Parental Influence
Our research suggests that whilst in some cases parents may subconsciously reinforce gender stereotypes, particularly for boys as Kane (2006) suggests, in other cases parents have tried to subvert gender stereotypes, but as Palmer (2006:233) suggests it is difficult to challenge the gender bias in the ‘forces of worldwide marketing’.
It was also found that parents were less concerned about enforcing gender stereotypes for girls but were more likely to enforce gender stereotypes for boys, either consciously or unconsciously.
Additional References
Bell, Alice (2007) ‘Designing and testing questionnaires for children’ Journal of Research in Nursing Vol 12 (5) pp.461-469.
Borgers, N., De Leeuw, E. and Hox, J. (2000) ‘Children as respondents in survey research: cognitive development and response quality.’ Bulletin de Methodologie Sociologique April, 66 pp.60-75.
Hammersley, Martyn and Atkinson, Paul (1983) Ethnography: Principles in Practice. London and New York. Routledge.
Hemming, Peter (2008) ‘Mixing qualitative research methods in children’s geographies’ in Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) Vol 40, No. 2 pp.152-162