Caregivers’ Socialization of Gender Roles in a

Children’s Museum
Michael Abrahamy, Elizabeth Blake Finkelson,
Connie Lydon, Kathleen Murray

Literature has shown that parents are the primary source of gender role
socialization. Through modeling, play, and other familial interactions, chil-
dren internalize parental messages regarding gender. Given these findings,
this study explores the question of whether, in play settings where children
have a choice of occupational costumes to wear, caregivers will reinforce
societal gender stereotyping of occupations by urging their children to try on
costumes that are gender congruent or gender neutral. While past research
has indicated that caregivers exhibit more gender role stereotypes to boys
than girls, our findings suggest that there is no significant difference in the
amount of gender opposite occupational costumes given to boys and girls. It
was also argued that male caregivers would be more traditional in display-
ing gender role stereotypes through the offering of occupational costumes
than female caregivers and the statistical data supports this conclusion.
Implications of the effects of gender role stereotypes are also discussed.

INTRODUCTION will obtain much of their behavior. As Witt points

Through the process of gender role socializa-
tion, children learn from a very early age what it
means to be a boy or a girl in our society. They learn
their gender roles and develop a sense of gendered
self from social and environmental cues such as the
behaviors, ideas, attitudes and beliefs that surround
them each day. A potentially important context for
the construction and the socialization of gender is
the family, where parents are major socializing
agents (Leaper 2002).
It is widely held that parents play a signifi-
cant role in "shaping" a child's gender role behavior.
According to Snow, Jackson, & Maccoby (1983),
parents socialize boys and girls differently, though it
may be unintentional. Parents form their children's
ideas of what it means to be masculine or feminine
through both overt and covert socialization. This
socialization of gender roles is in accordance with
the social-learning theory, which explains the acqui-
sition of behavior through reinforcement and model-
ing (Lytton & Romney, 1991). The parents will be
the first and perhaps most significant sources of such
reinforcement and the people from whom children
out, developing children internalize the subtle mes-
sages that parents send regarding what is acceptable
for each gender. (Arliss, 1991, as cited in Witt,
1999).
Socialization begins at birth and children's
internalization of parental messages about gender is
not far behind. Many studies cited by Fagot,
Leinbach, & O'Boyle (1992) attest to the presence of
gender labeling, stereotyping, and sex-typed behav-
ior in very young children and verify that both par-
ents influence these early displays of gender typed
behavior. The year between a child's second and
third birthdays has been identified as the period dur-
ing which sex stereotypes for toys, clothing, tools,
household objects, games, and work are acquired
(Huston, 1983). During this time, children are not
only aware of adult gender role differences, but also
of their own sexual identity, discovering that they
themselves are either male or female (Thompson,
1975).
From birth, parents treat sons and daughters
differently, dressing infants in gender specific out-
fits, painting their rooms in gender-specific colors,
giving them gender differentiated toys, and expect-

Perspectives in Psychology Spring 2003 Ψ 19

ing different behaviors from boys and girls (Thorne,
1993). It appears that parents also treat boys and
girls differently with regard to how strongly they
enforce gender roles. In a study examining parents'
gender typing of toys, Campenni (1999) found that,
in general, feminine toys were stereotyped more than
masculine toys. For example, people are more likely
to say that a boy should not play with a Barbie doll,
but that it is acceptable for a girl to play with a GI
Joe doll. Campenni(1999) also found that parents
tended to choose masculine and neutral toys more
often than feminine toys for their sons, but for their
daughters chose neutral toys more often than femi-
nine or masculine ones.
Some studies suggest that it is not only the
sex of the child that is salient in gender role social-
ization, but also the characteristics of the parent. It
appears that males tend to be more traditional in their
enforcement of gender-roles than females (Kulik,
2002). Snow et al. (1983) found that fathers use toys
to socialize their male and female children different-
ly by giving them gender specific toys. Women,
however, often have less traditional attitudes toward
gender roles than men and are more likely to use
behavioral modeling as a means of gender socializa-
tion.
Gender role stereotypes are also found to be
at the core of gender segregation of occupations. As
Gatten et al. (1999) observe, a number of studies
(Shepard & Hess, 1975; Shinar, 1975; Panek, Rush
& Greenawalt, 1977; Freedman, Podsakoff, &
Mackenzie, 1993; St. Pierre, Herendeen, Moore
&Nagle 1994) have examined occupational gender
stereotyping, all concluding that gender stereotypes
of occupations do exist. In fact, some of the clearest
sex differences in adolescence and adulthood seem
to occur in domains such as occupational choice and
interest (Lytton & Romney, 1991), where job selec-
tion by males and females corresponds with beliefs
about appropriate gender role behaviors
Although there is extensive research on gen-
der specific stereotyping of toys and parents' influ-
ence on their children's conception of gender, no
observational study has yet examined how care-
givers shape the gender stereotypes of children
through their selection of gender typed occupational
costumes for imaginary play. The present study was
undertaken in an attempt to help fill that void. We are
exploring the general question of whether, in play
settings where children have a choice of occupation-
Perspectives in Psychology
al costumes to wear, caregivers will reinforce socie-
tal gender stereotyping of occupations by urging
their children to try on costumes which are gender
congruent or gender neutral. Specifically, we make
the following hypotheses: caregivers will choose
masculine and neutral occupational costumes more
often than feminine occupational costumes for boys,
but will choose feminine, neutral, and masculine
occupational costumes for girls, thus displaying
more gender specific stereotyping for boys than girls
between the ages of 3-6 years old. We also hypothe-
size that male caregivers will reinforce gender
stereotypes more than female caregivers by choosing
fewer gender opposite occupational costumes for
both boys and girls.
METHODS
The Please Touch Museum (PTM), located in
Center City Philadelphia, is a child-oriented muse-
um open to the public seven days a week. The PTM
encourages children to interact with exhibits that
provide hands-on learning experiences through cre-
ative and imaginative play. The museum is designed
for children who range in age from infancy to seven
years old. The children are usually accompanied by
adults who guide them through the different activi-
ties. Our data was collected exclusively on weekends
at the "Me on TV" exhibit in the PTM.
The "Me on TV" is a 25 square foot interac-
tive exhibit that gives children the opportunity to see
themselves on television. In a newsroom setting,
"Unique costumes and a variety of stage props help
to set the scene as children use cameras and monitors
to capture their pretend play on live TV"(PTM
Brochure). The set up consists of a video camera in
the center of the room, which focuses on a reporter's
desk in front of a backdrop of Philadelphia and a
weatherboard. To the right of the camera is a green
screen that allows children to appear in front of var-
ious backgrounds and locations that can be changed
at the push of a button. There are three monitors that
the children can use to see themselves. To the right
of the green screen is the rack of costumes that can
be used for dress up in front of the cameras.
To test our hypotheses we first conducted a
pictorial survey on the occupational costumes avail-
able to the children in the " Me on TV " exhibit to
Spring 2003 Ψ 20
determine the gender specificity of each costume. offered to the child, and the sex of the parent. This
Before we conducted our survey we excluded three process continued until we had observed 10 male
costumes in order to establish that every costume caregiver-boy, 10 male caregiver-girl, 10 female
was equal in style and ease of wear. A sample of 49 caregiver-boy and 10 female caregiver-girl pairs. In
college students were given pictures of each costume situations where there was a caregiver who present-
and asked to place them into piles of masculine, fem- ed a costume to more than one child, only the first
inine, and neutral according to their perception of the child was noted as data.
gender of the costume. Costumes that were placed in
one of the three gender categories at least 70% of the
time were used in the study. Furthermore, the gen- RESULTS
der categories in which the 70% fell determined
whether it would be used as masculine, neutral, or Analysis Techniques of Gender Socialization
feminine in the study. To analyze our data we used non-parametric
In order to ensure reliability, we conducted tests of significance due to our small sample size,
two pilot studies to establish inter-observer agree- possible " litter effects" from collecting data at only
ment. In the first study we observed one subject and one site (Martin & Bateson, 1986), and our inability
had an inter-observer agreement of 75%. After col- to meet the high number of observations required to
lecting this data we determined that there was a dif- run a parametric analysis (Siegel & Levine, 1956).
ference of opinion in what constituted "giving" a
costume to the child. Having established this criteria Gender Socialization According to Gender of
we conducted our second pilot study consisting of Caregiver
two subjects in which we obtained an inter observer To test whether the number of caregivers
agreement of 100%. who will choose gender opposite costumes for boys
We used focal sampling (Martin & Bateson, is the same as the number of caregivers who will
1986) of caregivers in the " Me on TV " exhibit. choose gender opposite costumes for girls, we used
When the observer was sure that at least one of each a two way chi-square. This test yielded a chi-square
type of costume was available for use, the first par- (X2) value of 1.111. The chi square value of 1.111
ent who took a costume off the rack for his/her child is well below the critical value of 3.84 required for
became the focal subject. We watched the caregiver significance at the .05 level of significance. The
until they handed the costume to the child, at which probability that the random variable is greater than
point we recorded the sex of the child, the costume chi-square was 0.2918, with df=1 (degree of free-

Figure 1: Results of Occupational Costume Selection Figure 2: Results of Occupational Costume Selection
by Male Caregivers by Female Caregivers

4.5 6
4
5
Number of Time Given
Number of Times Given

3.5
3 4
Female Caregiver/
2.5 Male Caregiver/ Boy Boy
3
2 Male Caregiver/ Girl Female Caregiver/
Girl
1.5 2
1
1
0.5
0 0
Construction Worker

Construction Worker
Postal Service

Nurse
Postal Service
Doctor
Firefighter

Doctor
Nurse

Veterinarian
Firefighter
Veterinarian

Type of Costume Type of Costume

*A total number of 40 caregivers were observed composed of the following: 10 male caregivers to boy, 10 male caregivers to
girl, 10 female caregivers to boy, and 10 female caregivers to girl.
Perspectives in Psychology Spring 2003 Ψ 21
dom). Thus, in spite of visual differences, there were
no statistically significant differences found between
caregivers offering of gender opposite costumes to
boys and girls.
Gender Socialization According to Gender of Child
To test whether the number of male care-
givers who will choose gender opposite costumes for
their children is the same as the number of female
caregivers who will choose gender opposite cos-
tumes for their children, we used a two way chi-
square. This test yielded a chi-square (X2) value of
4.444. The probability that the random variable is
greater than chi-square was 0.0350, and df=1. This
result indicates a statistically significant difference
between gender socialization of children by male
caregivers compared to female caregivers. Female
caregivers had a higher tendency than males to go
against gender norms and provide their child with a
gender opposite occupational costume.
DISCUSSION
Overall, we did not find that our sample of
caregivers socialized boys and girls differently by
their costume choice. This was a surprising finding
as most of the literature supports the conclusion that
parents do socialize boys and girls differently. There
are several possible reasons that our data differs
from this previous research. First, our sample size
was small, consisting of 40 subjects, which
increased the influence each subject had on our data.
In addition, we performed our study in one museum
that had a patronage made up of mostly white, mid-
dle class families as the location itself was in a large
economically developed city. Previous research has
shown that older persons, unemployed women and
members of low socio-economic status groups tend
to be more traditional in their enforcement of gender
role than employed females, young persons, and
members of middle socio-economic groups (Kulik,
2002).
Another potential reason for these surprising
findings is that our culture is moving slowly toward
equality between the sexes. As Idle et al. (1993) sug-
gest, there appears to be a change in parents' percep-
tion of what is acceptable gender typing behavior as
they begin to realize that gender stereotyping is
Perspectives in Psychology
becoming less acceptable in our society.
Furthermore, studies of college students and adults
indicate a trend toward egalitarian attitudes regard-
ing women's roles. As compared to past studies
reporting that adolescents expect mothers of young
children to remain in the home full time, our findings
indicate a continuing egalitarian trend (Braito &
Klundt, 1984).
Our second hypothesis was that male care-
givers would reinforce gender stereotypes more than
female caregivers by choosing fewer gender oppo-
site costumes for both girls and boys. Our statistical
data is significant for this hypothesis because no
male caregivers gave gender opposite costumes and
female caregivers gave gender opposite costumes
four times. This finding was not surprising given the
extensive research suggesting this trend. Male and
female caregivers treat their children differently with
regard to gender socialization (Ruble, 1998; Siegal
1987; Kulik, 2002).
One of our largest challenges in testing our
hypothesis was that male caregivers tended to be less
interactive with the costumes than were female care-
givers. Male caregivers often gravitated toward the
camera and ignored the other attractions such as the
costumes, even though they were just as active with
their children. Often, while these male caregivers
were exploring the technical aspects of the exhibit,
female caregivers were interacting with their chil-
dren by giving suggestions on how to use the weath-
erboard or in some cases moving toward the costume
area.
Although these observations may not direct-
ly affect our data, they offer some interesting impli-
cations as they suggest that males and females do
exhibit different behaviors with their children. This,
in turn, may " shape" the child's view of gender by
demonstrating that men are supposed to work with
the technical and more physical tools and women are
supposed to dress up and be more creative. As
Lindsey & Mize (2001) have found, fathers engage
in more physical play and mothers engage in more
pretend play. Even more importantly, they found that
the type of play that a child engaged in with his par-
ents reflected the type of play he would exhibit with
his peers. This research illuminates the importance
of our observed difference in socializing behavior
between mothers and fathers, as children go on to
internalize and exhibit these behaviors.
These observations not only presented chal-
Spring 2003 Ψ 22
lenges in our data collection, but also posed some
interesting ideas for further research on gender
socialization. Men seem to use technology more than
women in socializing their children. An interesting
study could look at what factors cause this and what
the possible effects are on the child. Females seem
to support pretend play more than males by dressing
their children up in costumes and using this as a tool
for socializing. In light of both of these observa-
tions, additional studies may provide useful informa-
tion about the causes and effects of these contrasting
methods of socialization. For example, a study
could look at the specific tools that male caregivers
utilize to socialize their children in comparison to
the methods female caregivers use. Such a study
could focus on parental interactions in the home,
observing the amounts of physical versus verbal play
exhibited by each sex parent. Perhaps future
researchers could observe parent-child interaction
within an experimental play setting containing both
technical toys like video games and more creative
games like dress-up. It would be necessary to have
both stereotypically male and female video games
and dress up clothes, so that both game options
would be attractive to both sexes of children. A study
like this would have important implications, as par-
ents could be made aware of the types of behaviors
they are modeling as representative of certain gender
behaviors.
Another implication for future research
stems from the fact that our small sample size of 40
subjects and the limited demographic did not ade-
quately represent the United States population.
Since Kulik (2002) has found that personal back-
ground, as well as gender, contributes to how care-
givers display gender stereotypes, it would be inter-
esting to study the effects of race, socioeconomic
status, age and other factors that may contribute to
parental socialization of gender roles.
Our culture is in a transition period where it
is striving to attain equality between genders. This
desire to change gender role stereotypes, specifical-
ly in regard to occupation, is so ubiquitous that it has
even affected our language. For example the term
"fireman" is slowly changing to the more gender
neutral "firefighter"( Liben, Bigler, Krogh, 2002).
Most research on women firefighters and male nurs-
es demonstrates that even though their numbers are
increasing, they have overcome and continue to face
challenges posed by stereotypical ideology. Many
Perspectives in Psychology
have found that job related stress increases for
women working in male dominated occupations and
men in female dominated occupations (Evans &
Steptoe, 2002; Yoder & Aniakudo, 1996).
In order to make lasting strides in occupa-
tional equality the focus should be turned toward
children. As some researchers comment, "The role
of direct socialization appears to be crucial, then, not
only in its own right but also in establishing the
foundation upon which later self- socialization is
based" (Maccoby & Jacklin, 1987). In addition,
many studies have tested whether or not parents'
gender schemas affect child development. For exam-
ple, Martin (2000) argues that gender schemas
acquired in childhood are very important as they
guide behavior during adolescence and later on in
adulthood. Consequently, it is these learned gender
schemas that will guide children and restrict or
broaden their views of gender roles and their behav-
iors throughout their lives. Given this finding, it is
important to continue looking at the socialization of
gender roles in children, and specifically the social-
ization of gender stereotypes in occupations as a way
to better understand how this process affects society.
APPENDIX
Figure A: Costume Selection by Gender of
Male Caregivers Compared to Female Caregivers
9
8
7
Number of Times Given
6
5 Male Caregiver
4 Female Caregiver
3
2
1
0
Masculine Feminine Neutral
Type of Occupational Costume
Figures A and B are additional graphs that were not included
in the results section of the paper because they were not statis-
tically analyzed. These two graphs are merely a depiction of
the breakup of type of occupational costume from gender spe-
cific and gender opposite into masculine, feminine and neutral.
Spring 2003 Ψ 23

Figure B: Costume Selection by Gender for Boys
Compared to Girls
14
Number of Times Given
12
10
8 Caregiver to boy
6 Caregiver to girl
4
2
0 Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
ne
al
line
utr
ini
Ne
cu
m
Fe
as
M
Type of Occupational
Costume
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