Gender identity in children emerges early in life and once established, the nature of play changes. Identification of gender in children results in the engagement of gender-specific games with those of the same gender tending to play more with each other than with those of the opposite sex. Sex-type plays choice start emerging in children from their second years with boys tending to play more with manipulative objects, blocks, and transportation toys while girls become more attracted to playing with dolls, stuffed arts, and art materials. Such occurrences are an attribute of thought and action separation among the kids, a contributory aspect of self-regulation and play (Leaper & Gleason, 1983). Based on such a perspective, this paper discusses the issue of differences in gender play with the identification of the evidence of the stereotypical gender roles in youths.
Method
To determine gender differences in children's play, a research study is conducted on the engagement patterns between children of different gender using running records method. Running records is a diagnostic tool used in recording actions and activities as they unfold in their order of occurrence. The main idea of such a method is the recording of as much data as possible with limited editing done during the process.
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Participants
For this particular case, the study involved the participation of two groups of children of either gender. On one end is a preschool male pupil and a preschool female student. On the other end is a toddler male and a toddler female, each having their activities observed and recorded raw in 15 minutes. The selection process is carried out randomly, just from the observation of the children and how they play.
Setting
The setting for the particular study is in three different places. All the participants have their setting in the school with the classroom and the playground being the major areas. The classroom has an inbuilt kitchen, and a piano is also available.
Procedure
The process involves the teacher making a random identification of four pupils, two of each gender, and observing their play activities while making a record as the events unfold.
Observations (Description & Interpretation)
The observations made as the children engage in different play activities show that John, the preschool male, in a record of 15 minutes runs, stands on blocks, play with a bucket as a truck. He gets yelled at by a girl but ignores, continues with his jumping from block to block, slides on the sand, puts a block on top of the other with a shout of boobs before a continued running play.
Interpretation
Such behaviors can be interpreted as distinctive in approach. Preschool age children identify with their gender and understand more of their games. From experience, such children tend to play games with an intended goal in mind as is the case with John.
For the toddler male, Steve, the 15 minutes involves taking binoculars looking through it before showing it to the teacher and two girls before walking away holding the binoculars. He sees a teddy bear, which he throws as he continues to look through the binoculars before going to the piano to play some keys then walks around talking to other kids. Later he sits to play with a dinosaur figure toy before stopping to walk around a bit then further plays with blocks that he stacks up and later knocks down.
Interpretation
Toddlers, despite being gender oriented are never very distinct in their play as is with preschool kids. In most instances, such children could still play together with the other genders and in their toys selection. However, as is common with the age, such kids tend to align their games towards their gender affiliations as seen in Steve when he plays with dinosaur figure toy rather than a teddy bear that he throws. Changing of plays from one to another is frequent as they usually need interesting activities.
For the toddler female Jane, the girl grabs a block and looks through it as children are just entering class, goes and shows the teacher. She signals signs of wanting to play with the teacher before starting to walk around looking at the same block. She then goes and plays with goo box, then later looks at the block again as does another child who together they go to play in the sandbox. The girl puts a scoop of goo in a cup while carefully looking at it, goes to wash her hands in little classroom kitchen, continues her play with goo as she makes way for the teacher also to wash hands. She goes to the teacher with a puppy puppet before other girls come around to listen to the teacher tell a story.
Interpretation
For toddler females, attention is usually of importance. The kids tend to be close to adults during their plays. However, being the toddler, there is usually little gender distinction and females can always play with toys associated with the males, or even play with the males of same age. However, with little concentration spans, toddlers usually alter their games frequency as they constantly need things that interest them.
For the female preschool Mary, her 15 minutes of record start in the kitchen where she puts dishes away, later talking on the phone to herself. She then opens the gate loudly, smashes the loudly before running to pick toys and blankets. Gets attention from teacher to get soccer ball before making it back, picks bags and throws them on the floor, makes a mess then leaves, puts stuff in her backpack before going to hang out with other guys to play with stuffed dog animal stole napkins.
Interpretation
Preschool females are usually more social in their plays and try to make the games more inclined to reality. During their plays, they tend to affiliate to their previous experiences, which align to their reality belief. Ideally, the plays are more dramatic. Preschool females are more experimental.
Finding
Girls are more into social dramatic play; boys are more into goal-oriented play.
Discussion
Various factors contribute towards gender segregation. One of such factors is culture, which in certain cases results in the gender separation at early ages while in others, segregation remains of little concern, however, gender-affiliation plays a critical role in determining groups of play, especially while in school. Besides, family and the mode of parenting is equally a contributory factor to gender differences in play. Different interaction patterns between parents and their daughters and sons also influence the difference in their gender based plays, even though research to such an approach remains elusive (Leaper & Gleason, 1983). Children tend to emulate certain features in their play, an aspect attributed to a complex type of imaginary play, the sociodramatic play (Lightfoot, Cole, & Cole, 2009). The sociodramatic play is common among preschool females, who through a series of encounters in the home align their plays towards such a perspective. In looking at the model of play, it is evident that the design emulates a similar occurrence she experiences at home.
Whereas gender differentials in game are obvious across the behavior of children, toddlers seem to have a limited extent of differences in the kind of games they engage in for both genders (Leaper & Gleason, 1983). On the contrary, preschool children participate in gender-distinctive plays, an occurrence attributed to their ability to self-regulate their thoughts and behaviors (Lightfoot, Cole, & Cole, 2009). However, in most cases, females in the preschool age category with previous exposure to sociodramatic play experience portray a more distinctive approach to their gender-based plays than the males. Males of the preschool age on their side tend to engage more in goal-oriented games as in the case of John who by playing a block on top of the other has a goal orientation of the female boobs. Gender schema seems to have played a significant role in all the cases, especially in the manner in which the children chose their play materials as toys, clothing among others. It is, however, important to state that gender schema becomes more manifest with age advancement (Lightfoot, Cole, & Cole, 2009), as evidence in the case of toddlers of both genders getting attracted to same play toys while those in preschool choosing their play toys very distinctively.
References
Leaper, C. and Gleason, Jean B., (1983). The Relationship of Play Activity and Gender to Parent and Child Sex-typed Communication
Lightfoot, C., Cole, M,. & Cole Sheila R., (2009).The Development of Children / Edition 7 - Gender Differences in Behavior pages 306-313
