Patterns of Gender-Role Behaviour in Children Attending Traditional and Non-Traditional Day-Care Centres

Abstract

Using a sex-typed free-play task and the Draw-a-Person test, the gender-role behaviour of children attending a day-care centre whose staff adhered to a "non-sexist" child-rearing philosophy was compared to the gender-role behaviour of children attending a more traditional day-care center. Parental provision of sex-typed and neutral toys and approval of cross-sex role behaviour was also assessed. On both measures, the two groups of children showed culturally typical patterns of gender-role behaviour. The parents of the two groups of children were generally similar in terms of the kinds of toys they provided and in their attitudes toward the expression of cross-sex role behaviour. Potential explanations for the inability to demonstrate effects of the "non-sexist" child-rearing philosophy were discussed.

Gender Identity Disorder in Girls

“…For example, it has long been observed that the sexes differ in the extent to which they display sex-typical behaviors; when there is significant between-sex variation, it is almost always the case that girls are more likely to engage in masculine behaviors than boys are likely to engage in feminine behaviors (e.g., Cole, Zucker, & Bradley, 1982;Sandberg, Meyer-Bahlburg, Ehrhardt, & Yager, 1993). Thus, the base rates for cross-gender behavior, at least within the range of normative variation, may well differ between the sexes.…”