Children's understanding of gender stereotypes (Analysis of the drawings of children aged 6 to 12 in Mashhad)

Stereotypes and gender stereotypes reflect society's cultural beliefs about what gender roles should be. The purpose of this article is to investigate how children (in the age group of six to twelve years) understand gender stereotypes, and the relationship between these gender stereotypes and gender, age, education and occupation of parents is analyzed. For this purpose, 236 children were selected from among preschool and primary school students in Mashhad city by available sampling method. In this research, drawing tools have been used to draw the professions of firemen, nurses, policemen, cooks and pilots (which are stereotypically attributed to a certain gender). The results showed that there is no significant difference between gender stereotypes in drawing jobs in two groups of girls and boys. It was also found that each gender has drawn the job attributed to that gender more stereotypically. In terms of age, children less than 8 years of age acted more stereotypically in choosing the gender of jobs, and this age difference is significant at the 95% confidence level. Also, the obtained results showed that there is a significant difference in gender stereotypes in the drawing of jobs, according to the father's education. Finally, the results of the research based on the theory of Bam's gender schema and the acquisition of stereotypes confirm that these stereotypes can be reduced by using channels that influence the process of socialization and learning in children.