'It's a boy because he's painting a picture': age differences in children's conventional and unconventional gender schemas

Tenenbaum, Harriet R., Hill, Darryl B., Joseph, Nadia and Roche, Erin (2010) 'It's a boy because he's painting a picture': age differences in children's conventional and unconventional gender schemas. British Journal of Psychology, 101(1), pp. 137-154. ISSN (print) 0007-1269

Abstract

Two studies investigated the development of children's gender knowledge using a procedure designed to tap into children's unconventional gender beliefs. Study 1 revealed a developmental progression with 34 3- to 4-year-old children providing more unconventional reasons than conventional reasons to explain the gender of a series of drawings. By contrast, 39 5- to 6-year-old and 42 7- to 8-year-old children provided more conventional than unconventional reasons. Study 2 found that a second sample of 42 3- to 4-year-old children mastered a close-ended assessment of gender stereotyping, while they relied on unconventional and conventional reasoning equally when explaining the gender of a series of drawings displaying conventional cues only. This research supports the model that children's conventional gender schemas do not develop before their unconventional gender schemas.

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