| Cultural norms of what constitutes maleness and femaleness are particularly powerful in the child's environment as parents seek to encourage the development of children who are acceptable members of society. Childhood sex role expectations are implicit and explicit not only in the behavior of parents (Block, 1978) and teachers (Rosenthal and Jacobson, 1974), but in a child's play milieux--toys, books, and television (Blomberg, 1981).;Parents become instrumental in sex typing to the extent that they provide different kinds of opportunities and experiences for male children than they do for female children. According to studies on sex differentiated socialization, boys and girls are encouraged to play with different toys (Blomberg, 1982), to approach the games they play from different social orientations (Feinberg, 1976), to choose different spaces in which to play, and to choose different kinds of games (Lever, 1979; Maccoby, 1974).;This social world, according to the Cognitive Developmental tradition, provides a context from which children form concepts of maleness and femaleness which incorporate stereotypical views of appropriate play activity, adult roles, and occupational pursuits (Kohlberg, 1966).;Since parents evidence clear sex-typed training of play activity and interests, we need to consider carefully how children understand these practices. The purpose of this study is to look at the nature and sequence of a child's concepts of his parents' expectations for him as a boy or girl.;To accomplish this we have interviewed 87 children at four different developmental levels: first, third, fifth, and seventh grades. The stimulus was a series of questions about children's understanding of the choices parents made for them concerning toys, games, activities, and occupations. The interview technique involved a semi-structured clinical interview (Piaget, 1950).;The data have been analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively using standard statistical techniques. The study describes findings in several aspects of thinking. Children's understanding of parental expectations for gender is characterized largely by what is seen as their parents wish for them to conform to social norms. Children's understanding of parental expectation changes in age-related ways. The age-related changes are characterized by organizing features of thought, patterns of acceptance and rejection and an increasing understanding of person and perspective which allows children to account for personality and situational variables in deciding how their particular parents would expect them to behave.;This study expected to find evidence of a perception of gender-related orientations in thinking particular to males or females as has been described by Gilligan (1983). Fathers, for example, would be characterized in terms of reasons associated with rules and authority. Mothers would be characterized with reasons associated with interpersonal caring. In this age group with this size sample, the evidence was slim. |
