Moms at Work and Dads at Home: Children's Evaluations of Parental Roles

Children's Evaluations of Gender-Stereotypic Household Activities in the Family Context

“…The age-related patterns were consistent with past work that has documented age-related increases in social-conventional reasoning for the evaluation of exclusion from peer activities . Here, too, with age, children relied on stereotypic expectations to evaluate the division of chores in the home context, as they have done in past research on evaluation of parental roles (Sinno & Killen, 2009). What is new in the present study is the finding that the majority of children used social-conventional reasoning along with stereotypic expectations as the basis for their decisions at all ages.…”

“…This work also provides a new context for the application of children's gender-stereotyped knowledge, which has shown that boys give stereotyped responses more frequently than girls in straightforward measures of gender behavior (Carter & Levy, 1988;Liben & Bigler, 2002;McHale, Bartko, Crouter, & Perry-Jenkins, 1990;Ruble & Martin, 1998;Weisner & Wilson-Mitchell, 1990). Furthermore, this work extends the research of Sinno and Killen (2009), which demonstrated that children's judgments about caretaking roles in the home setting are highly contingent upon gender-stereotypic expectations.…”

“…Clearly, children think about gender roles in the home in fairly stereotypic ways (Sinno & Killen, 2009). As an example, a fifth-grade boy picked the girl to help the mother with vacuuming because the people who vacuum around the house are women.…”

“…One recent study, also based upon the social-cognitive domain model, found that children judged that both mothers and fathers should be able to work outside of the home (because of autonomy and choice), but domestic roles were viewed in fairly stereotypic terms, such that moms know more than dads about how to take care of children (Sinno & Killen, 2009). This issue, however, does not directly affect children's everyday experiences, such as the assignment of chores.…”

The Impact of Teacher Gender on Girls’ Performance on Programming Tasks in Early Elementary School

“…Basic stereotypes begin to develop in children around two to three years of age (Kuhn, Nash, & Brucken, 1978;Signorella, Bigler, & Liben, 1993). As children grow older, stereotypes about sports, occupations, and adult roles expand, and their gender associations become more sophisticated (Sinno & Killen 2009). Prior work demonstrates the importance of piquing the interest of girls during their formative early childhood and elementary years before gender stereotypes regarding these traditionally masculine fields are ingrained in later years (Metz, 2007;Steele, 1997).…”