In order to establish if gender role socialisation manifests in young children through play, ethnographical research was carried out on primary school children between the ages of 6 and 7. In order words will children play with the toys, which are thought of, as traditional toys depending on their gender? The classroom was ideal for this type of research as the setting would not be manipulated in order to give a true reflection on the social patterns emerging. Through observing the children I could see which toys the children played with and also how they reacted when playing with the particular toy. It is through Piaget's observations of his own children that we can see the developmental stages in children and we can realise just how crucial and how much we learn about the subject studied during observations. Watching these children communicate their feelings through play will help to confirm gender role socialisation. .
According to Taylor (1993) "Gender refers to the cultural classification of people as masculine or feminine people are encouraged to think, act and feel in a manner appropriate to their sex." In my opinion this statement is very true to our society as people are "encouraged" to act in away which others define as the "norm". Societies create these gender patterns and transmit them through the process of socialisation e.g. a normal male is thought of as aggressive, ambitious, competitive, dominant and has leadership qualities; whereas the opposite is thought for a woman who "normally" should be affectionate, gentle, compassionate, sensitive and loyal. .
The process of gender socialisation begins at the very start of a child's life, at birth the very language being used to describe the baby, cute, handsome for a boy and beautiful for a baby girl. Another way parents classify their child's gender is using different terms of endearment i.e. by the colour of the baby's clothes (blue for a masculine baby and pink for a feminine baby girl).
