| Summary: | 碩士 === 臺北市立大學 === 幼兒教育學系 === 104 === When exploring the gender roles of children, it is helpful to pay attention to the continuous process between children and adults, and to examine the possible influences of culture and social environment from the Social Constructivism perspective. Based on Social Constructivism perspective, the purpose of this study is to understand children’s interaction patterns with different genders and their views on gender roles, as well as their mother’s gender-role views. The participants included three preschool children in a mixed-age kindergarten class and their mothers. Research methods included observations and interviews. The researcher observed the interaction of the three children during the center time, and interviewed the three children and their mothers respectively.
The findings of this study can be examined from the aspects of “interaction patterns” and “gender-role views.” Firstly, all of the three children interact with cross-gender and same-gender peers, and when they interact with peers, they use the same positive interaction patterns like peer acceptance, negotiation strategies, harmonious attitude, and cooperation to interact with boys and girls. Secondly, in the aspect of gender-roles, physiologically children tend to judge one’s gender by hair, but their mothers tend to judge one’s gender by characteristics. In terms of personality traits, activities and interests, and external images, children and their mother believe that there are differences between boys and girls, but children think “shy”, “nurse”, “babysitter”, “dress” are cross-gendered, their mothers think “shy”, “truck driver” are cross-gendered. As for friend selections, the children believe that gender is not the basis for selection, and boys and girls can play together. However, the mothers believe there are still differences between boys and girls. The above shows that children's thinking is different from the previous studies.
The mothers believe that the generational change on gender roles is going on, changing from the previous generation with the patriarchal concept to the generation with more gender equality. However, the labor-demanding work is still not suitable for women. The three children's “cross gender interaction” behaviors and their views on that “boys can be nurses and babysitters”, and “boys wearing skirt is beautiful” show the changing point of view on gender roles as well. Finally, some suggestions are proposed for parents, teachers, and the researchers.
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