Gender-related categorizations of toys by preschool children: a study on design features

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2018
Kara, Kübra
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This study examines the effects of design features of toys on gender-related categorizations of preschool children. Preschool children, who are between the ages of 3-6 years, spend most of their time in play. Play gives children a chance to enhance their development and learning in all domains. Toys as play materials, encourage children to engage in precious play experiences. However there is a clear difference between girls’ and boys’ play experiences and toy preferences. This difference causes girls and boys to demonstrate advance development in certain areas and lesser development in others. To overcome this and make children experience play with different types of toys, it is important to understand children’s thoughts about which toys are for themselves and which are for the other gender. In order to understand children’s gender-based categorizations about toys, in this study, a mixed-methodology research is composed. Initially a product investigation was carried out in four major toy stores in Ankara, investigating the types of toys, the age groups they address and their main design features. Based on the argument that variations in these features define whether the toys are girl-specific, boy-specific, gender-neutral or ambiguous, a further research was carried out in order to observe children in a play experience with toys from all four groups. The findings of the study, which is conducted with five girls and five boys, demonstrate that theme, color and gender of a figure are the most distinctive design features for children to categorize a toy for themselves or not. Moreover, girls and boys have different categorizations about certain design features. With this study children’s thoughts about gender-neutral and ambiguous toys are also highlighted.
Toys., Education, Preschool., Sex role in children., Gender identity.
http://etd.lib.metu.edu.tr/upload/12621922/index.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/27153
Graduate School of Natural and Applied Sciences, Thesis

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Citation Formats
K. Kara, “Gender-related categorizations of toys by preschool children: a study on design features,” M.S. - Master of Science, Middle East Technical University, 2018.
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