4-6-8 Age Group Children's Knowledge of Gender Norms and Flexibility of Reasoning

Abstract

This research aims to investigate the 4-6-8 age group children’s stereotypical judicial knowledge about gender norms and their flexibilities of reasoning about gender norms when different domains were emphasized. The research was designed as a convergent parallel design, one of the mixed method studies. The participants of this study are 30 girls and 30 boys, 60 children in total, from the age group of 4-6-8. The qualitative and quantitative data of the research were collected by means of hypothetical stories simultaneously. Two-way ANOVA test was conducted for the independent samples of qualitative data and the quantitative data of the research was analysed descriptively. The results of the research showed that 4-6-8 age group children’s knowledge about gender norms was quite high. The boys stated a reversal of gender norms in a different cultural context to be acceptable than the girls. 8-year-old children tended to show more flexibility regarding gender norms than children at the age group of 4 and 6. Accordingly, 8-year-old children judged gender norms may change in line with personal preferences and they evaluated the school rules about gender norms more negatively.