Gender Stereotypes in Preschool Children and Relevant Interventions

Abstract

Previous research has focused on gender development mainly from a theoretical perspective, which can provide a general understanding of children’s development in certain fields. The cognitive-developmental, gender-schema, and social cognitive theories were utilised as the dominant frameworks for understanding gender development. Another notion known as theory of dynamic systems interprets gender development from a more complicated perspective with the consideration of multiple elements. All of these theories have the limitations to identify external cues that could result in children’s development of gender stereotypes specifically. In light of these notions, the current study chose to focus on the impacts of external factors on preschoolers’ development of gender stereotypes and relative interventions. The paper identified two types of external factors, including environmental cues and social interactions, which have significant correlations with children’s stereotypic attitudes. In addition, two gendered pedagogies were discussed as effective interventions which could be applied in preschool. In terms of the limitation, some possible mediation and moderation aspects of external components that were found to be strongly associated with the development of gender stereotypes were not thoroughly evaluated and addressed. Future study should evaluate possible mediation and moderating effects in a more comprehensive way. The current review demonstrated the significance of implicit gendered characteristics that might be easily ignored in daily life. It can give direction for future research to uncover more specific implicit factors. In addition, it can provide some insights to parents and educators for creating a more varied and equitable environment for children’s gendered development.