respectively. During pretend play interventions, children were assessed for their social competencies and behaviours (e.g. interactions, disruption and disconnection) using the ‘Penn Interactive Peer Play Scale (PIPPS)’. O’Connor and Stagnitti found children in the comparison group were more socially competent as compared to the children in the intervention group based on baseline data.
Majority of the boys do like to play with girls, but there is always they one guy that doesn’t. Now that kid got raised wrong. It is not that parents are raising sexist boys, but its society. There are different Generations, they are taught different and they think differently. Some boys actually like to play with girls.
Toddlers begin to play with gender stereotyped toys, such as dolls and cars, etc. From the around 2 years of age children can recognise pictures of same-sex children. They also begin to see differences between genders, such as length of hair; clothing and physical differences. From about 3 years children begin to link different jobs, objects and tasks with different genders, such as mummy’s cook and daddy’s work on the car or mummy’s handbag or daddy’s hammer. From around 5 years children begin to understand that both sexes can wear trousers or do the same jobs (police officer or fire fighter),
I believed that play is essential to children’s education that cannot be minimized and separated from learning. It is not only helping children develop pre-literacy skills, problem solving skills and concentration, but also generating social learning experiences, and helping children to express
In a society rife with gender stereotypes and biases, children regularly learn to adopt gender roles which are not always fair to both sexes. As children move through childhood and into adolescence, they are exposed to many factors which influence their attitudes and behaviours regarding gender roles. These attitudes and behaviours are generally learned first in the home and are then reinforced by the child‘s peers, school experience, and television viewing. However, the strongest influence on gender role development seems to occur within the family setting, with parents passing on, both overtly and covertly, their own beliefs about gender. This overview of the impact of parental influence on gender role development leads to the suggestion
The colors pink and blue also co-vary with the gender-typicality of children’s toys; boys’ toys are often colored blue and girls’ toys are often in pink. In the study conducted by Wong & Hines, their main hypothesis was whether gender color-coding would affect toy preferences. To test their hypothesis, participants ranging from 20-40 months of age from a town in the United Kingdom participated in a study. Participants were studied on two occasions, separated by a span of 6-8 months, to see whether the magnitude of any effect of gender-typical colors on gender-typical play increased with age. The main hypothesis under investigation was whether the preferences for toys would be increased