| When a child is born, the first thing the parents are eager to know is that it is a boy or a girl, which is not only a fact of biologic meanings but also the fact of social meanings. When a child is born, it is classified into two sexes (male/female) which are already standardized. The sex itself could be classified as: sexes of biologic meanings and genders of social meanings. Sexes of biologic meanings are also named as natural sexes to distinguish between two sexes in physiology. Genders of social meanings refer to characteristics on their personality, attitude, virtue orientation and behavior which are formed on the basis of their biologic characteristics and affected by social sexual regulations as well as the pattern of behavior made up of them.The childhood is a time for a child's gender role to come into being and develop and it is also the initial and crucial phase for people to grasp the concept of gender and shape good gender roles'characteristics. Whether he can do so or not will both affect his whole life's development of his gender role and influence his happiness of his life. However there appears such phenomenon, which the specialists in education, teachers in kindergarten and parents are all worrying about"Nowadays, boys are no longer like boys and girls are no longer like girls."There are so many arguments and suggestions about this, but unfortunately there is not so much research from the angle of children'development. This study took the tests to the children of 3 kindergartens of different kinds, 172 in total. The research method of pictures and toy-choosing were adopted, and then tried to find some rules of gender identity and gender preference in children's gender role's development. There were also analysis and investigations about the conclusions.Conclusions of the research:1. For the aspect of gender identification, both boys and girls in lower classes have already developed this ability. There is no significant age's difference and gender difference in both boys and girls. Boys and girls develop the ability of gender identification at almost the same speed; the frequency of gender identification to children themselves is higher than to others.2. Children of the lower classes in a kindergarten have already reached a high level in gender stability, and the level of the stability develops with ages. Boys develop their gender stability quicker at about four or five years old, and girls at about five or six years old; there is significant ages'difference on the gender stability in girls, but there is emerge significant in boys. But there is no gender difference between boys and girls in terms of gender stability. The speed of gender stability's development of boys and girls are almost the same.3. Children's gender constancy in lower and middle classes developed slowly, and the children in higher classes have basically developed the ability of gender constancy. The age of five or six years is a crucial time for the gender constancy's development. There is significant age's difference in both boys and girls in terms of children's development of gender constancy; and there is also significant gender difference in gender constancy in boys and girls, boys is higher than that of girls.3,As far as choosing toys is concerned, Children in lower classes have shown obvious gender preference, Children of different ages prefer to choose the toys of the same sex as themselves and this trend develops with ages. There is age's significant difference on choosing toys in boys and girls, especially in girls. There is significant gender difference on choosing toys. Children of the same age tend to choose the toys of the same kind. Girls are more likely to choose the toys of opposite sex than boys.4,There is no significant ages'difference on choosing playmates in boys and girls. Children in lower classes have shown their preference of choosing playmates of the same sex. And there is also gender difference in choosing playmates, Children of different ages prefer to choose playmates of the same sex.
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