Inequality of experience: Pre-school children’s control of the environment through the use of gender

by Cathy Kilburn, University of Hull, United Kingdom

Whilst writing my Masters dissertation around superhero and weapon play, I became interested in the literature that I was reading which referenced pre-school children’s use of gender as a form of power. This made me reflect on some of the children that I had worked with over the years and their experiences when their behaviour or appearance challenged gender stereotypes and norms. After finishing my masters, I started to read more around the topic of gender in early childhood and this triggered my interest in how pre-school children develop an understanding of gender and stereotypes.

The impact of gender stereotypes on children’s long-term opportunities

The literature shows that young children’s understanding of gender starts to develop from about 18 months old onwards and by 5 years old they have a strong understanding of societal gender norms and stereotypes. Research into the long-term effects of gender stereotypes on individual’s shows that the gender beliefs that young children develop can limit their educational and career aspirations. This is through a belief that specific subjects, for instance maths and physics, are for boys or at least that boys are better at them than girls. This belief has been proven to be incorrect through analysis of both GCSE and A Level grades, where in 2021 more girls achieved the top grades than boys at maths A Level (Adams, 2021).

Reports published by the OECD (2019, 2021) demonstrated the ongoing impact of these stereotypes on young people’s career aspirations and, therefore their long-term financial prospects, showing that 14-year olds are as gendered in their career aspirations as 4- and 5-year olds. This research showed that when considering careers in STEM related subjects, boys were more likely to be considering careers focusing on science and engineering whereas girls were more likely to be thinking about health professions. Finally, women are more likely to be employed in part-time or low paid work (Devine et al., 2021).

Whilst as a society, the impact of gender stereotypes has been identified and steps have been taken to reduce the inequality, young children are still developing strong gender stereotypes. Over the last 10 years, research has explored the roles that the media, parents and early childhood settings take in reinforcing the gender binary and associated stereotypes; but the role that pre-school children themselves play in their peers’ development of these stereotypes hasn’t been considered.

What are the themes of my research

The main theme of my research is the identification of the role that pre-school children play in the reinforcement of gender norms and stereotypes within the pre-school environment and the techniques that they employ. Alongside this, my research considers the question of who is policed and who is doing the policing, to identify whether the gender of an individual plays a role in whether they are more likely to experience policing behaviours or to participate in the policing.

What can the audience expect to find out more about in the presentation

My presentation focuses on one aspect of the data that was collected, which is the use of gender to control access to areas of the outside environment. Data collection took place in three settings during 2021, one of these settings is in the south of England, whilst the other two are in the north east of England. In all three settings, mixed gender play was regularly observed within the indoor environment with very limited observation of gender being used to limit access to resources. However, within all three settings, gender was used to control access to areas of the outside environment. This presentation will explore the children’s use of gender as a means to limit their peers’ access to aspects of the outdoor environment and will consider the possible reasons for the children’s use of gender to control access to the outdoor environment, whilst not appearing to utilise the same control within the inside environment.

Cathy Kilburn, is a 3rd year PhD candidate at the University of Hull. Her research interests focus on pre-school children’s experiences with their peers, in particular how this impacts their understanding and experience of gender.

Twitter - @EY_Cathy

Blog - https://earlychildhoodacademic.owlstown.net/

References

Adams, R. (2021) Girls overtake boys in A-level and GCSE maths, so are they ‘smarter’? The Guardian 13 August 2021 Available online: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/aug/13/girls-overtake-boys-in-a-level-and-gcse-maths-so-are-they-smarter [Accessed 25/01/2022]

Devine, B. F., Foley, N. & Ward, M. (2021) Women and the Economy. CBP06838. 2 March 2021: House of Commons Library. Available online: https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06838/SN06838.pdf [Accessed 25/01/2022]

OECD (2019) Envisioning the future of education and jobs. Paris: OECD Publishing. Available online: http://www.oecd.org/education/Envisioning-the-future-of-education-and-jobs.pdf [Accessed 15th October 2019].

OECD (2021) The future at five: Gendered aspirations of five year olds. Available online: https://www.oecd.org/education/school/early-learning-and-child-well-being-study/ [Accessed 25/01/2022].