Early preschool environments and gender : Effects of gender pedagogy in Sweden

• To test how early social environments affect children's consideration of gender, 3- to 6-year-old children (N = 80) enrolled in gender-neutral or typical preschool programs in the central district of a large Swedish city completed measures designed to assess their gender-based social preferences, stereotypes, and automatic encoding. Compared with children in typical preschools, a greater proportion of children in the gender-neutral school were interested in playing with unfamiliar other-gender children. In addition, children attending the gender-neutral preschool scored lower on a gender stereotyping measure than children attending typical preschools. Children at the gender-neutral school, however, were not less likely to automatically encode others' gender. The findings suggest that gender-neutral pedagogy has moderate effects on how children think and feel about people of different genders but might not affect children's tendency to spontaneously notice gender.

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Psykologi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Psychology (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Children

Gender

Attitudes

Stereotypes

Encoding

Socialization

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)