Gender_Stereotypes_Among_Children

Gender Stereotypes Among Children Introduction In a society which is rife with gender stereotypes and biases, children regularly learn to adopt gender roles, which are not always fair to both sexes. Children are exposed to many factors, which influence their attitudes and behavior regarding gender roles. These attitudes and behaviors 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 family setting. Children learn at a very early age what it means to be a boy or a girl in out society. It is difficult for a child to grow to adulthood without experiencing some form of gender bias or stereotyping, whether it be the expectation that boys are better than girls at math or the idea that only females can nurture children. Parental Influence A child’s earliest exposure to what it means to be male or female comes from parents. From the tome their children are babies, parents treat sons and daughters differently, dressing infants in gender specific colors, giving differentiated toys, and expecting different behavior from boys and girls. One study indicated that parents have differential expectations of children, gender, girls, stereotypes, parents, boys, role, world, whose, likely, home, work, toys, study, sons, society, sense, outside, mothers, male, influence, family, ex, daughters, while, television, strict, rooms, roles, reasons, preference, play, one, occupations, objects