Gender Development: The influence of gendered information and modeling on children

Children are impressionable, due to their stage of development and reliance on others to meet their needs. Children learngender stereotypes and gender appropriate activities through gendered modelling and gendered information in their environment.

The development of gender-role identity is influenced by children's exposure to adult behavior and media portrayal of gender roles, effecting the child's perception of self. Gender typing serves as a fundamental issue, due to the important aspects of life gender can affect, including talents one cultivates, activities one chooses to participate, conceptions one holds about themselves and opportunities and restraints one encounters in occupational and social settings (Bussy & Bandura, 1999). According to Bandura’s Social Learning Theory, children learn behavior from environmental factors through observation. The most influential models for children to imitate include parents, friends, school teachers and characters in books. Children observe these models and environmental factors, encoding and imitating rewarded behavior (Lee & Chin, 2019).

Children’s literature a crucial part of gender stereotypes perceived by children, books serving as psycho-social contexts, to create new ideologies about the world, assimilating new knowledge from previous knowledge (Tsao, 2008). Children’s books can serve as an introduction to real word experiences and behaviors, offering opportunities for children to construct their view upon themselves and the world itself. Children’s literature provides children with characters and events, serving as a parallel that children relate to their selves and personal lives, considering their actions, beliefs, and emotions (Tsao, 2008).

Children’s literature and reading materials are common and available as a resource that children may use to grasp understanding for many topics such as gender and real-world scenarios (Tsao, 2008). The prevalence of children's literature should motivate adult figures to be selective on the children's books provided to younger populations, being more contentious on the information shaping the child's mind. Gender roles portrayed in books, offer information for the reader to perceive their own perspectives through the book’s portrayal of information, influencing social interaction, shaping developing ideas about gender, and how children evaluate their current behavior (Tsao, 2008).

Theoretical Perspective of Gender Roles

The term ‘gender’ is used more generally than the term ‘sex’, being a biological determined construct, and ‘gender’ being something people do, or way to behave (Lee & Chin, 2019). While ‘sex’ is the physical anatomy one is born with, gender is conscious and subconscious, determining the way one wears clothes, talks, walks and selection a career (Lee & Chin, 2019). In children's literature, authors portray the characters gender through illustrations of clothes, body structure, how the characters talk and what they say, and how characters relate to other characters. Many times, gender can be portrayed in literature through hierarchal opposition, with masculine characters representing the norm, and female characters representing the subordinate or invisible one (Lee & Chin, 2019).

According to social-cognitive theory, children learn gendered stereotypes though the observation of gendered information or behavior, through modeling, enactive experience, direct tuition (Bussey & Bandura, 1999). Based upon social-cognitive theory, children’s literature influence children though modeling, providing masculine and feminine contexts to each character (Bussey & Bandura, 1999). Research by Seitz and Rübsam (2020), indicates that gender information in children's literature effect how children perceive unknown situations, helping children socialize children, reinforcing the existing gender stereotypes. Through the process of learning gender-stereotyped information, children may associate objects, attributes and activities to gender categories, such as masculine and feminine, creating a bidirectional network between a person's gender and the objects, attributes and activities (Seitz & Rübsam, 2020).

Gender Role Portrayal

In children's literature, songs, nursery rhymes, and children television shows, children are exposed to examples of gendered stereotypes, providing gender examples of gender roles in society. Women are typically portrayed in literature and media as being passive, child rearing types, and often having soft and genital features, while men are portrayed as active, professional types, who appear to be cool and handsome (Evans, 1998). In children's literature, male characters were depicted more often than females, a majority of the books did not include female charters at all (Williams et. al., 1972). In studies that included female characters, feminine roles included insignificant, passive, immobile and indoor themes, in addition to males presented as adventurous and exciting (Williams et. al., 1972). When analyzing children’s literature, males' characteristics were represented more frequently than presented female characters, described as strong, adventurous, independent, and capable (DePalma, 2016). When analyzing children’s literature, female characteristics were more sparsely represented, yet when female characters were depicted, female characters are portrayed as subordinate or insignificant, including themes of sweet, naïve, quiet, dependent. These stereotyped descriptions of female characters in children's books create portrayals and underrepresentation, influencing children's personality development, restrict their study and career aspirations, and affect their attitudes towards parental roles (Lee & Chin, 2019).

Children books include characters that are used to portray the real-life attitudes of males and females in society, yet the norms observed by children differ between males and females, shaping the children's perspective or normal behavior for males and females, internalizing the norms, creating definitions for family and career behavior (Lee &Chin, 2019). In children's literature, males' characters tend to portray dominate titles, pictures, and texts, while female characters tend to be under-represented in titles and central roles, appearing unimportant (Tsao, 2008).

Application

The goal of this information is to facilitate conversation and stimulate understanding regarding how gendered stereotypes in children’s’ literature can be used in the role of gender development with children. It is important for parents, adults, caregivers, and teachers to understand the influence of literature, media, and children’s environments. With this information, people who interact with children frequently may notice the combination of traditional and non-traditional gender typed behavior and character leads in children’s literature.

References

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