Gender Specific Toys Affect on Children Enrolled in Preschool Versus Children Not Attending Preschool Gender plays an important role in the way children are raised in today’s society. The common stereotype that feminine toys are for girls and masculine toys are for boys is prevalent, even with all of the political advancements our society has made to try to free the world from these stigmas. It starts as early as when a child is in the mother’s womb. Most women will celebrate the arrival of their bundle of joy with a baby shower.
Pink colors will be used for baby girls and blues for baby boys. In toy stores you will find aisles filled with toys separated by gender: baby dolls for girls and action heroes for boys. During ages three to five children enter their peak playing ages where their minds are most vulnerable to absorb everything and anything at once. Due to a failing economy, many more families are depending on early childcare programs to care for their children while they are forced to have both parents enter the workforce.
During this sensitive, and impressionable time in a child’s life, many children are now being influenced by their preschool teacher and caregiver in regards to gender toys and gender issues and how the children are taught gender. In this research proposal, I review current research that pertains to the affect that gender specific toys has on boys and girls. I propose a research experiment that would test the affect that gender specific toys has on toddlers that are enrolled in preschool and toddlers who are not attending a preschool.
Literature Review According to modern research many traditional models of gender-based curriculum is changing rapidly in early childhood education. According to Nancy Marshall Ed. H, (1999), “gender equity is important in early childhood education. Before children enter elementary school, the foundation has already been laid for their understanding of what it means to be a boy or a girl… By promoting gender equity in early childhood education, we can broaden the horizons of all children and ensure that they are ready to learn when they enter kindergarten” (Marshall, 1999).
In today’s society preschool curriculum is now more gender sensitive. Children are encouraged to participate in social learning, and exploring different gender specific toys. This concept differs from many traditional values and stereotypes that stigmatize young children by placing them into strong gender constraints. This can be found more commonly in households that have one child at home not attending preschool. In these types of family units you will find gender specific toys, rather than a blend of gender toys that you would find in homes with siblings of different genders, or in early childcare centers.
Much attention and research has focused on children’s attainment of complete gender understanding. It may be the case, however, that children do not need to have sophisticated levels of gender knowledge for preferences and stereotypes to develop. For example, Constantinople (1979) and Fagot (1985) have argued that merely labeling the sexes is sufficient for children to begin to form rules concerning gender”(Martin, 1990).
With this concept at mind, children who are not exposed to aspects of gender that are not defined by his or her own identity may find it extremely difficult to participate in social learning experiences and may become more vulnerable to gender stereotypes. Rationale Children reliably prefer toys deemed appropriate to their gender and children’s toys continue to be differentiated with respect to children (Marshal, 1999). Although it may be hard for a little boy to pick up a girls “dolly”, I strongly believe that children in a preschool atmosphere feel more comfortable playing with toys deemed towards a different gender.
In a preschool classroom there are a large variety of toys and classmates of different genders. Children are encouraged to play together and explore different toys regardless of gender. Children whom are not enrolled in early education tend to be around more gender specific toys and are encouraged to play with the toys they have at home. Therefore I propose that Gender specific toys will influence the interaction between boys and girls, and will have a greater influence on children not enrolled in Pre-school.
Methods According to Researcher Caryl Rivers, and Rosalind Barnett (2011), most commonly boys will naturally rush to pick up action heroes and truck, while girls will more commonly pick up dolls and tea sets. How does this change when children are exposed to more toys of a different gender? For this experiment, I will have 4 three year olds with no siblings (This guarantees that generally speaking, the homes of the children would contain a majority of toys deemed to their gender), one boy in preschool, on boy not enrolled in preschool.
One girl in preschool, one girl not enrolled in preschool. I will have stations set up in a room with gender specific toys stations: A doll station, a monster truck station, a beauty spa station, and a tool bench station. I will observe each child one boy one, and see what toys they are drawn to, and what toys they are not. I would then observe 2 children of a different gender both in preschool and see how they interact with the toys. I would then guide them to play with toys of different genders and see how they react and if they can play well together.
I would then repeat this with 2 children of different genders, one in preschool and one not in preschool. Conclusions and Expectations Children solely played with their specific gender when alone. When mixed with another preschooler, children would feel more comfortable exploring new toys. I would expect to see a Chameleon effect, subconscious mimicry of the postures, mannerisms, facial expressions, and other behaviors of one’s interaction partners, such that one’s behavior passively and unintentionally changes to match that of others in one’s current social environment.
This is seen through the same ideas of conformity. When mixed with someone not in preschooler, there may be fighting over the gender toy and the child not in school may get very upset if the opposite gender tried to play with their toy. This behavior would be a reflection of the belief that children form mental representations of masculinity and femininity, which they then use as a basis for organizing their behavior and evaluating their self-worth. This experiment will indicate that children at a young age are already heavily influenced by gender stereotypes and the expectations for social roles that society presents.
This will also prove that it is healthy for parents to explore other gender deemed toys at home, especially if the home does not have a sibling from a different gender. The expectations and results for this model would have similar outcomes to a study conducted in the documentary Divide of the Sexes: Gender Roles in Childhood (2008). This BBC documentary follows different children and their families while conducting experiments to see how the children identify with gender. One of the experiments included a lemonade drink with different labels geared to attract boys and girls.
Although the bottles both contained the same lemonade, the boys said the lemonade with the boy label tasted better, and the girls felt the lemonade with the girl label tasted better. In conclusion, allowing children to explore different gender toys is healthy. It allows the child to develop skills of interaction with children of the opposite sex. It allows a child to grow up with an open mind and does not constrict the child to stereotypes that are forced upon us from society.
